Download This PaperRecognising Transnational Refugee Law
Forthcoming in: Oxford Handbook of Transnational Law, Peer Zumbansen ed., Oxford University Press, 2019
King's College London Law School Research Paper Forthcoming 2019-21
26 Pages Posted: 12 Oct 2018 Last revised: 6 Sep 2019
Date Written: October 3, 2018
Abstract
This analysis sets out to examine the fragmentary nature of international refugee law today and argues for a formal recognition of a body of ‘Transnational Refugee Law’ (‘TRL’) in the absence of a world legislative authority for norm-setting, as well as a world court for the interpretation of refugee law. Who makes the ‘norms’ and who are the ‘actors’ making them, is a question rarely addressed in mainstream works of refugee law. Neither is it asked how ‘norms’ in refugee law evolve under the influence of transnational actors and who the new ‘norm entrepreneurs’ are. The discussion here offers some thoughts on what the regulatory purpose of the body of refugee law norms is and how it originated, and considers how the shift in “actors, norms and processes” has begun to transform our understanding of the refugee.
Keywords: UNHCR, Refugees, War, OAU Convention, Vietnamese Boat People, UNRWA, Bolbol, UNHCR Handbook
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