On building a boat (or, learning how not to teach refugee law)

TY - CHAP

T1 - On building a boat (or, learning how not to teach refugee law)

AU - Jones, Martin David

N1 - This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - The teaching of refugee law too often focuses excessively on the legal categories and rights set out by the international refugee regime rather than either the needs of the forcibly displaced or the norms, institutions and processes of the local legal systems within which their protection must be located. Drawing upon experiences from a range of jurisdictions on the frontier of the international refugee regime, I argue that the goal of teaching refugee law should be to equip law students, lawyers and allied non-lawyers (including the forcibly displaced themselves) with an understanding of the politics of the struggle for the rights of the forcibly displaced and the skill to pursue creative legal interventions that draw upon the particular features of the local legal environment. Examples from Hong Kong, Malaysia, Egypt and Aceh (Indonesia) establish the possibilities for such creative legal advocacy as well as the challenges in developing a pedagogy that better supports it.

AB - The teaching of refugee law too often focuses excessively on the legal categories and rights set out by the international refugee regime rather than either the needs of the forcibly displaced or the norms, institutions and processes of the local legal systems within which their protection must be located. Drawing upon experiences from a range of jurisdictions on the frontier of the international refugee regime, I argue that the goal of teaching refugee law should be to equip law students, lawyers and allied non-lawyers (including the forcibly displaced themselves) with an understanding of the politics of the struggle for the rights of the forcibly displaced and the skill to pursue creative legal interventions that draw upon the particular features of the local legal environment. Examples from Hong Kong, Malaysia, Egypt and Aceh (Indonesia) establish the possibilities for such creative legal advocacy as well as the challenges in developing a pedagogy that better supports it.

KW - refugee law

KW - teaching

KW - Law of Asylum

M3 - Chapter

BT - Teaching migration and asylum law: theory and practice

A2 - Grimes, Richard

A2 - Honuskova, Vera

A2 - Stege, Ulrich

PB - Routledge

CY - London

ER -