New Resources on Statelessness

The latest issue of The Researcher (vol. 4, no. 3, Oct. 2009) leads with an article entitled "Statelessness: An Overview of the Legal Issues." It provides a general overview of the issue, and ends with a discussion of the types of statelessness cases that could arise in Ireland.

Also newly available is "Protection of Stateless Persons in International Asylum and Refugee Law," an advance access article that will eventually be published in an upcoming issue of the International Journal of Refugee Law (IJRL).

This interactive map profiles various stateless populations and their locations. (Check out the other posts provided by the "Stateless to Statehood" project.)

Finally, the Open Society Institute (OSI) recently launched a campaign on statelessness to raise awareness and advocate for change.

[Photo credit: UNHCR/L. Gibbons]

Tagged Publications and Web Sites/Tools.

Publications: Detention Alternatives, Palestinian Displacement, Sexual Orientation, Sri Lankans at Sea, Unacc. Minors/France

IDC/UNHCR Alternative to Detention EXCOM meeting notes (International Detention Coalition, Sept. 2009) [access]
- Includes Powerpoint presentation as well.

Life on the Edge: The struggle to survive and the impact of forced displacement in high risk areas of the occupied Palestinian territory (Save the Children, Oct. 2009) [text]

Lost in Transit: Insufficient Protection for Unaccompanied Migrant Children at Roissy Charles de Gaulle Airport (Human Rights Watch, Oct. 2009) [text]

Refugees on the High Seas (IntLawGrrls, Oct. 2009) [text]

Selected Documents Relating to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Relevant to International Refugee Protection (UNHCR, Oct. 2009) [text]

Tagged Publications.

Legal Items on SSRN

The following are legal-related working papers or journal article eprints posted on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). The aim of the network is to promote the early and rapid dissemination of social science research results. Interested authors can read more on how to submit a paper to SSRN. In addition, many academic libraries have designed specific submission forms to make it easier for faculty to post their research (see, e.g., this FAQ from Georgetown Law).

Asylum-Seeking Families in Current Legal Discourse: A UK Perspective (posted Sept. 2009) [preprint]

Bringing International Law to Bear on the Detention of Refugees and Conditions of Detention in the United States (posted Sept. 2009) [text]

Patrolling the Borders of Sexual Orientation: Bisexual Refugee Claims in Canada (posted Sept. 2009) [text]

Reconceiving Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons as Transitional Justice Actors (posted Oct. 2009) [text]

Transnational Judicial Dialogue, Harmonization and the Common European Asylum System (posted Sept. 2009) [text]

Tagged Publications.

Publications: AU IDP Convention, Colombian Conflict/Ecuador, Pakistan, Self-Study/Resettlement, UNHCR Report

Conflict Beyond Borders: Humanitarian Impact of the Colombian Conflict in Ecuador (IDMC, Oct. 2009) [text via Refworld]

Pakistan: Protect People First (Refugees International, Oct. 2009) [text]

Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UN Doc. No. A/64/12 (UN General Assembly, 2009) [text via UN Pulse]

Self-Study Module: Resettlement Learning Programme (UNHCR, Oct. 2009) [text]

More Reporting on the New African Union IDP Convention:

• African IDP convention fills a void in humanitarian law (IRIN, Oct. 2009) [text]
• African Union Recognizes Environmental Displacement in New Groundbreaking Convention (Towards Recognition, Oct. 2009) [text]
• The Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons (Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, Oct. 2009) [text]
  
• IDP convention: now the hard work begins (IRIN, Oct. 2009) [text]
• New African Union Convention Protects Internally Displaced People (World Bridge: RI's Blog, Oct. 2009) [text]

Tagged Publications.

New Issues of Citizen. Studies, CoRMSA Newsl., EJIL, JSAA, Refuge/JRS Europe

Citizenship Studies, vol. 13, no. 5 (2009) [contents]
- Theme is "Realignments of Citizenship."

CoRMSA Newsletter, no. 15 (Oct. 2009) [full-text]
- From the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa.

European Journal of International Law, vol. 20, no. 3 (2009) [full-text]
- Anniversary issue; includes article on R2P, with four responses.

Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, vol. 28, no. 2 (2009) [open access full-text]
- Theme of this issue is "The Politics of Refugees in and outside Burma/Myanmar."

The Refuge, vol. 7, no. 7 (Nov. 2009) [full-text]
- From JRS Europe; includes an article on medical assistance for destitute persons.

Tagged Periodicals.

EU Anti-Trafficking Efforts

The Third EU Anti-Trafficking Day was commemorated 18 October 2009. An EU Ministerial Conference took place in Brussels on 19-20 October 2009 to coincide with the day. The theme was "Towards EU Global Action against Trafficking in Human Beings." Here's the programme and list of participants. You can listen to various speeches or read some of the contributions:

• Anti-trafficking day 2009 - NGOs call for human rights to be at the centre of the ministerial conference in Brussels (Amnesty International EU et al., Oct. 2009) [text]
• GAATW and LSI Background Paper for the EU Ministerial Conference (Global Alliance against Traffic in Women & La Strada International, Oct. 2009) [text]
• Human Trafficking and Refugee Protection: UNHCR's Perspective (UNHCR, Sept. 2009) [text]

Also held was a panel discussion that focused on "A Comprehensive Multidisciplinary Approach towards Trafficking in Human Beings: Active cooperation among countries of origin, transit and destination." Speeches and a final report should be made available in the near future.

