Weekend Courses at the Refugee Studies Centre in Oxford. A. The Law of Refugee Status, 20 – 21 May 2006
This comprehensive workshop on the scope of the refugee definition gives participants the opportunity, through a mix of lecture and working group exercises, to grapple with difficult issues of application of the legal norms in the context of factual scenarios based on actual refugee claims. The workshop commences with a discussion of the differences between various conceptions of refugees as commonly conceived, and the more constrained notion of refugee status incorporated in the Refugee Convention. It proceeds to examine the historical backdrop to the modern refugee definition, then looks at the five key elements of the Convention definition of refugee status: 1) alienage; 2) genuine risk; 3) serious harm for which the state is accountable; 4) nexus to civil or political status; and 5) need for, and appropriateness of, international protection. Questions to be addressed include the standard of proof in refugee claims; the use of international human rights law to inform re
fugee determination; the extent of a state’s duty to protect its citizens; the violation of socio-economic human rights as the basis for a refugee claim; and the determination of claims grounded in generalised circumstances.
B. Palestinian Refugees and The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 3 – 4 June 2006
This two-day workshop places the Palestinian refugee case study within the broader context of the international human rights regime. It examines, within a human rights framework, the policies and practices of Middle Eastern states as they impinge upon Palestinian refugees. Through a mix of lectures, working group exercises and interactive sessions, participants engage actively and critically with the contemporary debates in the human rights movement and analyse the specific context of Palestinian refugees in the Middle East (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza and Israel) in light of the debates. The workshop commences with the background of the Palestinian refugee crisis, with special attention to the socio-political context and legal status of Palestinian refugees in the region. This is followed by a careful examination of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights including its philosophical underpinnings. The key themes, which have taken centre stage in the d
ebate on the Palestinian refugee crisis, are statelessness, right of return, repatriation, self-determination, restitution compensation and protection. These themes are critically examined along with current discussions about the respective roles of UNRWA, UNHCR and the UNCCP in the Palestinian refugee case.
For registration forms, contact: Dominique Attala, MSc Course Co-ordinator Refugee Studies Centre,Email: rscmst@qeh.ox.ac.uk, http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk