1 Introduction
We are at a critical juncture in the development and application of international refugee law. On the one hand, the continued relevance of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees1 and its 1967 Protocol2 (“the Refugee Convention”3) has come under doubt, and political and scholarly debates about “the end” of the global refugee protection regime are ongoing.4 On the other hand, major refugee-hosting countries in several regions of the world are not party to the Refugee Convention, leading some mainstream scholarship and practice to view them or their regions as an “exception” to international refugee law.5 This chapter and the wider volume seek to challenge these rhetorics. We argue that the Refugee Convention not only continues to be relevant, but that it also plays important roles in shaping responses to refugees in many non-signatory states.6 Furthermore, the fragmented but rich body of international refugee law (ie with the Refugee Convention at its center and comprising much other hard and soft law that is relevant and essential for refugee protection today) manifests itself in dynamic ways in non-signatory states, and those states in turn contribute to its development.
Since its adoption, the Refugee Convention has been central to scholarship on refugee and asylum issues. Yet, at the end of 2024, 46 United Nations (
The 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol
Non-signatory States to the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol
Non-signatory states’ engagement with international refugee law has only rarely been considered worthy of examination, a point increasingly observed in recent years by critical scholars. David Cantor, for example, has criticized “the international and Western bias” in the study of international refugee law, pointing to its overwhelming reliance on the practices of a handful of “Western” states while the practices of states in the Global South seem to go largely unnoticed. And this is despite the fact that the former group hosts only a portion of the world’s refugees and produces only a small part of the global refugee law practice and jurisprudence.8 It indeed seems, as argued by Georgia Cole, that there exists a “methodological nationalism” in which “only certain nations count” in academic analyses of refugees and, through their work, scholars perpetuate the normative and geographical parameters of the Refugee Convention.9 B. S. Chimni has similarly condemned the omission of critical Third World perspectives from discussions on international refugee law.10
The BEYOND project at the University of Oslo, of which we and this edited collection are an integral part, is devoted entirely to studying non-signatory states in international refugee law.11 That said, there is a burgeoning scholarship that shares our ambition to disrupt the dominant scholarly focus on signatory states and on “Western” refugee protection. Several important books have been published in recent years with this outlook, and these span different disciplines.12 When it comes to international refugee law, the recently published Asian Yearbook of International Law provides valuable insights into refugee protection in several non-signatory states while comprehensive textbooks and handbooks include state-of-the-art insights crucial to understanding this body of law in non-signatory states even if their focus is not exclusively or specifically on them.13 Several major international research projects and initiatives have set out in recent years to look beyond law and/or the Global North.14 And importantly, one of the focus areas of the 2025 International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (iasfm) conference was precisely “non-signatory countries and the 1951 Refugee Convention.”15
Our work intersects with this scholarship and research in meaningful ways. At the same time, the volume we are presenting is unique in its exclusive focus on non-signatory states, and for specifically zooming in on these states’ relations with international refugee law. Our aim is to bring non-signatory states into the ongoing debates about the past and future of the Refugee Convention and of international refugee law more generally, and to instigate further debate on the broader workings and impact of international refugee law, beyond treaty ratification. By examining the influence of international refugee law in non-signatory states and exploring how these states engage with, and help shape, this field of law, we can further our understanding of this field.
How does the Refugee Convention impact and inform the relevant laws and practices of non-signatory states? To what extent and how do non-signatory states engage with international refugee law more broadly conceived, and how and what do these states contribute to that body of law? What are the reasons behind non-ratification of the Refugee Convention? How can we understand compliance without ratification: can we talk of different types and degrees of commitment? How does unhcr carry out its mandate in non-signatory states: is it fundamentally different from or inherently more difficult than the agency’s work in signatory states? To what extent are lessons learned from specific non-signatory contexts applicable to other non-signatory contexts – also beyond international refugee law? These and similar starting questions have guided the editors and authors of this volume to explore non-signatory states in international refugee law from diverse, yet complementary, critical perspectives.
Many of the contributions in this volume zoom in on regional and local contexts, empirically informing the discipline from a Global South perspective. This is important for many reasons: technically oriented international lawyers, for example, would appreciate that this brings to light the practices and/or opinio juris of some of the key “specially affected states” in this area.16 Others would appreciate it as a more general contribution toward countering the undemocratic nature of custom formation and the smaller role the “Third World” gets to play in that process.17 For many, as we will examine in more detail, zooming in on these geographies and their accompanying histories is a necessary first step in the decolonization of international refugee law scholarship. And for the practically oriented, these empirical insights present a valuable opportunity to learn, providing us with concrete examples of what does and does not work in different non-signatory contexts. The list can be expanded.
In the following, we aim to capture and briefly discuss what we consider to be some of the most essential aspects of studying non-signatory states, how these have been addressed by this volume, and why they should be taken into consideration by future studies. To begin with, breaking with the status quo in the study of international refugee law arguably requires, first and foremost, diverse critical perspectives. Section 2 thus elaborates on the markedly different critical perspectives that complement each other in forming this volume. This is followed by Section 3’s focus on methodology. The methodological approaches employed by the different contributors are as diverse as their critical perspectives but here, too, there is an important connecting thread: the contributions are empirically anchored and richly contextualized, and they go well beyond traditional positivist, doctrinal analysis that has thus far dominated the scholarship.
Moving on, how international refugee law is reshaped when actors in non-signatory states engage with its norms, and how national legal and protection landscapes are reconfigured as part of the process is a question that lies at the heart of our study and is another thread running through this volume. We share our observations on this in Section 4. And in Section 5, we focus on the role of unhcr in non-signatory states, in its capacity as a cornerstone of the international refugee regime.18 Finally, Section 6 offers some concluding observations and forward-looking thoughts.
2 Critical Perspectives
The different contributions to this volume intersect in several ways, whether by virtue of their theoretical underpinnings, the methods they employ, geographical focus, or otherwise, but the immediately visible commonality running through all of them is a reflective and critical stance, albeit in different ways. To take but three examples: Brian Barbour (chapter 4) applies a critical lens to the notion of perceived “Asian exceptionalism” with respect to the ratification of the Refugee Convention. Jittawadee Chotinukul, on the other hand, meticulously scrutinizes Thailand’s recently established National Screening Mechanism (nsm) against international law, showing how the nsm falls short of international standards (see chapter 8). And Georgia Cole reflects critically on unhcr’s strategies in “enrolling” states into the international refugee regime, pointing to how these often result in short-term compromises and pragmatic alliances (see chapter 9).
