Law's Absence and Law's Failings

Securitisation and militarisation of border controls have dire consequences for those desperate to flee persecution, environmental disasters, and civil war.

On this course, you’ll look at the ways the law fails to provide protection for vulnerable migrants. You’ll also examine where the law is completely absent in the areas of internally displaced persons and environmentally displaced persons.

Examine how international law affects internally displaced persons

Many states have gone to great lengths to prevent people fleeing from entering their territories. This means that migrants can easily get stuck; they can neither leave their own country nor go back to their homes. They become internally displaced.

You’ll examine the so-called right to remain, its consequences, and whether the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement are effective in addressing the problems faced by Internally Displaced Persons.

Learn about the role law plays in protecting climate migrants

Climate change and environmental disasters are causing displacement of people all over the world. Where climate migrants do manage to cross borders, they will not be granted refugee status because they don’t fit the Refugee Convention’s definition of a refugee. You’ll consider whether there is a need for a treaty for climate migrants, or whether law is not the answer.

Assess the universality of human rights for undocumented migrants

With so few legal routes to migration available for those fleeing violence, civil war and persecution etc, migrants are forced to cross borders by covert means and they will not be legally present in their host country. You will examine the vulnerability of undocumented migrants and assess the extent to which human rights law is an effective tool to protect them.