Immigration Law 2: Advanced Concepts in Asylum Law

• Credit value: 15 credits at Level 6
• Convenor: Khadija Rahman
• Assessment: a 4500-5000-word essay (100%)

International Refugee and Asylum Law is a body of rules and procedures that aims to protect asylum seekers and refugees. In this module we present an outline of the legal framework for refugee and asylum issues of the United Kingdom and assess its evolution as a legal means of categorisation and protection. The module provides you with an overview of the commonalities and conflicts within what can be perceived as a system of refugee protection or failure of protection.

Indicative syllabus

• History and sources of UK refugee law
• Meaning of well-founded fear of persecution
• Convention reasons (race, nationality and religion)
• Convention reasons (political opinion and membership of a social group
• Cessation and exclusion of refugees/non-refoulement
• A review of the Dublin Convention
• Introduction to the European Convention of Human Rights
• Article 3 and 8 of the ECHR
• Asylum appeals, procedure and process

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

• demonstrate knowledge of the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees and its Protocol, and Article 1 (refugee definition, inclusion, exclusion and cessation) and Article 33 (non-refoulement)
• demonstrate knowledge of the expanded definitions of refugee and conditions for return contained in the Council Directive 2004/83/EC on minimum standards for the qualification and status of third country national and stateless persons as refugees or as persons who otherwise need international protection, 20 October 2004, (2002 OJ L 304/12), and in the Refugee or Person in Need of International Protection (Qualification) Regulations SI 2006/2525
• demonstrate knowledge of the applicable guarantees within human rights under the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1950
• demonstrate a good understanding of protection theory developed in the literature
• identify key cases from the national tribunals and the European courts, and critically analyse and communicate their principle
• critically evaluate important principles and concepts of international asylum and refugee law and related human rights law
• understand the procedural restrictions for the asylum seekers in accessing and gaining protection prior to, during, and the application and appeals process.