Some of the contributions to this volume employ postcolonial and/or decolonial argumentation, responding to calls to decolonize international refugee law.19 Decolonizing international refugee law would involve, among other things, transforming its pedagogy.20 This in turn makes it important to study if and how the subject is taught in non-signatory states. In their pioneering contribution, Arjumand Bano Kazmi and Sikandar Shah undertake this important task with respect to Pakistan, discussing the promises and challenges of teaching international refugee law in that country and sharing critical insights that can be useful for rethinking the teaching of international refugee law, not just in non-signatory states but more generally (see chapter 11).
The contributors to the present volume represent and present “situated knowledge.”21 Many of them are from or have long experience of conducting research in the Global South. They reflect critically on the social, political, and historical contexts relating to the local level, while also being cognizant of the global imperatives which have shaped and continue to shape those local contexts in myriad ways. The resulting contributions complement each other, both conceptually and methodologically, in challenging the exception rhetoric and unsettling the “international and Western bias” in the study of international refugee law. They also constitute modest contributions toward countering the Global North’s domination of knowledge production in refugee studies.22
As editors, we are drawn more generally to Third World Approaches to International Law (twail). This school of thought challenges mainstream international law scholarship by focusing on international law in the colonial and postcolonial eras, with its class, gender, and race perspectives, and with an eye to diversifying knowledge production.23 We are mindful and inspired by the critique that mainstream international refugee law scholarship has been failing to adequately consider structural and historical factors impacting on refugee protection, and for carrying a Global North-centric position that overlooks the fact that the majority of refugees reside in the Global South.24 We hear Chimni when he argues that decolonizing international law scholarship would require breaking the “epistemic silence” by bringing in the factors of geography and race within the mainstream discussions.25 And we think it is crucial to explore the colonial roots of the 1951 Convention.26
The colonial context has diverse implications for how states relate to the international refugee regime in a postcolonial and neocolonial world. This includes first and foremost how colonial histories can play into some states’ decisions not to ratify the Refugee Convention or more generally distance themselves from the broader international refugee regime. Not as well known but equally intriguing, colonial histories can also play into some states’ present lack of choice on the matter. It is with this awareness and perspective that some of the chapters in our volume delve into reasons for non-ratification of the Refugee Convention.
Barbour, as mentioned, challenges the notion of “Asian exceptionalism” with respect to the ratification of the Refugee Convention. Building on twail, he argues that the “resistance” that is perceived among Asian states is not a resistance to human rights or refugee law, but rather to Global North hegemony (see chapter 4).27 Zooming in on a local context in Asia, Bilal Dewansyah then examines Indonesia’s reluctance to ratify the Refugee Convention, exploring the colonial history which shaped the interactions between the state, civil society, and international actors (see chapter 5). In her chapter, Natalie Jones grapples with the colonial antecedents and evolving neocolonial ties in the Kingdom of the Netherlands and its former colonies in the Caribbean. Here it is argued that the colonial legacy has impeded territorial application of the Refugee Convention in the former colonies, resulting in a neocolonial power struggle of “responsibility.” Jones’s discussion of the intricacies in Aruba and Curaçao’s relations to the Refugee Convention draws attention to the not-so-well-known cases of small island states, highlighting the importance of colonial histories in understanding ratification patterns (see chapter 6).
The approach underlying this volume requires us also to address “the endurance of coloniality.”28 Here, one must critically reflect on how colonial legacies can impact the governance and treatment of foreigners in postcolonial states and, as part of this, add to refugees’ suffering, whether by continuing to perpetuate colonial logics of control, in an effort to counter colonial immigration policies and protect citizens, or otherwise. In his contribution to this volume, Dewansyah underscores this endurance and its negative impact on refugees with his analysis of Indonesia’s selective policy principle (see chapter 5).
Non-ratification is not the only way colonial histories and neocolonial dynamics can fit into the puzzle of how individual states relate to the Refugee Convention. Nauru and Papua New Guinea are interesting cases in this regard. Nauru, and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island were formerly
This in turn calls for a more general and critical exploration of the interrelation between protection on the one hand, and ratification and other types of commitment on the other. A crucial question here is whether ratification or formal engagement – or in the case of Chotinukul’s analysis of the Thai case in chapter 8, fulfillment of pledges at the global level – always means better protection for refugees. Lili Song’s analysis of the genuinely unique non-signatory case of the Republic of China (Taiwan) is also relevant here. The Republic of China is one of the original drafters of the 1951 Convention, but through its exclusion from the
The in-depth analyses in these contributions constitute valuable additions to the literature, as well as a good starting point for further research: we argue that a more systematic mapping and study of patterns of accession, succession, and ratification relating to the Refugee Convention is needed. In addition to helping better understand the international refugee regime, such a study would also provide much valuable insight into how international law functions and why it functions that way. Certainly, the cases to be studied further are plenty.
To take only one example: Mauritius is formally considered by the
3 Empirically Anchored Approaches
This volume brings together uniquely diverse perspectives on the study of non-signatory states. The contributions are legally informed and richly contextualized at the same time, providing empirical, conceptual, and critical insights. By foregrounding bottom-up, grounded, and empirically anchored approaches, we respond to wider calls for an “empirical turn” to the study of international law34 and for “methodological heterodoxy” with respect to refugee law scholarship.35 We find this crucial, considering how law generally is shaped by, and shapes, networks of cultural, political, and economic relations that “crisscross local, national, international, regional, and global domains and spatial scales.”36 For the field of international refugee law, this perspective is particularly necessary, given how this body of scholarship has become, in the words of Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen and Daniel Ghezelbash, “increasingly insulated from other parts of refugee studies.”37
The privileging of positivist, policy-driven research has among other things served to promote doctrinal refugee law analysis, a hallmark of which is not only the separation of law from politics but also the absence of interdisciplinarity.38 In their contribution to this volume, Simon Behrman and Dallal Stevens observe how refugee law scholarship was predominantly doctrinally oriented in the 1990s and early 2000s (see chapter 2). When it came to the study of non-signatory states, they note, there was negligibly little focus by refugee lawyers on the treatment and protection of refugees; “any studies undertaken were by non-lawyers, and where there was some coverage of applicable law, this frequently lacked detail and was one issue of many discussed.” Likewise, a “myth of difference”39 between white European refugees – whose contours are set within the Refugee Convention – and refugees from the Global South meant that law often only framed discussions of the former while ignoring the latter.
