Towards a Refugee Oriented Right of Asylum

This volume explores the factors that give rise to the number of people seeking asylum and examines the barriers they currently and will continue to face. Divided into three parts, the authors first explore the causality that generates displacement, examining climate change, illegal conflicts and the deprivation of natural resources. They argue that all of these problems either originate from human agency directly, or are strongly influenced by human activities, particularly those of wealthy countries in the North West. The study goes on to discuss how migrants are received and the problems they face on arrival, and concludes with confronting the fate and the status of asylum seekers after arrival, and the walls, both virtual and material, that they encounter. The authors propose ways of approaching the situation, beyond the present language and the limited interpretations of the Convention on the Status of Refugees. Written by leading experts in environmental ethics, asylum law, and international law, the book will be essential reading for those working in these and related areas.

Laura Westra is Professor Emerita at Windsor University, Canada, where she teaches international environmental law. She also teaches at the University of Milano (Bicocca) and the University of Trento (Italy). She is the author of over 85 articles and 31 books on environmental and human rights law, ethics and global justice. Satvinder Singh Juss Ph.D FRSA, is professor of law at Kinga€?s College London, UK, a Barrister-at-Law of Graya€?s Inn, London, UK, and a former Human Rights Fellow at Harvard Law School, Massachusetts, USA. He specialises in human rights, public law, comparative constitutional law and international refugee law. He has published widely on the subjects of migration and human rights law. Professor Juss is fluent in Urdu and Swahili. Tullio Scovazzi is professor of international law at the University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy. He occasionally is the legal expert of Italy in negotiations and meetings relating to international law of the sea, cultural properties, and human rights.