Tagged Events & Opportunities and Publications.

Texts of New IDP Instruments

The actual text of the "African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (Kampala Convention)" is now available on the African Union's home page, in Word format. Also posted is the "Draft Kampala Declaration on Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons in Africa."

In addition, Refworld and ReliefWeb have added the Convention text to their collections, the former in PDF, the latter in HTML.

Tagged Publications.

Focus on Europe

The following resources provide an update on asylum developments in the European context:

Asylum Levels and Trends in Industrialized Countries First Half 2009: Statistical overview of asylum applications lodged in Europe and selected non-European countries (UNHCR, Oct. 2009) [text]

Atlas des migrants en Europe: Géographie critique des politiques migratoires (MIGREUROP, Sept. 2009) [info]
- "L’objectif de cet atlas est de donner à voir, à travers l’organisation spatiale des frontières migratoires de l’Union européenne, l’impact humain du renforcement des contrôles migratoires: non seulement à travers les conditions de vie des étrangers bloqués aux frontières ou vivant dans ces territoires aux marges de l’existence que sont les jungles du Calaisis en France ou les tranquilos de la région d’Oujda au Maroc, mais aussi dans l’accès des demandeurs d’asile au statut de réfugié, dans la protection des mineurs isolés ou dans les déplacements de celles et ceux qui souhaitent tout simplement rendre visite à des parents ou amis en Europe."

The Common European Asylum System: Future Challenges and Opportunities, Stockholm, 3-4 November 2009 [info]
- The aim of the meeting is to "discuss selected problems such as access to asylum and the establishment of protection-sensitive border management, as well as the quality of asylum and harmonization of asylum practice. The expected outcome of the conference is to agree on a number of recommendations and proposals for the next steps of a future Common European Asylum System."

European Migration Law (Intersentia, Aug. 2009) [info]
- "This book brings together in one context the European and international legal regimes on migration as applicable to the territories of the Member States of the European Union." Part III focuses on forced migration, with chapters on international refugee protection, asylum protection under the ECHR, the Common EU Asylum System, and victims of human trafficking.

Migration Policy is All at Sea and Needs to Change (European Voice, Oct. 2009) [text]

A Single and Fairer Asylum Procedure for a Uniform Status in the EU: Putting in Place the Final Building Blocks for International Protection (European Commission, Oct. 2009) [text]
- See also related Q&A.

For more information:

• ECRE's Weekly Bulletins
• Statewatch's Observatory on EU Asylum and Immigration Policy
• UNHCR's European Union Asylum Law & Policy

[Map credit: UNHCR]

Tagged Events & Opportunities and Publications.

Publications: Deport./Greece, Human Traff./UK, Remittances/Africa, Resettled Youth/US, Sahrawi Refugees/Algeria, Unacc. Minors/Africa, UNHCR & Climate

Group Rights and International Law: Case Study of the Sahrawi Refugees in Algeria (University Center for Legal Studies & the Moroccan American Center for Policy, Sept. 2009) [text via Refugee Research Network]

Life in the Promised Land: Resettled Refugee Youth Struggle in the U.S. (Women's Refugee Commission, Oct. 2009) [text]

Out the Back Door: The Dublin II Regulation and illegal deportations from Greece (NOAS, et al., Oct. 2009) [text via Statewatch]

Sending Money Home to Africa: Remittance markets, enabling environment and prospects (IFAD, Oct. 2009) [text via IntLawGrrls]

"Unaccompanied minor refugees and the protection of their socio-economic rights under human rights law," African Human Rights Law Journal, vol. 9, no. 1 (2009) [embargoed text]
- Note: See thesis upon which article is based.

UNHCR and Climate Change: Involvement, Challenges and Response (UNHCR, Oct. 2009) [text]

Update to the UK Action Plan on Tackling Human Trafficking (Home Office & Scottish Government, Oct. 2009) [text]

[Photo credit: "Going to Work," Refugees from Western Sahara, Danielle Van Brunt Smith]

Tagged Publications.

African IDP Convention

(updated)

The Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa was signed today by 17 countries. It will enter into force after ratification by 15 African Union members states, making it the first legally-binding instrument to focus on the rights of populations displaced within their own countries.