Several of the contributors to this volume employ legal historical approaches, understood in refugee law to be vital tools not only for comprehending the present, but also for shaping and envisioning “different and better futures.”40 Some focus on the drafting history of the main legal instruments. Jones, for example, spotlights the Dutch Caribbean, governed by colonial powers at the time of the 1951 Convention’s drafting (see chapter 6). Her chapter emphasizes the addition of the colonial clause to the Convention (ie article 40), which compelled metropole states to consider to which colonies they would extend territorial application. Similarly, in her contribution, Song demonstrates how, as a founding member of the
unhcr’s archives in Geneva are increasingly being recognized as an invaluable source for understanding the origins and development of the current refugee regime.41 These histories can have immense explanatory power. One example is Dewansyah’s chapter, which combines insights gathered from unhcr archives with in-depth interviews with Indonesian government actors, to explain the evolution of Indonesia’s formal position on accession to the Refugee Convention (see chapter 5). Maja Janmyr, Sanjeeb M. Hossain, and Lewis Turner similarly highlight the important role of these archives in making available historical agreements between unhcr and non-signatory host states (see chapter 10). The archives also hold documents and correspondence relating to their negotiation – details which, they argue, are important because such agreements may function as “alternative protection regimes” in lieu of the Refugee Convention.
The study of non-signatory states often requires empirical research in the countries concerned. Behrman and Stevens draw on their work in Bangladesh and Jordan respectively to reflect on the distinct challenges and revelations of doing such research (see chapter 2). In the absence of a clear and justiciable domestic refugee law framework, their research often needed to focus on the complex and sometimes ambiguous administrative and political aspects of refugee protection, where several distinct issues influenced the understanding of refugee law and protection. These included the intricate interplay between state,
Finally, empirical studies can shed light on how legal and non-legal norms interact, help explain the transnational circulation of global norms, and enhance our understanding of the local settings where these multiple orders interact.43 Indeed, international refugee law is implemented in a space where, as Janmyr has argued elsewhere, “bureaucratic, international law and domestic norms typically overlap and sometimes conflict.”44 Norm diffusion emerges as a key issue when it comes to understanding the interplay between non-signatory states and international refugee law, and we zoom in on this in the next section.
4 Globalizing and Localizing Norms
How is international refugee law reshaped when actors in non-signatory states engage with it, and how are national legal and protection landscapes reconfigured in the process? This enquiry runs as a thread throughout the volume, with authors examining the roles played by domestic courts, unhcr, national governments, civil society, regional organizations, and national universities and higher education in this iterative process. Most contributions focus on a range of actors, critically examining their roles in what is often somewhat simplistically referred to as norm making and norm taking.45
In our thinking, we draw on a combination of scholarship and research focusing on the spread of norms. In international refugee law, scant attention has been paid to transnational norm diffusion in non-signatory contexts, with the focus having been mainly on the Global North.46 As observed by Satvinder Juss more generally, mainstream scholarship rarely engages with questions concerning how norms in refugee law evolve and who are the actors making the norms of international refugee law.47 Notable exceptions exist, however, and include the work of Susan Kneebone, Alice Nah, and Dallal Stevens who focus on the contexts of Southeast Asia, the Asia Pacific region and the Middle East respectively.48 These scholars seek to identify the key actors promoting refugee protection norms and their agenda setting in regional contexts. Inspired by work such as theirs, we find that examining more closely the interaction between actors on a global, regional, national, and even local level gives us a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the interplay between international refugee law and non-signatory states.
In international law more generally, we find Koh’s notion of “transnational legal processes” useful; it allows for a precise focus on the socialization processes relating to legal argument and doctrine.49 This view sees state behavior as influenced by interactions both within the domestic system and between the domestic and international systems. Of specific interest to international refugee law, this theory counters state-centric accounts of these processes by introducing a different set of actors, fora, and transactions, allowing us, for example, to capture actors as fundamentally different from one another as unhcr, state diplomats, local non-governmental organizations, legal aid providers, domestic courts, and universities.
In understanding the transnational spread of norms, we also draw on approaches beyond international law, including the rich international relations literature on norm diffusion. That scholarship has historically focused on investigating transnational agents and processes shaping norm diffusion on the international level, with international organizations regarded as playing a key role in this regard.50 More contemporary studies have emphasized the agency role of norm takers, recognizing that there is a constant back and forth occurring between global and local actors.51
Literature identifies globalization and localization as the two main processes of norm diffusion. The former refers to the process by which international norms and standards are incorporated into national standards, while the latter assesses how global norms are adapted to domestic contexts. Localization has been defined by Amitav Acharya as:
a complex process and outcome by which norm-takers build congruence between transnational norms (including norms previously institutionalized in a region) and local beliefs and practices. In this process, foreign norms, which may not initially cohere with the latter, are incorporated into local norms. The success of norm diffusion strategies and processes depends on the extent to which they provide opportunities for localization.52
Localization centers the role of local actors – the supposed norm takers – and calls for a “shift in the understanding of norm entrepreneurship from ‘outsider proponents’ committed to a transnational or universal moral agenda to “insider proponents.”53 Certainly, domestic actors can be more important than transnational actors in the implementation of international norms. And as Acharya has observed, norm-diffusion strategies are more likely to succeed if they accommodate local sensitivity rather than seek to supplant it.54 Importantly, Leila Brumat and others’ recent study on the impact of global norms and standards on the protection of asylum seekers and refugees in six countries, including Bangladesh, Türkiye, and Jordan, provides evidence of localization as the prevailing pattern in the domestic incorporation of international norms and standards, concluding that “it is less likely that states adopt or adapt to the global and more likely that the global is adapted to state and regional level contexts.”55
That said, there is now also increased acceptance that globalization and localization need not necessarily be separate or opposing processes; they can happen simultaneously and feed each other. And in our examination of norm diffusion, we hear the calls being made for a “critical localism” that rejects an oversimplified dichotomy and recognizes the potential for humanitarian actors to have “translocal and transcultural entanglements.”56 Our volume recognizes this complexity by engaging with not only the range of actors that are involved but also the many levels on which they operate.
