FID Recht - Menschenrechte / Humanitäres Recht

Trafficked to Scam: From Communicative Entrapment to Evidentiary Blind Spots in Indonesia’s Response to Forced Criminality

2026-09-10T01:04:16+00:00

The Climate Crisis and Human Rights Law: A Plea to Universalise Human Rights in Space and Time

2026-09-09T02:48:41+00:00

Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, Ahead of Print.
The climate crisis, which is part of a broader planetary crisis, has been studied and documented extensively by climate scientists and others. Governance responses are often ‘too little, too late’. In an attempt to speed up these efforts, recourse is more ...

Wholehearted Support for Comments on “A Community-Based Transdisciplinary Research Agenda for Human Trafficking”

2026-09-09T12:37:29+00:00

After the Pact: access to legal support by unaccompanied migrant children in the European Union

2026-08-21T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

Children migrating on their own are in a precarious situation, made even more fragile when they seek international protection without information about the migration process that they can understand, a guardian to protect them, and legal assistance from an attorney. The European Union (EU)’s new Pact on Migration and Asylum, which enters into effect in 2026, has been widely criticized by children’s rights experts for its acceleration and externalization of border procedures and expanded reliance on detention, but the Pact’s new and enhanced legal support provisions for unaccompanied children have yet to receive academic attention. After presenting a data-driven analysis of the daunting challenges that unaccompanied children already faced in regularizing their status in EU Member States before the Pact and emphasizing how the Pact will deepen many of these preexisting migration obstacles, this article investigates how the Pact enlarges legal support for migrant children, including by guaranteeing access to ‘child-friendly’ and ‘good quality’ legal information, introducing more rigorous standards for legal guardians, and ensuring ‘free legal counselling’ in the administrative procedure. By illuminating the legal meaning and practical significance of these interconnected legal services provisions, this article provides a framework for future programme design, advocacy, and research to ensure that unaccompanied children’s rights are not further eroded in the EU’s increasingly restrictive migration system.

Bordering by sleight of hand: rights, race, and the unmaking of Canada’s refugee protection system

2026-08-17T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

This article analyzes the unmaking of Canada’s refugee protection system through a series of asylum reforms introduced between 2020 and 2026. It begins with the Covid-19 border closure in 2020, continues with the implementation of the Additional Protocol to the Safe Third Country Agreement in 2023, and culminates in the enactment of Bill C-12 in 2026. Drawing on an in-depth case study of an asylum seeker who was interviewed for this research, the analysis is anchored in E Tendayi Achiume’s theory of borders as sites of ‘jurisdictional conjuring’, where legal rights and obligations can be made to disappear, as if by magic. The article is structured around the three stages of a magic trick: the pledge, the turn, and the prestige. The pledge sets out the legal framework governing asylum at the Canadian border, focusing on the Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement. The turn examines the effects of Canada’s pandemic-era ‘direct back’ policy, and identifies it as a form of legal sleight of hand that deferred protection, displaced legal responsibility, and obscured the racialized effects of the border closure. The prestige then traces the transformation of these temporary emergency measures into permanent laws and policies through the 2023 Additional Protocol and 2026 reforms enacted through Bill C-12. It foregrounds the racialized dimensions of these measures, to highlight their disparate impact on racialized asylum seekers from the Global South. More broadly, it argues that Canada engaged a legal sleight of hand to evade its legal obligations towards asylum seekers, while simultaneously obscuring the racial consequences of these policies. It concludes by calling for greater scrutiny of the legal fictions that sustain this system, and for renewed commitment to meaningful refugee protection under Canadian law.

