New Journal Articles on Refugee Issues (weekly)

• Courting Access to Asylum in Europe: Recent Supranational Jurisprudence Explored

  “This article explores access to refugee protection, which in practice means access to a place of refuge, in light of various barriers to protection erected by European States. First, European States increasingly extend their border controls beyond their territorial borders and co-operate in order to prevent those seeking protection from reaching their territory. Yet, legal obligations, in particular the principle of non-refoulement, may continue to apply to these activities, as the concept of ‘jurisdiction’ in human rights law develops. Second, they engage a further, diametrically opposed move, where they purport to act as a single zone of protection, and allocate responsibility for asylum claimants in a manner that also hinders access to protection. The aim of this article is to explore the recent responses of Europe’s two supranational courts, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or ‘Strasbourg’) and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU or ‘Luxembourg’), in confronting these attempts to limit and manage access to protection in the EU. Its focus is the ECtHR ruling in Hirsi Jamaa v Italy (condemning Italy’s pushback of migrants intercepted on boats in the Mediterranean to Libya), as well as that in MSS v Belgium and Greece (concerning the Dublin system for allocation of responsibility for processing asylum claims) and the subsequent CJEU ruling in NS/ME.”

  tags: newjournalarticles

• The Meaning of ‘Life’: Dignity and the Right to Life in International Human Rights Treaties

  “This article investigates the right to life by analysing the meaning of the term ‘life’ protected within the right. It identifies dignity in human life as an underlying principle in the interpretation of the right to life by treaty bodies implementing international human rights treaties. Two important consequences of this implicit focus on dignity in human life are identified: an extension of the conditions necessary for life to continue (extending beyond an absence of death to encompass some basic economic and social needs) and a recognition that all forms of human life will need some basic level of protection regardless of the individual entity’s legal status. The article concludes that, while a state government will not always be required to act to preserve human life, it is required under international human rights law to govern the state in a way compatible with the idea of dignity in human life.”

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Surviving The Bosnian Genocide: The Women Of Srebrenica Speak

  “The Holocaust traditionally serves as the entry point for anyone doing research on survivor testimonies. The experiences of those who survived Nazi persecution have been collected, archived, and widely written about by scholars from a variety of disciplines. While this has created a framework for the discussion of oral histories and genocide, the number of texts examining non-Holocaust–related atrocities is still fairly small. Surviving the Bosnian Genocide: The Women of Srebrenica Speak addresses the slaughter of over 8,000 Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) at Srebrenica, in the former Yugoslavia, on July 11, 1995, through the voices of its female survivors. Selma Leydesdorff, a professor at the University of Amsterdam, uses a series of interviews she conducted with women who survived the 1995 siege and subsequent genocide in Srebrenica.

  Surviving the Bosnian Genocide is broken into chronological sections reflecting the progression of war and genocide as it …”

  tags: newjournalarticles

• Soldiers and Citizens

  “Part of the Palgrave Studies in Oral History series edited by Linda Shopes and Bruce M. Stave, Soldiers and Citizens presents a collection of oral history interviews primarily with American soldiers, but also with family members, pundits, policy officials, and a few international interviewees. After providing a useful introduction and initial chapter focused on sketching out a brief history of American contacts with Iraq, Mirra groups the oral histories into four thematic chapters. He is admittedly anti-war, but he minimizes his partiality by sharing authority with the interviewees concerning the book’s editing. The open exchange of conflicting perspectives makes the book ideal for students (especially undergraduates) and the general public desiring to make sense of American perceptions of involvement in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Mirra contends, “The central argument of this book is that a sane civic dialogue is needed, one that can confront the errors of the Bush administration, while at the same time respecting the commitment of veterans and their families …”

  tags: newjournalarticles

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