Barbour, for example, takes a localization approach in arguing that advocacy for effective refugee protection need not begin around accession to the Refugee Convention, but rather with existing laws, policies, and coordination mechanisms (see chapter 4). This “engages with the local context on its own terms.” But his eye is not only on the local; he also emphasizes the role of regional dialogue and consensus. This approach complements insights previously made by scholars such as Nah, whose research on the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network, for example, showed how working through a formalized regional network changed the ways and the conditions under which local civil society actors engage in norm entrepreneurship.57
Speaking of civil society, several of the contributions highlight their central role as “brokers”58 in how norms get adapted and translated into local contexts, while at the same time recognizing how civil society can work through policy networks to influence regional and global norms and institutions, feeding globalization processes.59 A case in point is Thailand, where the government has long displayed hostility toward transnational alliances drawing on the language of international human rights. Previous studies have drawn attention to how local and transnational actors worked in tandem to successfully lobby the government.60 Chotinukul’s chapter on Thailand extends this research by demonstrating the significance also of international forums organized by unhcr (see chapter 8). She argues, however, that fulfillment of pledges at the global level does not necessarily mean better protection for refugees at the local level.
Finally, of special importance to our interest in norm diffusion is the role of domestic courts. In non-signatory states, courts may – quite surprisingly, some would say – engage directly with specific provisions of the Refugee Convention. The work of Özlem Gürakar Skribeland is illustrative in this regard.61 Examining the case law of the Turkish Council of State, she demonstrates how that court has also been engaging with the Refugee Convention in cases involving non-European refugees. Her analysis suggests that the Turkish Council of State regards the Convention as a benchmark or standard to be followed, beyond what is required by Türkiye’s treaty obligations and domestic law.
Drawing on case law from multiple jurisdictions, Gamze Ovacık and Aneesha Johny’s contribution to this volume takes the discussions on the role of domestic courts further (see chapter 3). They identify both cases where domestic courts apply the 1951 Convention to resolve the disputes before them, as well as those where the judges merely cite the relevant provisions of the Refugee Convention without further discussion. Framing these as an active and passive engagement with the Refugee Convention, respectively, Ovacık and Johny argue that both types of engagement are significant in a context where the assumption would be that domestic courts do not engage with instruments by which the country is not formally bound.
Norm advancement in the judiciary can also be brought about through the above-mentioned translocal entanglement. In her chapter on the Republic of China, Song demonstrates how for decades lawyers advanced arguments based on the Refugee Convention in nearly a dozen cases before domestic courts, and how gradually and increasingly the judiciary came to value international refugee law norms (see chapter 7). Her findings are not wholly dissimilar from the Pakistani context, where Kazmi has recently examined the case law at different tiers of the judiciary, mapping local courts’ engagement with international refugee law as well as the role of local lawyers in these processes.62 As Kazmi shows, unhcr can also be involved in such judicial processes. We will come back to this in the next section as part of our discussion on the role of unhcr in non-signatory states.
5 Centering UNHCR
This section will spotlight some of the key issues concerning unhcr’s work in and with non-signatory states. As the
unhcr’s competence with respect to refugees is described in its Statute in universal terms, ie without any geographical or time limitation.64 Still, in its early days, unhcr had Europe as its principal area of concern, and the organization only expanded its operations to the “the new problems” of refugees outside Europe in the late 1950s and 1960s.65 This expansion also brought about a more active role; originally, its creators had not wanted an operational refugee agency, and they had limited its functions to international protection.66 We know little about unhcr’s evolution, especially when it comes to its past operations in non-signatory states, including its role as a “colonial era institution.”67 It remains the case that, as for scholarship on the
Today, unhcr provides both international protection and direct assistance in many non-signatory states, and some of its biggest operations are or have been in such countries.69 In some contexts, its role has become so encompassing that scholars even speak of unhcr as a “surrogate state.”70 In 2019, more than one third of unhcr’s budget was for non-signatory states.71 With a budget of 520 million usd in 2025, unhcr’s operation in Lebanon was the organization’s second largest overall, only following Ukraine at 550 million usd.72 Syria and Jordan were also on unhcr’s top 10 list of largest budgets for 2025.73
Non-signatory states are not only at the receiving end of unhcr funds. While unhcr depends heavily on the funding of just a few Western states, as Cole has highlighted, the organization has in recent years targeted new “growth markets,” including in wealthy non-signatory states.74 As she notes, this not only has implications for how unhcr operates within these countries, but also where those funds are spent globally. More research is certainly needed to better understand the financial links between unhcr and non-signatory states – both as beneficiaries and as donors – and the implications these have on protection.
Under the Refugee Convention, states parties have an express obligation to cooperate with unhcr “in the exercise of its functions.”75 That does not mean that non-signatory states can ignore unhcr; they also have cooperation obligations stemming from the unhcr Statute and the
unhcr is required to provide for the protection of refugees, among other things, by “[p]romoting the conclusion and ratification of international conventions for the protection of refugees, supervising their application and proposing amendments thereto.”78 Among these, promoting ratification (ie accession) is key when it comes to non-signatory states. In connection with the 73rd anniversary of the Refugee Convention in July 2024, “unhcr – as the guardian of the Refugee Convention” once again, “[urged] the remaining 46
Better understanding how unhcr promotes accession, what kind of promotional activities work well, how non-signatory states react to these efforts, and, importantly, the reasons underlying continual unwillingness to accede are crucial for unhcr’s effective fulfillment of this responsibility. In the case of Indonesia, for example, Dewansyah discusses how unhcr’s varied promotional activities over several decades were influential in getting accession onto Indonesia’s formal action plans relating to human rights reform, even if these did not in the end succeed due to the country’s overarching “non-accession stance” (see chapter 5).
unhcr carries out refugee status determination (rsd) in about 50 countries, many of which are non-signatories to the Refugee Convention.81 With the goal that each state will eventually develop the capacity to carry out its own rsd, unhcr also supports various exercises to that effect. Research shows, however, that handovers of rsd from unhcr to domestic authorities can sometimes occur prematurely, and at the expense of refugees, leading, for example, to lower-quality decision making.82 Chotinukul’s critical assessment of Thailand’s new National Screening Mechanism (nsm) in this volume is therefore particularly welcome at this juncture, ie before an actual handover has occurred and as the Thai government continues to work on nsm’s implementation, with unhcr support – especially considering that other Southeast Asian states may be considering following in Thailand’s footsteps (see chapter 8).