Revisiting the temporal and spatial categorisation of ongoing mental harm/trauma within the refugee definition

2026-07-29T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

International law operates on an emergency time model, where the law responds primarily to crisis moments as distinct to systemic, structural processes and underlying contextual dynamics. This model extends to refugee status determination, where decision makers predominantly construct harm within the meaning of ‘being persecuted’ on a linear, episodic, temporal logic that is forward-looking. Whereas future episodes of physical harm lend themselves to this model, mental harms, such as trauma, that are cyclical, slow, and sustained, are less compatible. Contemporary neuroscience conveys how trauma states, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), may develop slowly and extend in time. They can be long-acting, continuum contingent, and even irreversible. Western dualist legal approaches in refugee law typically overlook the sustained temporal arc of mental harm and/or designate it as past harm, in contradistinction to qualifying future harm within the refugee definition. This renders serious mental harm precipitated prior to, and continuing at the time of, refugee status determination invisible to the ‘being persecuted’ standard and leads to exclusionary protection outcomes for the most vulnerable under the Refugee Convention. With a particular focus on contemporary neuroscience and alternative temporal knowledges, this paper explores the slow violence of mental trauma and through a reparative reading of the refugee definition calls for a non-dualist temporal interpretation that renders visible ongoing mental trauma within the refugee definition. It invites scholarship from differing standpoints and disciplines to contribute collaboratively to an ongoing conversation as to the spatial and temporal parameters of harm within refugee status determination.

Case Law Summaries

2026-07-08T00:00:00+00:00

A twist in the tale of Asian exceptionalism: Bangladesh’s ‘near accession’ to the 1951 Refugee Convention

2026-06-11T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

This article contests claims of Asian exceptionalism by examining the unique case of Bangladesh, a principal refugee-hosting State in South Asia, which came close to acceding to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees in 1989. Using a general inductive approach, drawing on materials from the Archives and Records Division at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees headquarters, together with interviews conducted during fieldwork in Bangladesh, the article offers a socio-legal historical examination of the moment when Bangladesh formally decided to accede to the Convention. By framing this episode as a ‘near accession’, the article concludes that the traditional understanding of the Asian rejection of the 1951 Convention remains fluid; some States in the region may view their position in relation to the Convention from a different perspective. Using Bangladesh as the case study, the article identifies three interconnected factors that influenced the overall process of ‘near accession’ to the 1951 Convention: (1) concerted efforts by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to promote accession, premised on the expectation that Bangladesh’s membership would create a persuasive regional precedent; (2) authorities’ quest to acquire domestic and international legitimacy for the military-backed government; and (3) the pivotal roles played by key individuals within both the government and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the accession process. Although this single example cannot provide a complete understanding of non-signatory States’ engagement with the 1951 Convention, the article argues that each case should be investigated with consideration for these three significant components that shape State behaviour. The article also explores how despite the formal decision to accede to the 1951 Convention, the Bangladeshi Government did not follow through with formal accession. To this day, Bangladesh remains a non-signatory State. The empirical study of Bangladesh’s ‘near accession’ challenges the notion of uniformity in South Asia in relation to the 1951 Convention, and thereby provides new insights into our understanding of non-signatory States and, more broadly, into the study of international refugee law.

Andreas Zimmermann, Terje Einarsen (eds) with Franziska M Herrmann, The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol: A Commentary

2026-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

ZimmermannAndreasEinarsenTerje (eds) with HerrmannFranziska M, The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol: A Commentary (Second Edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2024) cliv + 1878 pp, ISBN 978–0–19–285511–4 (hbk)

Petra Molnar, The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

2026-01-20T00:00:00+00:00

MolnarPetra, The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (The New Press, New York, 2024) xix + 277 pp, ISBN 978-1-62097-836-8 (hbk), ISBN 978-1-62097-867-2 (ebk)

Technology, metrics, and coalitions: building an African model for enforcing judgments of the African court

2026-09-04T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

Implementation of regional human rights judgments depends not only on institutional incentives and governance capacity but also on how information is organized, verified, and acted upon. This article develops a governance-and-metrics framework for a technology-enabled platform to strengthen compliance with decisions of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. It sets out remedy-specific benchmarks, indicators, and data-governance rules designed to make postjudgment obligations trackable, contestable, and auditable. It further outlines mechanisms for integrating national human rights institutions, civil society organizations, and state focal points into a structured submissions-and-reply process, creating a ‘compliance coalition’. Building on African Union digital policy and African multi-stakeholder oversight models, as well as on European and Inter-American postjudgment practice, the article shows how transparent digital infrastructure, clear metrics, and participatory processes could move the African Court from sporadic follow-up to systematic, evidence-based supervision.

