Regional Approaches to the Protection of Asylum Seekers ― An International Legal Perspective

This book presents a comprehensive assessment of regional responses to the crisis in the asylum/refugee system and critically examines how different regions tackle the problem. The chapters consider the fundamental challenges which undermine an effective asylum process as well as regional difficulties with the various circumstances surrounding asylum seekers. With contributions on Africa, Europe, Latin America, South Asia and the Middle East, and the Pacific, the collection strives to appreciate what informs each regiona€?s approach to the asylum process and asks if there are issues common to every region and if regions can learn from one another. The book seeks an understanding of the existing legal regime for the protection of asylum seekers and how regional institutions such as human rights commissions and regional courts enforce and adjudicate the law. The volume will be valuable to those interested in international law, migration and human rights.

Ademola Abass is Head of Peace & Security Programme & Research Fellow at the United Nations University Institute for Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS), Belgium. Professor Abass researches broadly in public international law and peace and security, and was the African Union's first Expert on Regional Mechanisms. He has served as a consultant to European Commission and various the UN agencies. Professor Abass has taught at several British universities and currently teaches peace and security at Kinga€?s College, London, and is a visiting professor of International Law at the University of Leuven, Belgium and the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He is a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, a Fellow of Cambridge Commonwealth, and a member of the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS). Francesca Ippolito JD (Bologna), PhD (Milan) is currently Assistant Professor of International Law and the European Union at the University of Cagliari, Italy. She served as Consultant in European Union Law at the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Rome and she is currently the project leader of two international research projects on Cooperation Agreements in the Mediterranean and on asylum seekers in Mare Nostrum: a French and Italian appraisal of judicial practice. She was chosen to be a member of the Research Center of the Hague Academy of International Law on International Migrations in 2010 (directors G. Goodwin-Gill and P. Weckel) and has been Visiting Fellow at the School of Law, University of Glasgow as well as Visiting Professor in European Union law in France at the University Montesquieu-Bordeaux IV. Dr. Ippolito has written extensively in the area of EU migration and asylum law and non-discrimination.