unhcr functions as an important norm entrepreneur in many non-signatory states and its promotion of international refugee law takes various forms.83 Cole examines the multitude of approaches employed by unhcr to encourage increased state engagement with the Refugee Convention and the broader international refugee regime (see chapter 9). Applying a framework derived from Science and Technology Studies that emphasizes the explanation of how networks grow, she explores how unhcr assembles various entities into the international refugee regime. Her contribution contains a warning, however: not only are understandings of key principles of the international refugee regime not necessarily aligned within unhcr, but its strategies also often entail short-term compromises and pragmatic alliances to ensure a combination of protection, relevance, and growth. Her critical observations on unhcr’s norm entrepreneurship are echoed elsewhere.84 The notion of “protection space” as applied in non-signatory states has, for example, drawn criticism for its potential to devalue the normative strength of obligations toward refugees.85
unhcr’s role in norm diffusion often includes involvement in domestic legal reform and collaboration with universities in non-signatory states.86 This, in turn, arguably plays an important role in influencing the ways in which national and local actors reason and converse within the international refugee law paradigm.87 An important example of the former is the case of Türkiye: Kemal Kirişçi has explored how unhcr’s “long-standing relationship” with the Turkish government and Turkish civil society “contributed to a slow but sure process of socialization of Turkey into the norms and rules” of the international refugee regime.88 The agency was particularly active in the drafting of Türkiye’s first primary legislation on asylum, and as part of this process, unhcr consultants were seconded to the Turkish Ministry of Interior.89
As previously discussed by Geoff Gilbert, unhcr’s supervisory role allows it to engage in court cases through amicus curiae briefs but, strategically speaking, such engagement is not without its risks.90 Of course, not all jurisdictions procedurally allow such interventions, but formal engagement in domestic court proceedings is not the only way unhcr can be instrumental in furthering refugee protection. Kirişci describes, for example, how unhcr encouraged and supported asylum seekers to approach domestic Turkish courts and try the appeal process in the late 1990s where previously there was no such practice in the country.91 As part of their contribution on the role of courts in non-signatory states, Ovacık and Johny also explore unhcr’s role in domestic judicial processes, pointing to interesting examples of this influence (see chapter 3).
Finally, a striking example of unhcr’s collaboration with universities in non-signatory states can be seen in the case of Pakistan. Here the agency has entered into memoranda of understanding with individual universities setting out in detail how the parties will cooperate in setting up and maintaining course modules on international refugee law. As Kazmi and Shah show in their contribution, unhcr thus plays a crucial role in the promotion and inclusion of international refugee law in Pakistani higher education. Such cooperation comes with many promises as well as some unique challenges (see chapter 11). It is therefore critical that further research examines in greater detail unhcr’s collaboration with universities in a broad range of non-signatory states, perhaps through a systematic study.
6 Conclusion
The present volume thus brings to the fore non-signatory states which host much of the global refugee population. It allows us to re-examine both the often-assumed centrality of the Refugee Convention for global refugee protection, as well as the concerns raised about its continued relevance. It further enables us to integrate jurisprudence and practice from “non-Western” refugee-hosting countries into international refugee law scholarship. These exercises are crucial for understanding the development of international refugee law across time and space. And by better understanding how international refugee law functions, we think that we can also gain valuable insights into the workings of international law more generally.
As noted at the outset, this book project was guided by diverse questions, and undoubtedly, there are numerous other discussions that would have been relevant to include in this volume. What “non-signatoryness” means for the protection of Palestinian refugees is one of these.92 Exploring refugee-led initiatives in non-signatory states; historically unpacking unhcr’s past operations in non-signatory states; analyzing non-signatory states as members of the Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme (ExCom); a systematic mapping of these states’ contributions to the development of international refugee law via the
With this volume, we did not attempt to even touch upon all the important issues that relate to non-signatory states in international refugee law; that is simply not feasible. We intended the volume rather as a modest yet pioneering contribution towards fulfillment of an ambitious agenda. Our volume demonstrates that the Refugee Convention plays an important role in shaping responses to refugees in many non-signatory states. International refugee law more broadly conceived manifests itself in myriad ways in these states, and these states in turn contribute to its further development. In other words, regardless of their formal standing, international refugee law norms become internalized at different levels in non-signatory states, whose engagement with them in turn feeds back into international legal governance. Our hope is that Non-signatory States in International Refugee Law will further increase the burgeoning scholarly interest in non-signatory states and lead to much-needed further research in this area.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 851121 (erc Starting Grant 2019). We wish to thank Hanna Gjelsvik Berg for her research assistance and Arjumand Bano Kazmi for insightful discussions during the writing of this chapter. Author contributions for this chapter were equal and names appear in alphabetical order.
Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (adopted July 28, 1951, entered into force April 22, 1954) 189 UNTS 137.
Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees (adopted January 31, 1967, entered into force October 4, 1967) 606 UNTS 267.
The 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol are technically two separate treaties with very similar but not identical states parties. We use “Refugee Convention” when speaking more generally about one or both of those instruments.
David J Cantor, ‘The End of Refugee Law?’ (2017) 9(2) Journal of Human Rights Practice 203.
Martin Jones, ‘Expanding the Frontiers of Refugee Law: Developing a Broader Law of Asylum in the Middle East and Europe’ (2017) 9(2) Journal of Human Rights Practice 212.
For an overview of this research agenda, see Maja Janmyr, ‘The 1951 Refugee Convention and Non-Signatory States: Charting a Research Agenda’ (2021) 33(2) International Journal of Refugee Law 188; and Maja Janmyr, Special Feature on ‘Non-Signatory States and the International Refugee Regime’ (2021) 67 Forced Migration Review. “Non-signatory states” is used in this volume and more generally in the literature to refer to states that are not parties to the Refugee Convention, whether by way of ratification, accession or succession.
UNHCR, ‘Rights Mapping and Analysis Platform’ <https://rimap.unhcr.org/refugee-treaty-legislation-dashboard> accessed December 3, 2024.
Cantor (n 4) 203. See also Cecilia Bailliet, ‘National Case Law as a Generator of International Refugee Law: Rectifying an Imbalance within UNHCR Guidelines on International Protection’ (2015) 29 Emory International Law Review Recent Developments 2059.
Georgia Cole, ‘Pluralising Geographies of Refuge’ (2021) 45(1) Progress in Human Geography 88, citing discussions in Andreas Wimmer and Nina Glick Schiller, ‘Methodological Nationalism, the Social Sciences, and the Study of Migration: An Essay in Historical Epistemology’ (2003) 37(3) International Migration Review 576.
