LAW 831 - Refugee and Asylum Law

3 credit(s) Irregularly

This course will provide an overview of refugee and asylum law from an international, comparative, and domestic perspective. It will begin with an introduction to the history and theory of refugee protection in international law, reviewing the development of international legal protections for refugees from World War I to the present. The focus of the course will then shift to U.S. refugee law, exploring how the Constitution, treaties, statutes, federal regulations, and federal and administrative case law interact to define, protect, and exclude refugees and other categories of protected migrants. Topics for discussion will include the nature of U.S. legal protections for refugees, the (a)symmetry between U.S. legal standards and international standards, the evolving grounds of persecution in federal jurisprudence, the administrative process through which asylum claims are adjudicated, the evidentiary difficulties in determining refugee status, and the ongoing debates about resettlement and other forms of protection for asylum seekers. The course will also explore the limits of refugee protection under U.S. law, including domestic extradition and extraordinary rendition practices, as well as the availability of temporary protected status for victims of human trafficking and violent crime.