In Search of Home: Refugees, Immigrants and Asylum Seekers

The world of international refugee and asylum law is complex and confusing. We see commentary in our news and all around us about immigration, refugees, illegal versus legal migration, asylum seekers etc, but it can be confusing to understand what in the world it all means. This course aims to make clear the definitions of terms, outline the complex laws and to provide an understandable framework from which critical thinkers can examine the world of displaced persons and their options. 

This course will begin in the first weeks with the basics of providing clear definitions and a framework for understanding international refugee and asylum law. Terms will be defined, an understanding of the treaty laws, agreements and obligations of the United Nations and countries around the globe will be provided.  

But, this course aims to go further, moving on to provide situational awareness for critical thinking and examination of the challenges of international immigration. The class will move to begin to understand why people leave their homeland and what their options are. Poverty, instability, environmental challenges and more will be discussed as learners consider the options of displaced persons and the legal ramifications of the situation. 

The challenges of how to tackle the problem from the UN agencies tasked with refugee and asylum will be considered as logistics, health and sanitation conditions, funding and political will challenges abound. 

Learners will be challenged in class to examine this area of international law from various perspectives including displaced persons, governments, refugee aid workers, neighboring countries etc.  

The medium of learning will include lectures, analysis of video, audio and primary source documents, discussion debate and project based learning. Learners will have regular readings, occasional short exercises and two projects to complete over the course of 10 weeks (the first project due in week 5 and the second to be presented at the final class in week 10).