Susan Harris Rimmer on Why Refugee Law is Difficult … Even Without the Politics

What is ‘forced people movement’, or ‘mixed flow migration’ – and where do refugees fit? We use many terms for those people who feel compelled to leave their home country and relocate.

Forced migration has many different legal components: refugees, internally displaced persons, development-induced displacement, people smuggling, people trafficking and asylum seekers.

Dr Susan Harris Rimmer tries to place the hot-button domestic issue of people smuggling into the broader context of forced displacement, and what international law actually says – which is often precious little.

She clarifies the conceptual and legal differences, and similarities, between these phenomena, and will analyse them in the light of recent developments at the domestic, regional and international law, as well as law enforcement levels.

–

Sometimes there’s nothing better than a good rant. Every Thursday, the Wheeler Centre hosts an old-fashioned Speakers’ Corner in the middle of the city, where writers and thinkers can have their say on the topics that won’t let them sleep at night.

Featuring some of our most compelling voices across just about every sector of human endeavour you can imagine, the themes dominating Lunchbox/Soapbox are proudly idiosyncratic. BYO lunch. Ideas provided.