For more information, see:

An African Solution to Internal Displacement: AU Leaders Agree to Landmark Convention (Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement) [text]

African Union adopts major convention to protect and assist the internally displaced (UNHCR) [text]

African Union adopts treaty on internal refugees (Reuters) [text]

Intervention by Under-Secretary-General and Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes to the Assembly of Heads of State and Government at the AU Special Summit on Refugees, Returnees and IDPs in Africa (OCHA) [text]

Member states sign AU convention for the protection and assistance of internally displaced persons (African Press Commission) [text]

NRC and IDMC welcome African Union convention on IDPs (IDMC) [text]

Recommendations of the Civil Society Meeting on African Union mechanisms and the Protection
of Refugee, IDP and Citizenship Rights (International Refugee Rights Initiative) [text]

Root causes and prevention of internal displacement: the ICRC perspective - Statement by Jakob Kellenberger, President of the ICRC (ICRC) [text]

Tagged Events & Opportunities and Publications.

Open Access Week: Creative Commons Licensing

Open Access Week ends today. This last post focuses on Creative Commons licenses. Authors can use these tools to help them more explicitly indicate how their work can be used and shared. Specifically, "[w]ith a Creative Commons license, you keep your copyright but allow people to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit — and only on the conditions you specify... ." Simply follow the instructions provided on the "Choose a License" page. You will then be provided some HTML code to insert on your web site or you can include a link in your document to the relevant license.

The Creative Commons web site also points users to search engines that will limit their searches to resources that, in theory at least, have CC licenses.

Here are examples of various works with CC licenses (scroll to the bottom of the page to view the license):

• Blog: The Road to the Horizon [access]
• PDF document: How to find Creative Commons materials using Google [access]
  
• Photos: Flickr [access]
• Web site: Feinstein International Center [access]
• Wiki: RefugeeMap: A Wiki for Refugee Resources [access]

Finally, Google announced that authors can now distribute their CC-licensed books via Google Books. While there is not yet an option to limit one's search just to books with CC licenses, this feature should become available in the future.

Tagged Web Sites/Tools.

Update on AU Summit/IDP Convention

(updated)

Africa: Praise for convention to protect Africa’s IDPs (IDMC, 22 Oct. 2009) [text]

Africa: Talking about Forced Displacement (IRIN, 22 Oct. 2009) [text]

African Union set to adopt groundbreaking Convention on the internally displaced (UNHCR, 22 Oct. 2009) [text]

AU set to endorse landmark treaty to protect continent's displaced millions (AlertNet, 20 Oct. 2009) [text]

Challenge seen in ensuring Africa respects pact on displaced-ICRC (AlertNet, 22 Oct. 2009) [text]

Executive Council recommends adoption of the draft Convention and of the Kampala Declaration on Forced Displacement (African Press Organization, 21 Oct. 2009) [text]

Few heads of state to witness Africa's historic moment on IDP rights (AlertNet, 22 Oct. 2009) [text]

ICRC supports African Union initiative to address challenges of internal displacement (ICRC, 21 Oct. 2009) [text]

IOM Director General welcomes steps towards convention on internal displacement in Africa (ReliefWeb, 22 Oct. 2009) [text]

New African convention for internally displaced (UN, 22 Oct. 2009) [text via HREA]

Statement of Mr. António Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, African Union Special Summit of Heads of State and Government on Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons in Africa, Kampala, Uganda (UNHCR, 22 Oct. 2009 [text]

Transitional Justice is key to addressing the challenge of mass displacement in Africa (Refugee Law Project, 18 Oct. 2009) [text]

Visit the African Union web site for more statements.

Tagged Events & Opportunities and Publications.

Open Access Week: Self-Archiving Case Study

Oxford University Press' self-archiving policy is spelled out here. Basically, it allows the deposit of postprints (defined as "the final draft author manuscript, as accepted for publication, including modifications based on referees' suggestions but before it has undergone copyediting and proof correction") in institutional repositories 24 months after its online publication in the journal. OUP also allows an article preprint (defined as the "un-refereed author version of the article") to be uploaded online.

I undertook a very quick and very limited look at Journal of Refugee Studies (JRS) articles published in 2008 and 2009 to see how many pre- or postprint versions had been archived. Of the 41 articles I looked for, I only located one preprint, which was uploaded to the SSRN service. (See Millbank and Berg 2009.) (I also found a working paper and a thesis upon which two articles were based, but did not count these.)

While my sample size was quite small, I was still surprised that so few JRS article eprints were available. Particularly since most of the authors of these articles are based in academic institutions, and most of those institutions have established institutional repositories. I was able to confirm this by checking OpenDOAR.

Since OUP allows self-archiving, authors should not be worried about violating copyright. Moreover, given the fact that so many academic institutions have established repositories, authors can rest assured that they have the support and encouragement of their employers to make their research more widely available.

For more information, please read "Benefits of Open Access for Research Dissemination."

Tagged Events & Opportunities and Web Sites/Tools.

Open Access Week: Scholarly Journals and Self-Archiving

As noted in my first post this week, the open access movement was spawned in large part as a reaction to increasing subscription costs to scholarly journals. The high prices were seen as leading to less access to research over time, particularly in developing countries. One solution has been to create new vehicles for disseminating research results (e.g., OA journals). But what can authors do to provide access to their research when so much of it continues to be published in subscription-based journals?