Epidemiological causation and environmental standing under the ECHR: resolving doctrinal tensions after Cannavacciuolo and KlimaSeniorinnen

2026-09-04T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

On 30 January 2025, a court in Strasbourg did something it had spent 30 years avoiding. Faced with nearly three million people living on poisoned land in southern Italy, the European Court of Human Rights finally called environmental contamination what it is: a threat to life, not merely a disruption of its quality. Cannavacciuolo and Others v Italy moved the Convention’s environmental jurisprudence from Article 8’s balancing scales to Article 2’s firmer ground. But transformation, on closer examination, is incomplete. The judgment leaves its own causation standard unmeasured, its standing doctrine in contradiction with KlimaSeniorinnen, and its reach confined to harms the living can prove today. This article maps those silences precisely. It then proposes two frameworks, a Population Risk Standard for causal attribution and a Unified Three-Tier Standing Doctrine, designed not to extend the judgment beyond recognition, but to make its promise redeemable.

Freedom of religion or belief in the Universal Periodic Review: selective engagement with Article 18 ICCPR

2026-09-04T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

This article examines how freedom of religion or belief (FoRB), protected by Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), is articulated within the Universal Periodic Review during its first three cycles from 2008 to 2022. Drawing on a global dataset of 2256 FoRB-related recommendations coded using a framework derived from Article 18’s internal structure and the Human Rights Committee’s interpretive practice, it analyses thematic framing, action types, and state responses. It finds that engagement with FoRB concentrates around general protection, minority inclusion, non-discrimination, and the promotion of tolerance, and that these recommendations are more often supported. By contrast, recommendations addressing authority-sensitive applications, particularly those involving criminal law or state regulation of collective religious life, are less frequent and more often noted. These patterns reveal a limit of soft-law peer review: it sustains FoRB’s visibility, while Article 18’s more demanding implications are less frequently endorsed.

Exploiting Moroccan Migrant Labor in Agriculture: Illustration of the Continuum from Smuggling to Trafficking

2026-09-04T03:52:28+00:00

Beyond the Bad-Actor Framework: An Ecosystem Perspective on Human Trafficking in Bangladesh

2026-08-31T12:06:57+00:00

Implementing the Assets and Logic Strategic Planning Tool to Address Human Trafficking in a Small Midwestern State

2026-08-30T12:25:35+00:00

The Youth Online Exploitation–Extremism Interface: A Conceptual Framework for Anti-Trafficking Identification and Digital Child Protection

2026-08-28T05:00:59+00:00

Using Academic-Community Partnerships to Address Priority Public Health Topics: A Human Trafficking Intervention in Tennessee

2026-08-28T03:25:41+00:00

Sex Trafficking as a Public Health Crisis: Health System Responses and Gaps for Survivors in Nigeria

2026-08-26T04:12:12+00:00

Characteristics of Youth Who Successfully Complete Intensive Long-Term Services for Commercial Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking

2026-08-25T12:57:02+00:00

Human Trafficking and Lived Experience: Psychological Perspectives on Survivors’ Stories

2026-08-25T01:13:25+00:00

Isolation as a Mechanism of Control: Migrant Workers, Forced Labor, and Well-Being in Malaysia’s Textile Sector

2026-08-23T12:52:56+00:00

Litigating heritage rights

2026-08-21T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

This article argues that we as a field need to focus more on adjudication of rights to culture and cultural heritage, as opposed to simply the recognition of these rights as part of international human rights law. This focus on adjudication should extend even to strategic litigation, the article further contends. Doing so reveals that the stakes of cultural heritage as a human right go beyond access and participation, zeroing in on the question of control. The focus on strategic litigation thus allows us to develop the law further in terms of who controls heritage, how it can be used, and how rights can serve to advance clear remedies for the harm that affect global public goods and the communities that create and care for them. In order to make the case, the article recasts our usual conversation about the rights to culture and heritage not on the basis of that which is protected by human rights, but instead through the lenses of the different phases and requirements of adjudication. Doing so allows us to further perceive the warping effects of international human rights law over global public goods, and the potentials and pitfalls of adjudication.

