International guidelines for durable solutions to displacement highlight the need to protect the rights of the internally displaced wherever they are located. This includes their right to return to their places of origin, based on informed voluntary choice, and in…
The challenges in establishing property rights in any post-conflict Syria will be enormous. The dynamics of the conflict, together with the massive displacement of up to half of the population, have caused Syrians to move and find shelter wherever they…
Since 2015, the military dynamics of the Syrian conflict have shifted in favour of the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Damascus has retaken control of many cities and areas that were previously held by armed opposition groups, with the battle for…
The sun sets over a village in rural Myanmar, where a group of men and women discuss a recent announcement they have seen posted in the distant Township Office. The notice refers to a company’s claims on certain parcels of…
During the 1990s, several thousand refugees fleeing civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone sought protection in the tiny country of the Gambia. Most refugees in the Gambia, however, are from neighbouring Senegal’s Casamance region, where a low-intensity independence conflict…
The New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants of September 2016 is the first United Nations (UN) declaration adopted specifically for refugees and migrants and is therefore a critical agenda-setting document. It includes a clear reaffirmation of the principles of…
In March 2017, Italy became the first European country to legislate a comprehensive framework protecting unaccompanied children. Close to three years after the bill was first introduced, and following concerted advocacy by human rights organisations during the parliamentary process, the…
Indigenous people of the Pacific are increasingly expressing a preference to stay on their lands for cultural and spiritual reasons, even in the face of significant deterioration in health and livelihoods associated with climate change. In some cases, they say…
In Hong Kong it takes years to process asylum claims and during this time asylum seekers are not allowed to work to provide for themselves, and receive little assistance from the state. Compared globally, Hong Kong has the lowest recognition…
Immigration detention is often trivialised in government discourse. In 2012, for example, Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney described Canada’s largest immigration detention centre as “basically a two-star hotel with a small fence around it” where “people have hotel rooms, with…