One option is for authors to use the RoMEO service, provided by SHERPA, to learn what a publisher's policy is regarding the deposit of their journal articles in OA repositories. RoMEO assigns colors to each publisher to summarize their archiving policies:

• green = "can archive pre-print and post-print or publisher's version/PDF"
• blue = "can archive post-print (ie final draft post-refereeing) or publisher's version/PDF"
• yellow = "can archive pre-print (ie pre-refereeing)"
• white = "archiving not formally supported"

According to eprints, over 90% of journals allow some form of self-archiving. This means that authors can proceed with depositing some version of their articles without fear that they are violating copyright. And as this article reports, "Self archiving is not a very time-consuming investment for the user... – about 10 minutes per paper, or just over a half-hour for a year’s total research output." In the end, it's a win-win: users gain access to important research, authors disseminate their studies more widely.

For more information, see the Self-Archiving FAQ.

Another option for authors is to pay a fee for readers to have open access to their articles through the subscription journals themselves. As this table indicates, the access fees per article can be substantial. Generally, though, they are paid for by an author's employer or a funding body. The Journal of Refugee Studies (JRS) is one of the journals included in Oxford University Press' (OUP) "Oxford Open" programme. However, looking through titles published in the 2000s, only one author appears to have participated.

As a quick reference for forced migration authors, I have put together a table that lists commercial journals important to the forced migration field, their subscription rates, cost of a single article, free content that they offer, their RoMEO color, and paid access options, if offered.

Tagged Periodicals and Web Sites/Tools.

Publications: Child Trafficking/Asia, Exclusion Clauses, Iraqi Refugees/US, Livelihoods Case Study/Jordan, Sudanese Women & Rape/Chad

Developing a Livelihoods Assessment and Strategy: Case Study from UNHCR Jordan (UNHCR, Oct. 2009) [text]

“Exchanging Rapists - The Rape of Sudanese Women in Chadian Refugee Camps: Who should be Held Responsible under International Law?” Gonzaga Journal of International Law, vol. 12, no. 2, 2008-2009 [text]

Refugee Crisis in America: Iraqis and their Resettlement Experience (Georgetown Law School, Oct. 2009) [text via ImmigrationProf Blog]

Reversing the Trend: Child Trafficking in East and South-East Asia (UNICEF, Aug. 2009) [text]

Revised Note on the Applicability of Article 1D of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees to Palestinian Refugees (UNHCR, Oct. 2009) [text]

UNHCR Revised Statement on Article 1D of the 1951 Convention: Issued in the context of the preliminary ruling reference to the Court of Justice of the European Communities from the Budapest Municipal Court regarding the interpretation of Article 12(1)(a) of the Qualification Directive (UNHCR, Oct. 2009) [text]

Tagged Publications.

Open Access Week: Archives/Repositories

(revised)

Open access archives or repositories normally house preprints, conference papers, theses, and other research publications that may or may not be peer-reviewed. Forced Migration Online (FMO) recently received funding to develop an Open Access Repository System (OARS) and migrate its information resources to an open source platform. This has made its grey literature digital library more interoperable with other open systems, including the Oxford University Research Archive. The Refugee Research Network is part of York University's YorkSpace Institutional Repository, which "enables York community members to post, organize and preserve their research online in an institutional context."

Other examples of open access repositories are listed in the Open Access Directory (OAD) and openDOAR. The latter resource also allows users to search the contents of repositories listed in the openDOAR directory.

What other OA repositories exist in the forced migration field? While there are plenty of collections that provide access to full-text materials at no cost, most retain permission barriers of some kind or at least do not explicitly indicate what uses are allowed.

Here is a listing of various full-text collections for which no price barriers exist ("gratis OA"); where available, a link is included to copyright notices or terms & conditions for using the resource. In addition, all of these collections are open in the sense that they house materials that can be found via web search engines ("closed" collections house materials that can only be retrieved by searching the individual source database).

Child Trafficking Digital Library [access]
- Research studies and other materials relating to the human trafficking of children.
- See disclaimer.

ecoi.net [access]
- Country of origin information.
- See copyright notice.

Evaluative Reports Database [access]
- Humanitarian action evaluations and lessons-learned reports.

New Issues in Refugee Research [access]
- Working paper series that publishes preliminary research results.

Refworld [access]
- Country of origin information, policy documents, legal texts.
- See copyright notice.

ReliefWeb [access]
- Humanitarian-related situation and field reports, manuals, policy papers, and research studies.
- See terms and conditions.

Researching Asylum in London [access]
- Research reports on issues relating to the situation of refugees and asylum seekers in London.

Finally, while Google Scholar is not an OA repository, it is doing its part to more clearly identify OA research articles that appear in its search results by including a green arrow ( ► ) next to a title. For more information, check out "Now We Know What's Open."

Tagged Web Sites/Tools.