BS Chimni, ‘The Past, Present and Future of International Law: A Critical Third World Approach Feature’ (2007) 8(2) Melbourne Journal of International Law 499; and
‘Protection without Ratification? International Refugee Law beyond States Parties to the 1951 Refugee Convention (BEYOND)’ <www.jus.uio.no/ikrs/english/research/projects/beyond/index.html> accessed December 5, 2024.
Just to name a couple of recently published as well as upcoming books: Ola G El-Taliawi, The Politics of Refugee Policy in the Global South (MIT Press 2024); Tamirace Fakhoury and Dawn Chatty (eds), Refugee Governance in the Arab World: The International Refugee Regime and Global Politics (Bloomsbury 2024); Ria Kapoor, Making Refugees in India (OUP 2022); Mitali Agrawal, Cathryn Costello, Luisa Feline Freier, Natalie Welfens and Tamara Wood, Recognizing Refugees (CUP forthcoming); and Susan Kneebone, Reyvi Mariñas, Antje Missbach and Max Walden (eds), Refugee Protection in Southeast Asia: Between Humanitarianism and Sovereignty (Berghahn 2024).
Seokwoo Lee and Hee Eun Lee (eds), Asian Yearbook of International Law: Volume 28 (2022) (BRILL 2024). In the latter category, again to name some recent and upcoming books: Cathryn Costello, Michelle Foster and Jane McAdam (eds), The Oxford Handbook of International Refugee Law (OUP 2021); Satvinder Juss (ed), The Research Handbook on International Refugee Law (Edward Elgar 2019); Cathryn Costello, A Critical Introduction to International Refugee Law (Bristol University Press forthcoming); and Stephen Meili and Dallal Stevens (eds), A New Research Agenda in Refugee and Asylum Law (Edgar Elgar forthcoming).
Examples include ACCESS (<https://site.unibo.it/access/en>), MOBILE (<https://mobilitylaw.ku.dk/about/>), and MIGJUST (<https://hrc.ugent.be/research/global-migration-justice/>) accessed December 3, 2024.
IASFM Conference 2025 <https://iasfm.org/iasfm2025/> accessed December 3, 2024.
International Law Commission, ‘Draft Conclusions on Identification of Customary International Law, with Commentaries’ (2018) 136–37; and Kevin Jon Heller, ‘Specially-Affected States and the Formation of Custom’ (2018) 112(2) American Journal of International Law 191.
George Rodrigo Bandeira Galindo and Cesar Yip, ‘Customary International Law and the Third World: Do Not Step on the Grass’ (2017) 16(2) Chinese Journal of International Law 251; and
We use “international refugee regime” to refer to the instruments and institutions of refugee protection, which include the Refugee Convention and UNHCR as cornerstones. Martin Jones, ‘The Governance Question: The UNHCR, the Refugee Convention and the International Refugee Regime’ in James J Simeon (ed) The UNHCR and Supervision of International Refugee Law (CUP 2013) 76.
E Tendayi Achiume, ‘Migration as Decolonization’ (2019) 71 Stanford Law Review 1509; Richa Shivakoti and James Milner ‘Beyond the Partnership Debate: Localizing Knowledge Production in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies’ (2021) 35(2) Journal of Refugee Studies 805; Nergis Canefe, ‘Decolonizing Forced Migration Studies: Notes from the Borderlands’ in Sanja S Petkovska (ed) Decolonial Politics in European Peripheries: Redefining Progressiveness, Coloniality and Transition Efforts (Routledge 2024).
BS Chimni, ‘Three Approaches to the 1951 Convention: The Case for a Dialectical Approach’ (2024) Journal of Refugee Studies <https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feae011> accessed December 8, 2024.
Donna Haraway, ‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective’ (1988) 14(3) Feminist Studies 575.
Chimni (n 20) 2.
Obiora Chinedu Okafor, ‘Critical Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL): Theory, Methodology, or Both?’ (2008) 10 International Community Law Review 371, 377; Antony Anghie, Sovereignty, Imperialism and International Law (CUP 2003); Antony Anghie and
Chimni (n 20). See also Glen Peterson, ‘Sovereignty, International Law, and the Uneven Development of the International Refugee Regime’ (2015) 49(2) Modern Asian Studies 439.
Chimni (n 20) 9–10. See also
Edwin O Abuya, Ulrike Krause and Lucy Mayblin, ‘The Neglected Colonial Legacy of the 1951 Refugee Convention’ (2021) 59(4) International Migration 265; and Ulrike Krause, ‘Colonial Roots of the 1951 Refugee Convention and Its Effects on the Global Refugee Regime’ (2021) 24 Journal of International Relations and Development 599.
For more on Asian exceptionalism, see Sara E Davies, Legitimizing Rejection: International Refugee Law in South East Asia (Martinus Nijhoff 2008); Sara E Davies, ‘The Asian Rejection?: International Refugee Law in Asia’ (2006) 52(4) Australian Journal of Politics and History 562; and Sébastien Moretti, The Protection of Refugees in Southeast Asia: A Legal Fiction? (Routledge 2022).
Martin Lemberg-Pedersen, Kate Pincock, Clayton Boeyink and Laura Rosanne Adderley, ‘Editorial Introduction: Colonialism, Postcoloniality, and the Study of Forced Migration’ (2024) 7(1) Migration and Society 94, 99.
JC Salyer, Steffen Dalsgaard and Paige West, ‘It Is Not Because They Are Bad People: Australia’s Refugee Resettlement in Papua New Guinea and Nauru’ (2020) 32(2) The Contemporary Pacific 435, 438–39.
Cait Storr, International Status in the Shadow of Empire Nauru and the Histories of International Law (CUP 2020) 257.
Özlem Gürakar Skribeland, ‘Forced Return of Migrants to Transit Countries: A Case of Competing Sovereigns’ (PhD dissertation, University of Oslo 2022) 274–75.
Özlem Gürakar Skribeland, ‘Refugee Protection and Human Rights’ in Borhan Uddin Khan and Jahid Hossain Bhuiyan (eds) Human Rights after 75 Years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Reflections from the Global South (BRILL 2024) 228.
For a discussion, see Nora Milch Johnsen and Maja Janmyr, ‘State Succession to the 1951 Refugee Convention: The Curious Case of Mauritius’ (2021) Refugee History Blog <https://refugeehistory.org/blog/2021/9/30/state-succession-to-the-1951-refugee-convention-the-curious-case-of-mauritius> accessed December 8, 2024. See also Jamil Ddamulira Mujuzi, ‘Mauritian Courts and the Protection of the Rights of Asylum Seekers in the Absence of Dedicated Legislation’ (2019) 31(2–3) International Journal of Refugee Law 321.