Letter to Editor: From Perceived Competence to Demonstrated Impact in Faith-Based Anti-Trafficking Work

2026-08-19T02:13:55+00:00

The Human Rights Covenants at 60: A Reflection on Achievements and Challenges

2026-08-18T08:35:01+00:00

Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, Volume 44, Issue 3, Page 195-203, September 2026.
The passing of symbolic milestones in 2026, such as the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the International Human Rights Covenants and the 20th anniversary of the UN Human Rights Council, arrives at a time of palpable gloom in the international human ...

The five-year rule and its discontents: delay as an abuse of the right of submission before the UN Human Rights Committee

2026-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

This article examines the emergence and practical operation of the Human Rights Committee’s ‘five-year rule’ under Article 3 of the First Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Although the Optional Protocol contains no explicit time limit, the Committee has developed a presumption that communications submitted more than five years after the exhaustion of domestic remedies constitute an abuse of the right of submission and are thus inadmissible. Tracing the jurisprudential evolution of this approach and its codification in Article 99(c) of the Rules of Procedure, the article analyses how the rule is applied in practice and critically assesses the Committee’s approach from interlinked doctrinal and institutional perspectives. It analyses whether the Committee is correct to label these instances of delay as ‘abuse’, whether in so doing it has exceeded its mandate, and what consequences may arise relating to the transparency, fairness, and legitimacy of the individual complaints procedure.

Editorial

2026-08-17T12:50:58+00:00

Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, Volume 44, Issue 3, Page 193-194, September 2026.

Beyond Algorithms: Reimagining Human Rights Research in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

2026-08-17T09:58:29+00:00

Vested men in investment: a property-based perspective on human rights conflicts in ISDS

2026-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

Conflicts between international investment law and human rights have become a persistent feature of investor–State dispute settlement (ISDS). Prevailing accounts frame these tensions as problems of normative fragmentation, to be addressed through systemic integration, proportionality, or regulatory exceptions. This article argues that such approaches misidentify the source of the conflict. It advances a property-based perspective that conceptualizes investment as socially embedded property rather than a purely economic entitlement. Drawing on Polanyi’s theory of embeddedness and autonomy-centered property theory, the article shows that investment protection and human rights operate upon the same property relations while privileging opposing functions: dynamic value generation and autonomy-securing stability. From this perspective, human rights conflicts in ISDS are structural rather than incidental. Building on this diagnosis, the article proposes that the scope and intensity of investment protection should be calibrated according to the degree of an investment’s social embeddedness within the host society. This embeddedness-based approach provides tribunals with a principled method to differentiate investments, integrate human rights considerations, and recalibrate protection without resorting to ad hoc balancing or hierarchical norm claims.

Individuals Involved In Human Trafficking In Indonesia: Characteristics, Perspectives, And Pathways To Prevention