New Issues of Conflict Tr., DIP, JEMS, J. of Intl. Peace., Mig. Lett., Women's Asylum News

Conflict Trends, no. 2009/3 [full-text]
- Mix of articles.

Development in Practice, vol. 19, no. 8 (2009) [contents]
- Theme is "Active Citizenship and Social Accountability."

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, vol. 36, no.1 (2010) [contents]
- Mix of articles.

Journal of International Peacekeeping, vol. 13, nos. 3/4 (Sept. 2009) [contents]
- Mix of articles.

Migration Letters, vol. 6, no. 2 (Oct. 2009) [contents]
- Special issue on "Biographical Methods in Migration Research."

Women's Asylum News, no. 87 (Oct. 2009) [full-text via Refworld]
- Lead article summarizes new research report on "Asylum Seeking Women, Violence and Health."

Tagged Periodicals.

Open Access Week: Journals

Which forced migration journals meet the actual "open access" definition? While many are freely available online, they are not necessarily free of copyright restrictions. Refuge is a case in point. While no current issues are online, it has posted all back issues for which it still retains copyright. This is no doubt the case for many other forced migration materials that are online. To distinguish between these two categories, OA expert Peter Suber has come up with two descriptors - gratis vs. libre - which he defines as follows:

"Gratis OA removes price barriers but not permission barriers. It makes content free of charge but not free of copyright or licensing restrictions. It gives users no-fee access for reading but no more reuse rights than they already had through fair use or the local equivalent. ...By contrast, libre OA removes price barriers and at least some permission barriers. It lifts at least some copyright and licensing restrictions and permits at least some uses beyond fair use. "

This title is an open access journal in both price and permission senses of the term:

• Conflict and Health [access]

This journal title is libre OA:

• Forced Migration Review [access]

These journal titles are gratis OA (freely available online, but still copyrighted):

• Humanitarian Exchange [access]
• Journal of Humanitarian Assistance [access]
  
• Refuge: Canada's Periodical on Refugees [access]

These journal titles are gratis OA but access is delayed:

• International Review of the Red Cross [access]
• Intervention: International Journal of Mental Health, Psychosocial Work and Counselling in Areas of Armed Conflict [access]
  

These journal titles are copyright-restricted, but back issues are available online through FMO:

• Disasters
• International Journal of Refugee Law
• International Migration Review
• Journal of Refugee Studies

Tagged Periodicals.

Open Access Week

What is Open Access Week?
The aim of Open Access Week is to promote greater awareness and understanding of the importance of free and unfettered access to research and information.

What is "open access"?
Open access literature is defined as "digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions" (Suber 2008). One particular target of the open access movement has been peer-reviewed research that is usually reported in scholarly journals. Subscription costs and copyright restrictions have meant that those with the most to gain are effectively excluded from accessing the knowledge disseminated in these publications.

To overcome these restrictions, two types of delivery mechanisms have been developed to facilitate greater access to research literature: open access journals and open access archives or repositories. A variety of resources have been developed to make it easier to locate both of these literature types. For example, this listing from the British Columbia Electronic Library Network compiles peer-reviewed scholarly journal collections and freely available serials. And openDOAR serves as a searchable directory of open access repositories.

For more information about open access generally, read Peter Suber's "A Very Brief Introduction to Open Access" (available in multiple languages) or his longer "Open Access Overview." Another great resource is the Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook (OASIS), which covers the "concept, principles, advantages, approaches and means to achieving" open access.

This week, I will focus on different OA issues from a forced migration perspective, and showcase a variety of OA resources.

Tagged Events & Opportunities.

Anticipating the African Union IDP Convention

(updated)

The African Union Special Summit on Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons in Africa begins today and runs through the 23rd. The theme is "Addressing the Challenge of Forced Displacement in Africa." The anticipated outcome of the meeting, as the Information Note for the summit points out, is that "African Heads of State and Government are expected to also adopt the African Convention on the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa, the first ever such Convention in the world."

These articles shed some additional light and comment on the summit and what it hopes to accomplish:

1. Africa: Shining the spotlight on the displaced (IRIN, Oct. 2009) [text]
- Includes links to: "The Objectives of the Convention," Africa's IDP Situation at a Glance," and "Africa's IDPs in Numbers."

2. The African Union IDPs Convention (IDP Action, Oct. 2009) [text]

3. Kampala special summit: The first ever convention for the protection and assistance of internally displaced persons in Africa (African Union, Oct. 2009) [text]

These resources provide more information on displacement in Africa:

Africa's Internally Displaced People (AlertNet) [access]
African Union Summit (UNHCR) [access]
Internal Displacement in Africa (IDMC) [access]
Regional Operations Profile: Africa (UNHCR) [access]
World Refugee Survey (USCRI) [access]

Press releases re. the opening of the summit:

Executive council starts deliberations on adopting important instrument to deal with challenges of forced displacement [text]

Ministers meet in Kampala ahead of African Union summit on displaced people [text]

[Map credit: UNHCR]

Tagged Events & Opportunities and Publications.

