Fleeing Across Borders: International Refugee Law

Semester & Location:	Summer 2 - DIS  Copenhagen
Type & Credits:	Summer Course - 3 credits
Study Tours:	Lesvos, Greece: June 23-27
Major Disciplines:	Human Rights, International Relations, Legal Studies
Faculty Members:	Campbell Munro
Time & Place:	N7-C22 10:00 - 11:30 & 13:00 - 14:30

Course Description

As you read this, men, women, and children are fleeing Syria, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Afghanistan, and many other places in the Global South because of war and conflict, but also poverty and climate breakdown. Denmark and other European states have undertaken a legal duty to accept and protect refugees who flee their homes pursuant to the 1951 Refugee Convention and other International Human Rights Conventions.

Notwithstanding these binding legal obligations, the EU and other Global North states have constructed a ‘border regime’ to manage the irregular migration of people from the Global South that is legitimated through a discourse of ‘crisis’ and premised on policies and practices of deterrence and the externalization of borders, with the explicit aim of preventing as many ‘people on the move’ as possible from reaching the territory of the EU.

This course will analyze and examine this ‘border regime’ and problematize the discourse of ‘crisis’ by situating the global management of mobility within a longer history of imperial and racial hierarchies, in order to interrogate the extent to which the EU states fulfil their international legal obligations to protect refugees.

Learning Objectives

By the end of the course students will be able to:

• Reflect on the concept of the refugee, how it has shifted over time, and how it is framed by the media, politicians and broader society;
• Reflect on the legal and political circumstances under which people are granted or refused asylum in contemporary Europe;
• Explain, analyze and discuss the histories of human mobility and the patterns of contemporary forced displacement in the present within the context of imperial and racial hierarchies and power relations;
• Explain, analyze and discuss contemporary European refugee policy concerning the irregular arrival of refugees by sea within the context of the international legal framework for the protection of refugees;
• Explain, analyze and discuss the fundamental principle of non-refoulement and the effectiveness of its application to those compelled to make irregular journeys by sea;
• Map the longer refugee journey’s that culminate in irregular arrival by sea and interrogate the broader social, political, economic, and climate factors that precipitate and structure those journeys;
• Reflect on the strategies of states in response to the global displacement crisis, and the tensions between policies of non-entrée and the right to non-refoulement.
• Reflect on the evolving concept of ‘the border’ and the emergence of various practices of border ‘externalization’ that together constitute the emerging ‘global border regime’;
• Reflect on the 1951 Refugee Convention, the mandate of the UNHCR, the relevance of international human rights law, the role of NGO's and the European Court of Human Rights.

Faculty

Campbell Munro

Campbell holds an LLM in International Human Rights Law from Lund University, and previously practiced as a barrister in London, specializing in refugee and immigration law.

Readings

Below is a list of the full course materials. Students will be directed to specific sections of some of these texts in the required class readings.

‘Non-Refoulement in a World of Cooperative Deterrence,’ Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen and James C. Hathaway, 53(2) Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, (2015) 235-84.

‘Introduction’, in ‘Movement and the Ordering of Freedom: On Liberal Governances of Mobility,’  Hagar Kotef, (2015) Duke University Press.

‘Emergency and Migration, Race and the Nation,’ John Reynolds, 67 UCLA Law Review, 1768 (2021)

‘What is Border Imperialism?’, in ‘Undoing Border Imperialism’, by Harsha Walia, (2013) AK Press

‘Migration as Decolonization,’ E. Tendayi Achiume, 71 Stanford Law Review (2019), 1509-1574

‘Time and Space: Migration and Modernity’, Ch.2 in ‘Migration Studies and Colonialism’, by Lucy Mayblin and Joe Turner, 2021, Polity Press

‘Camps of Containment: A Genealogy of the Refugee Camp,’ Kirsten McConnachie, 7(3) In:Humanity, (2016), 397-412.

Weaponizing Rescue: Law and the Materiality of Migration Management in the Aegean,’ Niamh Keady-Tabbal, Itamar Mann, 36, Leiden Journal of International Law (2023), 61–82.

'The Geopolitics of Refugee Studies: A View From the Global South', B. S. Chimni, Journal of Refugee Studies 11(4) (1998), 350-374.