Gregory Shaffer and Tom Ginsburg, ‘The Empirical Turn in International Legal Scholarship’ (2017) 106(1) American Journal of International Law 1; and Daniel Abebe, Adam Chilton and Tom Ginsburg, ‘The Social Science Approach to International Law’ (2021) 22(1) Chicago Journal of International Law 1.
Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen and Daniel Ghezelbash, ‘What Role for Law in Refugee Studies? Towards a Transdisciplinary Agenda’ (2024) Journal of Refugee Studies 2 <https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feae068> accessed December 8, 2024.
Eve Darian-Smith, ‘Locating a Global Perspective’ (2013) 4 Transnational Legal Theory 524.
Gammeltoft-Hansen and Ghezelbash (n 35) 2.
Chimni (n 20).
Chimni originally argued that during the drafting process of the 1951 Convention, a “myth of difference” presented non-European refugees as radically different from European refugees and therefore requiring solutions outside of the Convention. Chimni (1998) (n 25).
M Sanjeeb Hossain, ‘“Doing” Legal History in Refugee Law: A Snapshot of Bangladesh’s Engagement with Non-Refoulement’ (2023) Journal of Refugee Studies <https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/fead025> accessed December 8, 2024.
Jay Ramasubramanyam, ‘TWAIL, Archives, and Refugee Law’ (2024) Journal of Refugee Studies <https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feae013> accessed December 8, 2024.
Maja Janmyr and Dallal Stevens, ‘Regional Refugee Regimes: Middle East’ in Cathryn Costello, Michelle Foster and Jane McAdam (eds), The Oxford Handbook of International Refugee Law (OUP 2021).
Sally Falk Moore and Martin Chanock, Law as Process: An Anthropological Approach (2nd edn, LIT Verlag 2000); Sally Engle Merry, ‘International Law and Sociolegal Scholarship Towards a Spatial Global Legal Pluralism’ in Michael A Helfand (ed) Negotiating State and Non-State Law: The Challenge of Global and Local Legal Pluralism (CUP 2015); Paul Schiff Berman, Global Legal Pluralism: A Jurisprudence of Law Beyond Borders (CUP 2012).
Maja Janmyr, ‘Ethnographic Approaches and International Refugee Law’ (2022) Journal of Refugee Studies <https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feac042> accessed December 8, 2024.
Jeffrey T Checkel, ‘Norms, Institutions, and National Identity in Contemporary Europe’ (1999) 43(1) International Studies Quarterly 83.
Hélène Lambert, Jane McAdam and Maryellen Fullerton (eds), The Global Reach of European Refugee Law (CUP 2013); Guy S Goodwin-Gill and Hélène Lambert (eds), The Limits of Transnational Law: Refugee Law, Policy Harmonization and Judicial Dialogue in the European Union (CUP 2010); Jill I Goldenziel, ‘When Law Migrates: Refugees in Comparative International Law’ in Anthea Roberts and others (eds), Comparative International Law (OUP 2018).
Satvinder S Juss, ‘Transnational Refugee Law’ in Peer Zumbansen (ed) The Oxford Handbook of Transnational Law (OUP 2021) 218.
Notably, Susan Kneebone edited a special issue on ‘Comparative Regional Protection Frameworks for Refugees: Norms and Norm Entrepreneurs’ in the International Journal of Human Rights, which included an introductory article with that same title. See Susan Kneebone, ‘Comparative Regional Protection Frameworks for Refugees: Norms and Norm Entrepreneurs’ (2016) 20(2) International Journal of Human Rights 153; Alice M Nah, ‘Networks and Norm Entrepreneurship amongst Local Civil Society Actors: Advancing Refugee Protection in the Asia Pacific Region’ (2016) 20(2) International Journal of Human Rights 223; and Dallal Stevens, ‘Rights, Needs or Assistance? The Role of the UNHCR in Refugee Protection in the Middle East’ (2015) 20(2) The International Journal of Human Rights 264.
Harold Hongju Koh, ‘The 1994 Roscoe Pound Lecture: Transnational Legal Process’ (1996) 75(1) Nebraska Law Review 181.
Martha Finnemore and Sikkink Kathryn, ‘International Norm Dynamics and Political Change’ (1998) 52(4) International Organization 887. See also Thomas Risse, Stephen C Ropp and Kathryn Sikkink (eds), The Persistent Power of Human Rights: From Commitment to Compliance (CUP 2013).
Sara Hellmüller, ‘Meaning-Making in Peace-Making: The Inclusion Norm at the Interplay between the United Nations and Civil Society in the Syrian Peace Process’ (2020) 26(4) Swiss Political Science Review 407, 409.
Amitav Acharya, ‘How Ideas Spread: Whose Norms Matter? Norm Localization and Institutional Change in Asian Regionalism’ 58(2) International Organization 239, 241.
ibid 245.
ibid 249.
Leiza Brumat, Andrew Geddes and Andrea Pettrachin, ‘Making Sense of the Global: A Systematic Review of Globalizing and Localizing Dynamics in Refugee Governance’ (2022) 35(2) Journal of Refugee Studies 827, 845.
Kristina Roepstorff, ‘A Call for Critical Reflection on the Localisation Agenda in Humanitarian Action’ (2020) 41(2) Third World Quarterly 284.
Nah (n 48) 223.
Jana Hönke and Markus-Michael Müller, ‘Brokerage, Intermediation, Translation’ in Anke Draude, Tanja A Börzel and Thomas Risse (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Governance and Limited Statehood (OUP 2018).
Stefan Rother, ‘Multi-Level Migrant Civil Society Activism in Southeast Asia’ in Eva Hansson and Meredith L Weiss (eds) Routledge Handbook of Civil and Uncivil Society in Southeast Asia (Routledge 2023).
Naiyana Thanawattho, Waritsara Rungthong and Emily Arnold-Fernández, ‘Advancing Refugee Rights in Non-Signatory States: The Role of Civil Society in Thailand’ (2021) 67 Forced Migration Review.
Özlem Gürakar Skribeland, ‘The Turkish Council of State’s Engagement with International Refugee Law in Cases Involving “Non-European” Refugees’ (2025) International Journal of Refugee Law <https://doi.org/10.1093/ijrl/eeae041> accessed February 2, 2025. On the context of Bangladesh, see also M Sanjeeb Hossain, ‘Bangladesh’s Judicial Encounter with the 1951 Refugee Convention’ (2021) 67 Forced Migration Review.