Publications: Climate Change & Conflict, Human Trafficking, Refused Asylum Seekers/UK, Water Related Migration

A brief history of climate change and conflict (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Aug. 2009) [text]

Forced inactivity and barriers to participation among refused asylum seekers, Briefing Paper no. 12 (PAFRAS, Sept. 2009) [text via ICAR]

The International Framework for Action to Implement the Trafficking in Persons Protocol (UNODC, Oct. 2009) [text]

Trafficking in Persons: Analysis on Europe (UNODC, Oct. 2009) [access]

Water Related Migration, Changing Land Use and Human Settlements (UNW-DPC, Sept. 2009) [text]

[Map credit: International Alert; HT to Humanitarian Relief]

Tagged Publications.

Publications: DRC Evaluation, EXCOM Report, Indian Diaspora, Livelihoods Projects, Protection Labels

Emigration, Immigration, and Diaspora Relations in India (Migration Information Source, Oct. 2009) [text]
- Includes sub-sections on refugees and asylum-seekers.

An independent evaluation of Concern Worldwide’s emergency response in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo: Responding to displacement with vouchers and fairs (HPG, Oct. 2009) [text]

Livelihoods Success Stories (UNHCR, Oct. 2009) [access]
- UNHCR has made available 16 profiles of successful livelihoods projects implemented in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Georgia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Serbia, and Venezuela.

Realising protection: The uncertain benefits of civilian, refugee and IDP status (HPG, Sept. 2009) [text]

Report of the Executive Committee of the Programme of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Sixtieth session (28 September - 2 October 2009), UN Doc. No. A/AC.96/1078 (UN General Assembly, Oct. 2009) [text]

Tagged Publications.

New Issues of E&RS, Peace & Confl. Rev., RSC News, Surfacing, TWQ

Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 32, no. 9 (2009) [contents]
- Mix of articles, including "First generation decline: downward mobility among refugees and immigrants."

Peace and Conflict Review, vol. 3, no. 2 (Spring 2009) [full-text]
- Mix of articles.

RSC Newsletter, no. 4 (Autumn 2009) [text]
- Feature article is "Protecting Palestinian Children: The Role of the International Community."

Surfacing: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Gender in the Global South, vol. 2, no. 1 (2009) [full-text]
- Focus is on "Gender and Conflict." Includes "Engendering Forced Migration: Victimization, Masculinity and the Forgotten Voice," "Obscuring the Realities of Gender-Based Violence: European Policies on Iraqi Asylum Claims," and "Verbal Abuse: Anti-Trafficking Rhetoric and Violence Against Women."

Third World Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 7 (2009) [contents]
- Mix of articles. See also this offer for free access to selected articles, in honor of the journal's 30th birthday.

Tagged Periodicals.

Protection Conference Papers & Presentations

The Refugee Studies Centre (RSC) and Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) at the Overseas Development Institute recently organized a conference entitled "Protecting People in Conflict and Crisis: Responding to the Challenges of a Changing World." Forced Migration Online (FMO) has made a conference page available with links to keynote papers and podcasts of the opening address and plenary sessions (some are still forthcoming).

I wanted to see if any of the other papers presented at the conference (or related papers that presentations were based on) were online. The results of my searches are listed alphabetically by title of the paper. Check the conference programme and the abstracts for more details about the presentations and authors.

Community Building in the Time of Nargis: What ASEAN Learned through Disaster Management, by Julio S. Amador [text]

Displacement, Statelessness and Questions of Gender Equality under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, by Alice Edwards [text]

Legal and normative frameworks, by Roger Zetter [related article]

Linking Livelihoods and Protection, by Susanne Jaspars [related project]

Livelihoods as a Tool of Protection, by Dale Buscher [related project]

Non-Refoulement and Jus Cogens: Limiting Anti-Terror Measures that Threaten Refugee Protection, by Alice Farmer [text]

Obscuring the realities of gender-based violence: European policies on Iraqi asylum claims, by Mallory Wankel [text]

Opening Address: Humanitarian Space, by Erika Feller [text]

Preparedness support: helping brace beneficiaries, local staff and partners for violence, by Casey Barrs [text]
- See also related post-conference comment.

Protection in Natural Disasters, by Elizabeth Ferris & Diane Paul [text]

The Protection of Stateless Persons in Detention, by Amal de Chickera [text]

Statelessness and the benefits of citizenship, Brad K. Blitz [text]

Survival migration: the case of Zimbabweans in Southern Africa, by Alexander Betts [related paper]

[Photo credit: Refugee Studies Centre]

Tagged Events & Opportunities and Publications.

Things to do in October: IASC Survey, IJRL Article, Political Science Paper

Write a paper on an international topic for the Midwest Political Science Association conference, to be held in Chicago in April 2010.
- "The submission deadline for the call for papers for the 2010 MPSA National Conference has been extended to October 16."