2026-08-12T02:47:10+00:00

Announcement of the Myjer-White Prize

2026-08-10T00:00:00+00:00

In 2025, the Co-Editors-in-Chief of the Journal of Conflict and Security Law instituted a new prize, the Myjer-White Prize, to be awarded to the author or co-authors of an article published in the preceding calendar year that displays outstanding research, scholarship, and originality. The prize is named after the two founding Co-Editors-in-Chief of the JCSL, Professor Eric Myjer and Professor Nigel White, and recognizes their contribution, together with that of the late Professor Rob Cryer (Co-Editor-in-Chief from 2010 to 2021) to the field in establishing and editing the JCSL over a 25-year period (1999–2024). The prize was first awarded in 2026 for work included in volume 30 of the Journal. Below are the comments of the three-member jury on the inaugural award:Seventeen articles qualified for the Myjer-White Prize in 2025. The jury read the papers and compiled a short list. Three criteria were relevant in scoring the papers: (i) outstanding research (the depth, breadth, and significance of the research in the field), (ii) scholarship (analytical rigour and methodological soundness), and (iii) originality (the novelty and innovative contribution of the work). All papers on the shortlist met the three criteria. Two papers stood out and were nominated ex aequo for the prize.Walter Rech’s paper entitled ‘Indirect Aggression and the North Atlantic Treaty’ (Volume 30, Issue 1, Spring 2025, pp. 23–46) discusses indirect aggression (political infiltration, interference, and subversions, such as hybrid operations) and why it was dropped during the North Atlantic Treaty negotiations as a core provision of the treaty. The paper stands out for its historical and original research that is still relevant today. It explains the difficulties in strengthening intelligence sharing and security collaboration in countering hybrid warfare.Aurel Sari’s paper entitled ‘Indiscriminate attacks and the proportionality rule: what is incidental civilian harm?’ (Volume 30, Issue 2, Summer 2025, pp. 203–239) explores what it means for civilian harm to be ‘incidental’ in nature. The paper stands out for its innovative contribution to the field. While it canvasses some well-trodden ground, its interaction with the work of a previous interlocutor was deft without ever becoming overwrought or overconfident. A model of nuanced engagement all told, it produces expositions and analyses that were both luminous and exacting.

Correction to: Legal frameworks for mass terrorism: the October 7th attack and implications for security law

2026-07-20T00:00:00+00:00

This is a correction to: Shai Farber, Ofek Efraim Alaluf, Legal frameworks for mass terrorism: the October 7th attack and implications for security law, Journal of Conflict and Security Law, Volume 30, Issue 2, Summer 2025, Pages 287–315, https://doi.org/10.1093/jcsl/kraf011

Strategic compliance or tolerated unlawfulness? The protection of nationals abroad and the erosion of the jus ad bellum

2026-07-07T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

The doctrine of the Protection of Nationals Abroad (PNA) remains one of the most contested aspects of the jus ad bellum. Examining state practice from Entebbe and Operation Eagle Claw through to Libya, Afghanistan, Georgia, Crimea, and Ukraine, the article demonstrates that PNA-based claims consistently struggle to satisfy the established requirements governing the exercise of self-defence. At the same time, the international response to such operations has been markedly uneven. Some interventions attract widespread condemnation, while others encounter limited protest or pragmatic toleration despite doubtful legality. To explain this pattern, the article develops a continuum model distinguishing between consensual evacuations, unilateral non-combatant evacuation operations, contested armed rescue missions, and sustained coercive interventions. The article argues that international responses are shaped not simply by abstract legal principles but by the factual and operational characteristics of the intervention itself, including its scale, duration, intensity, and humanitarian framing. Building on this analysis, the article introduces the concept of ‘strategic compliance’ to explain how states may structure and present certain operations in ways that reduce the likelihood of decisive international opposition without necessarily establishing their legality. The central danger identified is therefore not merely the persistence of legally doubtful evacuation practices, but the gradual erosion of the distinction between political toleration and legal acceptance. Preserving that distinction remains essential to maintaining the normative coherence of the prohibition on the use of force.

Epistemic authority in international security law: nuclear security and cyber operations

2026-06-16T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

Why do states follow international security norms that they have never formally consented to? In international security law, particularly in fields such as nuclear security and cyber operations, detailed standards shape state behaviour despite not being embodied in treaties or negotiated through classical diplomatic channels. This article argues that the central transformation is not simply the rise of soft law, but a shift in the basis of normative authority, from state consent to epistemic authority. When political agreement on new binding rules becomes difficult, expert and technical bodies generate standards that functionally structure state conduct. These norms gain traction through technical credibility, institutional embedding, and practical usability rather than formal consent. The argument is developed through two case studies. In the nuclear field, International Atomic Energy Agency security standards progressively inform treaty obligations and domestic regulation, operating as the benchmark for compliance. In the cyber field, where treaty-making has largely stalled, the Tallinn Manuals produced by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence have become key reference points for the application of international law in cyberspace. The comparison shows how epistemic authority can functionally substitute consent as an engine of norm creation in contemporary international security governance.

Law as cover: juridical warfare, autonomous targeting, and the obligations states will not acknowledge

2026-05-19T00:00:00+00:00

The War Lawyers: The United States, Israel, and Juridical Warfare. JonesCraig, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2020, pp. 362, £80.00. ISBN 978-0-19-884292-7.