Arjumand Bano Kazmi, ‘Pakistan’s Judicial Engagement with International Refugee Law’ (2025) International Journal of Refugee Law <https://doi.org/10.1093/ijrl/eeaf001> accessed February 2, 2025.
Guy S Goodwin-Gill, ‘The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Sources of International Refugee Law’ (2020) 69(1) International & Comparative Law Quarterly 1, 40.
UN General Assembly, Statute of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, A/RES/428(V), December 14, 1950, arts 1, 6, 8.
Gill Loescher, ‘UNHCR’s Origins and Early History: Agency, Influence, and Power in Global Refugee Policy’ (2017) 33(1) Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees 77, 78.
Alexander Betts, Gil Loescher and James Milner, UNHCR: The Politics and Practice of Refugee Protection (2nd edn, Routledge 2012) 22–26.
Glen Peterson, ‘The Uneven Development of the International Refugee Regime in Postwar Asia: Evidence from China, Hong Kong and Indonesia’ 25(3) Journal of Refugee Studies 326. See also Loescher (n 65) 77; Lauren Banko, Katarzyna Nowak and Peter Gatrell, ‘What Is Refugee History, Now?’ (2022) 17(1) Journal of Global History 1.
Jordi Tejel and Ramazan Hakkı Öztan, ‘The Special Issue “Forced Migration and Refugeedom in the Modern Middle East” Towards Connected Histories of Refugeedom in the Middle East’ (2020) 6(1) Journal of Migration History 1. See also Alanna O’Malley and Lydia Walker, ‘A Revisionist History of the United Nations’ (2024) Past & Present <https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtae008> accessed December 8, 2024.
Maja Janmyr, ‘UNHCR and the Syrian Refugee Response: Negotiating Status and Registration in Lebanon’ (2017) 22(3) The International Journal of Human Rights 393; and Gerald Walzer, ‘UNHCR Operations in Pakistan in the Early 1980s’ (2008) 27(1) Refugee Survey Quarterly 40. On Türkiye, see also <www.unhcr.org/tr/turkiyede-unhcr> accessed December 8, 2024.
Alice M Nah, ‘The Ambiguous Authority of a “Surrogate State”: UNHCR’s Negotiation of Asylum in the Complexities of Migration in Southeast Asia’ (2019) 35 Revue européenne des migrations internationales 63; and Michael Kagan, ‘The
In 2024, on the other hand, the ratio was less than one fourth, which can be explained, among other things, by the Ukrainian and Venezuelan refugee situations. Calculated based on a review of UNHCR’s annual Global Appeal for 2019 and 2024, outlining the organization’s budgeted activities for those years.
UNHCR Global Appeal 2025 <https://reporting.unhcr.org/global-appeal-2025/funding-unhcrs-programmes> accessed December 8, 2024. As of mid-2024, UNHCR’s operation in Lebanon was also allocated the second highest amount of UNHCR flexible funds; only Ukraine received slightly more. See Florian Zandt, ‘Where the
UNHCR Global Appeal (n 72).
Georgia Cole, ‘Non-Signatory Donor States and UNHCR: Questions of Funding and Influence’ (2021) 67 Forced Migration Review.
1951 Convention art 35(1).
See Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (covering the period April 1, 1979 to March 31, 1980) A/35/12, para 58 <www.unhcr.org/excom/unhcrannual/4cc039db9/report-united-nations-high-commissioner-refugees-covering-period-1-april.html> accessed December 8, 2024; and Walter Kalin, ‘Supervising the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees: Article 35 and Beyond’ in Erika Feller, Volker Turk and Frances Nicholson (eds) Refugee Protection in International Law: UNHCR’s Global Consultations on International Protection (UNHCR Geneva 2003) 618–19.
Marjoleine Zieck, UNHCR’s Worldwide Presence in the Field (Wolf Legal Publishers 2006) 4–7, 321.
UNHCR Statute art 8(a).
<www.unhcr.org/news/briefing-notes/un-refugee-agency-marks-73-years-refugee-convention-urging-universal-accession> accessed December 8, 2024.
ibid.
<www.unhcr.org/media/unhcr-refugee-status-determination-map-august-2021> accessed December 8, 2024.
Caroline Nalule and Derya Özkul, ‘Exploring RSD Handover from UNHCR to States’ (2020) 65 Forced Migration Review; and Derya Özkul and Natalie Welfens, ‘UNHCR–State Relations: Transfer of Authority over Refugee Status Determination (2024) Journal of Refugee Studies <https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feae080> accessed December 8, 2024.
Janmyr, ‘The 1951 Refugee Convention’ (n 6).
Stevens (n 48). See also Lewis Turner, ‘Who Is a Refugee in Jordan? Hierarchies and Exclusions in the Refugee Recognition Regime’ (2023) 36(4) Journal of Refugee Studies 877; and Maja Janmyr, ‘Sudanese Refugees and the “Syrian Refugee Response” in Lebanon: Racialised Hierarchies, Processes of Invisibilisation, and Resistance’ (2022) 41(1) Refugee Survey Quarterly 131.
Martin Jones, ‘Moving Beyond Protection Space: Developing a Law of Asylum in South-East Asia’ in Susan Kneebone, Dallal Stevens and Loretta Baldassar (eds) Refugee Protection and the Role of Law: Conflicting Identities (Routledge 2014); and Eveliina Lyytinen, ‘Refugees’ Conceptualizations of “Protection Space”: Geographical Scales of Urban Protection and Host–Refugee Relations’ (2015) 34(2) Refugee Survey Quarterly 45.
Janmyr (n 44) 205.
Janmyr, ‘The 1951 Refugee Convention’ (n 6).
Kemal Kirişçi, ‘Turkey’s New Draft Law on Asylum: What to Make of It?’ in Seçil Paçacı Elitok and Thomas Straubhaar (eds) Turkey, Migration and the
Özkul and Welfens (n 82).
Geoff Gilbert, ‘UNHCR and Courts: Amicus curiae … sed curia amica est?’ (2016) 28(4) International Journal of Refugee Law 623.
Kirişçi (n 88) 68.
For an interesting discussion, see Hasan Basri Bülbül, ‘Recognising Palestinian Refugees: Applicability of Article 1D of the 1951 Refugee Convention in Turkey’ (2024) 43(3) Refugee Survey Quarterly 280.