Help review IASC products by taking a survey.
- "Since 1992, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) has issued several policy statements, guidelines, and manuals, which help to set the normative frameworks, common standards and good practice for humanitarian community. The IASC is now reviewing a selection of IASC products to find out: 'Are these products known?', 'Are they used?', 'How can they be made more accessible?'." Please respond by Oct. 23rd.

Submit an article to the International Journal of Refugee Law.
- "December 14, 2010, will mark the 60th birthday of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. In recognition of this anniversary, articles of about 12,000 words (including footnotes), which 'address the position, role, and functions of the organization from a legal perspective," or which treat "any other aspect of the international protection of refugees,' are now being sought for publication in the next volume of IJRL." Deadline for submissions is Oct. 30th.

Tagged Events & Opportunities.

Publications: Climate Change & Protection, IDPs/Philippines, Labour Mig. & Durable Solutions, Standing Comm. Rpt., Trafficked Persons & Protection

Cycle of Conflict and Neglect: Mindanao's Displacement and Protection Crisis (IDMC, Oct. 2009) [text]

Extending protection? Labour migration and durable solutions for refugees, New Issues in Refugee Research, no. 176, (UNHCR, Oct. 2009) [text]

The Identification and Referral of Trafficked Persons to Procedures for Determining International Protection Needs (UNHCR, Oct. 2009) [text]

Looking Ahead: Natural Disasters, Protection and Climate Change (Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, Sept. 2009) [text]

Report of the forty-sixth meeting of the Standing Committee (15-16 September 2009), UN Doc. no. A/AC.96/1074 (UN General Assembly, Sept. 2009) [text]

[IDMC map image]

Tagged Publications.

New Guides: Electronic Resources/Australia, LGB Protection/UK, Protection/South Africa, Resettlement Assistance/US

Asylee Eligibility for Resettlement Assistance: A Short Guide (CLINIC, Sept. 2009) [text]

Asylum and Humanitarian Protection for Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual (LGB) People (Stonewall, Oct. 2009) [text]

Protect Your Rights: A Guide for All in South Africa (Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa, Oct. 2009) [text]

Refugees and asylum seekers: a guide to key electronic resources (Parliamentary Library of Australia, Aug. 2009) [text]


Tagged Publications.

Free Journal Access/New Issues of Env. & Urbaniz., Hum. Exchange, Torture J.

Free access:

SAGE Journals is offering free access to more than 500 of its titles through the month of October. Interested users just need to register.

New Issues:

Environment and Urbanization, vol. 21, no. 2 (Oct. 2009) [contents]
- Issue focus is "Securing land for housing and urban development." Includes the article "Crisis or adaptation? Migration and climate change in a context of high mobility."

Humanitarian Exchange, no. 44 (Sept. 2009) [full-text]
- Features articles addressing the humanitarian crisis in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Torture Journal, vol. 19, no. 2 (2009) [full-text]
- Theme is "Children and Torture."

Tagged Periodicals.

Publications: Child Trafficking, Immigrant Detention, Iraq Displacement, NGOs & Humanitarian Reform, Statelessness

Immigration Detention Overview and Recommendations (Homeland Security, Oct. 2009) [text via NYT]

Iraq's New Reality: The Impact of Conflict on Minorities, Refugees, and the Internally Displaced (Stimson Center, 2009) [text]

The Privatization of Immigration Detention: Towards a Global View (Global Detention Project, Sept. 2009) [text]

Statelessness, protection and equality, Forced Migration Policy Briefing, no. 3 (RSC, Oct. 2009) [text]

Synthesis Report: Review of the engagement of NGOs with the humanitarian reform process (NGOs and Humanitarian Reform Project, Oct. 2009) [text]

Training manual to fight trafficking in children for labour, sexual and other forms of exploitation (ILO, 2009) [access]
- Provided in three parts.

Tagged Publications.

Images: Finding and Using Them

[CC image courtesy of pharaoh.berger on Flickr]

As you may have noticed, I have started to add a few images to posts, to break up the text monopoly in my blog. Initially, I thought I'd include photos, which are used to great effect in blogs like Humanitarian Relief.

I soon discovered that it's quite time-consuming to locate images that relate in some way to a particular post! There are numerous collections housing forced migration and humanitarian photos, and unless you have a very specific idea of what you're looking for, you can while away the hours browsing through them all. So in the end, I decided to use the International Law Reporter blog as a model, at least for now - a journal cover here, a conference poster there... .

That said, if you want to know more about how to locate and use images, read these posts from my other blog on photo-sharing sites and image search engines. You can also browse through photos that have been made available through various Creative Commons licenses (i.e., they can be re-used under certain conditions or with no restrictions at all) through Flickr. And finally, this article discusses how to properly credit a Creative Commons photo.

Tagged Web Sites/Tools.

Publications: Asylum Seekers/France, Good Humanitarian Government, HDR2009, Livelihoods/Uganda, Terrorism & Aid

Human Development Report 2009 - Overcoming barriers: Human mobility and development (UNDP, Oct. 2009) [access]

'Focus On' September 2009: The Calais Asylum Seeker Crisis and the Need to Move On (ICAR, Sept. 2009) [text]

Livelihoods in crisis: a longitudinal study in Pader, Uganda (ODI, Oct. 2009) [text]

"Terrorism and the Aid Industry: A Back to Basics Plan," Journal of Humanitarian Assistance (Oct. 2009) [text]

Towards good humanitarian government: The role of the affected state in disaster response (ODI, Oct. 2009) [text]

Tagged Publications.

Events: Deportation, Durable Solutions, Forced Migration, Human Trafficking, Moot Court

"What We Know and What We Need to Know," First Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking, University of Nebraska - Lincoln, 29-31 October 2009 [info]
- "The purpose of this conference is to bring together researchers from many disciplines, as well as government and non-governmental agencies who have responsibility for anti-trafficking efforts, to develop a research agenda."

10th Annual Harrell-Bond Lecture, "Jan Egeland - Beyond blankets: in search of political deals and durable solutions for the displaced," 18 November 2009 [info]

Deportation and the Development of Citizenship: An International Conference, Refugee Studies Centre & COMPAS, Oxford, 11-12 December 2009 [info]
- "The aim of this conference is to encourage interdisciplinary and comparative scholarship on deportation, broadly conceived as the lawful expulsion power of states, both as an immigration control and as a social control mechanism. The conference will serve as a vehicle for bringing together scholars from a range of disciplines, including politics, sociology, history, international relations, law, criminology and anthropology, interested in the study of deportation."

Journeys and Justice: Forced Migration, Seeking Asylum, and Human Rights, University of Leeds, UK, 29 January 2010 [info]
- Aim of the conference is to "trace forced journeys from insecurity and fear to safety and justice. It will examine journeys without justice or safety and it will debate solutions to the problems of forced migration. It will explore the blurred boundaries between those migrants who are forced to work in conditions akin to slavery and those who migrate because of persecution, have their asylum claims denied, and end up in utterly exploitative and/or illegal working conditions." Conference abstracts must be submitted by 30 October 2009.

Third Annual Asylum and Refugee Law National Moot Court Competition, UC Davis School of Law, 6 February 2010 [info]
- Registration is now open for this event and will continue until 25 November 2009.

Tagged Events & Opportunities.

Statements to the 60th Session of EXCOM

EXCOM ended today. Here is a list of some of the texts that I have been able to track down for statements made during the 60th session:

• 60th Session of the UNHCR Executive Committee: U.S. Government Plenary Statement [text]
• Address by Ms. Navanethem Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, at the 60th session of UNHCR's Executive Committee [text]
• EU statement at the 60th session of the Executive Committee of the Programme of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees [text]
• Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe addresses the Executive Committee of the UN HCR in Geneva [text]
• NGO Statements to UNHCR's Executive Committee [access]
• Opening Statement by Mr. António Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, at the 60th Session of the Executive Committee of the High Commissioner's Programme (ExCom), Geneva, 28 September 2009 [text]
• Statement by Erika Feller, Assistant High Commissioner - Protection, at the 60th Session of the Executive Committee of the High Commissioner's Programme, 30 September 2009 [text]
• Statement by Minister of Home Affairs Dr NC Dlamini Zuma, at the 60th Executive Committee (Excom) of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Geneva [text]
• Statement on Policy Development and Evaluation by Jeff Crisp, Head, Policy Development and Evaluation Service, 60th Session of the UNHCR Executive Committee, 1 October 2009 [text]

Tagged Publications.

EXCOM Side Event, October 2: Xenophobia

The following EXCOM Side Event is scheduled to take place today:

Xenophobia, Hate Crimes and Refugee Protection [info]
- Hosted by Human Rights First and the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA).

Tagged Events & Opportunities.

Publications: Asylum Seekers/Turkey, Humanitarian Reform/Pakistan, Refugees/Thailand, UNHCR/Italy, Violence against Refugee Women/Chad

Missing pieces? Assessing the impact of humanitarian reform in Pakistan (Oxfam, Oct. 2009) [text]

No place for us here: Violence against refugee women in eastern Chad (Amnesty International, Sept. 2009) [text]

Refugee protection and international migration: a review of UNHCR's operational role in southern Italy (UNHCR, Sept. 2009) [text]

Report by Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, following his visit to Turkey on 28 June - 3 July 2009. Issue reviewed: Human rights of asylum seekers and refugees (Council of Europe, Oct. 2009) [text]

Thailand: New Problems Challenge Old Solutions (Refugees International, Sept. 2009) [text]

Tagged Publications.

EXCOM Side Events, October 1: African Union, Environment

Two Executive Committee side events are scheduled to take place today:

The African Union's role in the protection of forcibly displaced persons in Africa: Panel discussion moderated by the Director of the Regional Bureau for Africa, Mr. George Okoth-Obbo [info]

Why Environment Matters in Displacement: "Voices from the Field" - Panel discussion moderated by Mr. John Mitchell, Director of Emergency Response, CARE International [info]

Tagged Events & Opportunities.