‘Bordering Britain: Law, Race and Empire,’ Nadine El-Enany (Manchester University Press, 2020)

‘Refuge Beyond Reach: How Rich Democracies Repel Asylum Seekers,’ David Scott FitzGerald, (Oxford University Press, 2019)

Approach to Teaching

The approach to teaching adopted in this course will be based on a seminar model, in which classroom discussion and engaged participation will be the main method of teaching and learning. Students should consider the course as presenting a series of ‘shared problems’ that we as a group will seek to reflect on together. Our shared project is to gain a better understanding of the international refugee protection regime, and to be able to critically analyse the workings of that regime from a legal perspective.

Expectations of the Students

Students are expected to abide by the Academic Regulations and assist in creating an environment that is conducive to learning and that protects the rights of all members of the DIS community. This course is designed to expose students to a variety of different arguments concerning a very topical and controversial topic, and is designed to provide students with tools with which to analyse those arguments and assess them critically from a legal perspective. The course is not designed to impart a particular viewpoint to you, but rather to allow you to form your own perspective via an informed process of collective discussion and reflection. Please show respect for the views of your fellow-classmates, whether you agree with them or not. Whereas this course is designed to encourage debate, judgmental or intolerant behaviour will not be tolerated.

Evaluation

Students will be evaluated on their engaged classroom participation and their assignments. Attendance for all classes and Field Studies is mandatory. Students are required to attend class on time and be prepared to actively participate in class. The starting point for such engaged participation will be the presentation of a synopsis of the reading and the facilitation of class discussion. These assignments form a bridge between the reading students undertake prior to class and their engaged participation in class.

Assignments

A: Engaged Participation 

Students will be graded on their active and engaged participation in each class and during the Study Tour. Active participation includes timely attendance in class and must evidence reading class material, preparation for class, and critical attention given to the class topic. In addition, students will be assessed on specific class presentations during the course which will form part of the participation and engagement grade.

Students will also be graded on their active and engaged participation during the Study Tour. Students will be expected to attend all activities on Study Tour and engage critically with all academic visits.

B: Synopsis of the Reading and Student Led Discussion

The principal aim of this assignment is to foster class discussion and collaboration. By presenting a synopsis of the readings for the class and facilitating a class discussion you will enhance your understanding of the topics addressed in each class, enable you to better identify and analyze ‘key concepts’ from the reading, and provide an opportunity to practice framing arguments that can be used in the Reflective Journal.

Each group of students will facilitate one class session during the course and will be expected to begin the session by presenting a synopsis of the readings for that class. Along with introducing and summarizing the texts, students will be expected to highlight ‘key concepts,’ main takeaways, theoretical positions adopted and overall conclusion, recommendations, or findings made in the text.

In addition, the group will be expected to design, prepare and facilitate a class discussion based on the topic and readings for the class. The format for each student led discussion is up to the group, and although students are encouraged to be creative and ‘think outside the box’ the discussion should be clearly structured and include an introduction, presentation, interactive activity and structured discussion.

C: Study Tour Reflection – 20 Minute TED Talk – Lesvos as a Borderscape 

The term borderscape suggests that we should look beyond the territorial border itself to the host of legal, political, social, cultural, economic, and environmental practices, discourses, and artifacts, that reify, subvert, enforce, transcend, and give meaning to the border.

What is a ‘border’? What does it look like? How does it function and feel? How do different actors experience, endure, embody, disregard, enforce, challenge and resist the border? How do these different actors materialize and interact with the bordescape? What technologies of power and resistance, law and solidarity, humanitarianism and security do these different actors deploy to construct the borderscape?

How is the landscape marked by the borderscape, and how does it construct the natural and urban topography of this small Aegean island? What is the relationship between ‘the camp,’ ‘the city,’ ‘the island,’ ‘the mountain’ ‘the border,’ and ‘the sea’ and how do these predominant features of the landscape of Lesvos contribute to constructing the borderscape?  What ‘textual traces,’ ‘iconography,’ ‘border graffiti,’ and ‘testimonies of passage’ have been left by those who have transited through the island both historically and in the present?

How does it feel to visit a key site in Europe’s externalized border regime? How did you respond to the ‘affective geographies’ of the island? What artifacts, be they material, visual, sonic, and even emotional that embody, reify and symbolize the borderscape, did you encounter, and collect?

This assignment provides students with an opportunity to gather together and curate your reflections on the Study Tour to Lesvos in the form of a 20-minute TED talk.

Grading

Assignment	Percent
Engaged Participation	30%
Synopsis of the Reading and Student Led Discussion	30%
Study Tour Reflection – 20 Minute TED Talk – Lesvos as a Borderscape	40%

 Academic Regulations

Please make sure to read the Academic Regulations on the DIS website. There you will find regulations on:

• Course Enrollment and Grading
• Academic Expectations and Honor Code

 

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