Research Network on Forced Displacement Seminar Series – “Legal Responses to Refugee Protection Challenges”

Wednesday 17th May, 4:00-5:00pm
Newcastle Law School Seminar Room 5 (next to Reception)

Research Network on Forced Displacement Seminar Series – “Legal Responses to Refugee Protection Challenges”

This seminar will present some of the research currently taking place at Newcastle Law School in the field of international refugee and human rights law. Some questions for discussion include: What are the rights of asylum-seekers arriving into Europe? Do refugees have the right to choose their country of asylum? Does fleeing from economic deprivation make someone an “economic migrant” and therefore not entitled to the protection of the law? Do unlawfully present aliens have no rights? How do jurisdictional issues affect States’ obligations in cases of interception at sea, international zones, borders (including physical borders -fences)?

Convenors:

Dr María-Teresa Gil-Bazo, Senior Lecturer in Law, Senior Research Associate at the Refugee Law Initiative (School of Advanced Studies, University of London), External Expert to the EU Asylum Agency (EASO), and Fellow of the European Law Institute (Vienna). Prior to coming to Newcastle University in 2007, María-Teresa was Lecturer in International Human Rights and Refugee Law at Oxford University (2004-2007), where she was also Director of its International Summer School in Forced Migration (2009-2010). Between 1999 and 2004, she worked in Brussels during the first stage of the Common European Asylum System.

Christel Querton, PhD Student (NBDTP Award) on “Gender, Generalised Violence and Refugees: The International Protection of Women and Girls fleeing Armed Conflict in the European Union”. Christel was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 2013 (Middle Temple) and is barrister at Lamb Building specialising in asylum, immigration and human rights law. She is also a Trustee of the Asylum Research Consultancy Foundation and a member of the Women’s Project Advisory Committee at Asylum Aid. She was previously employed at Asylum Aid and Wilson Solicitors LLP.