Syllabus

• Week 1

  Introduction to Critical International Migration Law

  • Welcome to Week 1

    In this activity, you will be introduced to the whole course, given details of the assessment and meet your colleagues. You will also be introduced to the topic for this week.

  • History of migration and why people move

    Politicians and the media often portray migration as new and threatening, and migrants as deviant. You will see that migration is not new and people move for many rational reasons. What has changed is states’ attitudes.

  • An examination of terminology

    Here you will examine terminology commonly employed to describe migrants and discover that many such terms are value judgments and are not grounded in law.

  • Weekly wrap up

    Here you will find some additional resources and an audio summarising the content of the week.

• Week 2

  What constitutes international migration law?

  • Welcome to Week 2

    You will be introduced to the notion that law shapes the migrant experience and begin to think about the nature and sources of migration law.

  • Sovereignty and its impact on migrants and migration

    You will be introduced to the concept of state sovereignty and the impact the exercise of sovereignty has on migrants seeking asylum (a place of safety).

  • Three categories of migrant in treaty law

    You will examine three categories of migrants addressed in treaty law and assess the shortcomings of those treaties.

  • Weekly wrap up

    Here you will find some additional resources and an audio summarising the content of the week.

• Week 3

  Discourses on migration

  • Welcome to Week 3

    Here you will be introduced to the week, you will engage in a series of polls, and begin to assess the impact that media reporting has on migration policy and law.

  • Depictions of migrants and migration

    Here you will start to dissect how the media and politicians depict migrants and migration. You will examine some newspaper headlines and stories as well as some photographs that often accompany the headlines.

  • Scholarly analysis of migrants as threats

    Here you will consider the characterisation of migrants as threats and engage with scholarly analysis of this characterisation.

  • Assignment: attitudes to migration

    In this activity you will undertake your own assignment, and reflect on the activity in a Discussion.

  • Weekly wrap up

    Here you will find repeat polls, additional resources and a summary of the week’s coverage.

• Week 4

  Migration crises

  • Welcome to Week 4

    Here you will be introduced to the crisis framing of migration and start to examine the consequences of such a framing on migration law, migration policy and migrants themselves.

  • The meaning of crisis

    We will examine the meaning of crisis in the context of migration and we will investigate some possible causes of crisis.

  • The work done by “crisis”

    Here we will investigate the impact the crisis framing has on policy and law. We will also ask whether law has had a role in actually constructing crisis.

  • Weekly wrap-up

    Here you will find a repeated poll, a test, additional resources and a summary of the week’s coverage.

Who will you learn with?