Ukraine peace treaty, territorial concessions, and international law

2026-04-09T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

Shortly after, in January 2025, the new US administration took office, and Ukraine peace talks began. To end the war that Russia started more than three years ago, a peace deal is not a utopia anymore. Ukraine has consistently made clear that no negotiations are possible until its territorial integrity is fully restored. In contrast, Russia has repeatedly stated that talks are only possible based on the ‘new realities’ on the ground. To date, lawyers have debated the question of whether international law permits aggressor States to retain territorial gains under a peace treaty. This article investigates the legal position of Ukraine. It discusses whether international law permits attacked States to give up territory as a last resort measure to reach a viable peace deal. More specifically, it explores the extent to which international law restrains Ukrainian consent to territorial concessions. As under the circumstances of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, the legality of land transfers pursuant to the law of state responsibility and the law of treaties is controversial, and its assessment overlooks the manifold interests at stake, this article suggests reframing the matter in terms of a conflict between two jus cogens norms. On the one hand, the prohibition of aggression, assuming that it goes as far as forbidding territorial concessions that would indirectly condone forceful territorial acquisitions. On the other hand, the right of self-determination, assuming that it grants the Ukrainian people the absolute right to freely determine their territorial status in a peace treaty. Thus, the issue arises of how to solve this conflict. Apparently, positive international law lacks a ready-to-use rule to do so. However, the principles of proportionality and of peaceful dispute settlement may guide the process. They require a complex interpretative activity, in light of a number of criteria, to craft a treaty that could balance both norms. The goal is to preserve each norm as much as possible and ensure lasting peace.

Social media as a digital weapon in modern warfare: rethinking incitement to genocide and complicity in the digital age

2026-03-31T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

This article examines the evolving role of social media in the commission of international crimes, focusing on its function as a ‘digital weapon’ in the context of mass violence. Using Facebook’s influence in the persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar as a case study, it illustrates how algorithmic amplification and inadequate moderation facilitated the spread of incitement and contributed to real-world atrocities. Building on the jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the article reconsiders the elements of direct and public incitement to genocide, namely publicity, directness, and intent, in the digital age. It then turns to the framework of aiding and abetting liability, analysing whether the conduct of social media executives can meet the thresholds of substantial contribution and knowledge or purpose. The discussion situates these questions within the broader debate on platform responsibility, interrogating the limits of the ‘neutral intermediary’ defence and the risks posed to freedom of expression. Ultimately, it argues for clarifying accountability standards to ensure international criminal law remains responsive to digital-age harms.

RE: Toward an Age-Inclusive and Accountable Community-Based Human Trafficking Research Agenda (Martin et al. 2026)

2026-08-10T02:26:59+00:00

Rights at play: learning design for human rights education in higher education

2026-08-10T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

This study reports on the design and implementation of a low-tech, embodied learning toolkit that supports the situated practice of democratic competences among university students. Grounded in the Council of Europe’s Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (RFCDC), the toolkit combines tactile constraints, fictional but realistic scenarios, and structured dialogue anchored in human rights. Focus groups, facilitator field notes, researcher observations, and post-session reflections were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis to explore (i) which competences were enacted and (ii) which pedagogical mechanisms supported learning. Findings indicate that students engaged with rights dilemmas through unequal materials, structured disagreement, and facilitated reflection, with competences appearing through interactions with materials, scenarios, and peers. The study highlights the potential of embodied learning approaches for competence-oriented human rights education in higher education.

International Criminal Law Norm Setting in Domestic Refugee Courts: “Complicity Through Facilitation” and Refugee Exclusion Jurisprudence

2026-08-10T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

Article 1F(a) of the 1951 Refugee Convention excludes from protection an individual against whom there are serious reasons for considering that they have committed a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity. The provision does not only apply to those who directly committed a crime, but also to those who, through their contributions, are deemed to have facilitated the commission of a crime. In international criminal law (ICL), accessorial modes of liability, such as aiding and abetting, are used to draw the circle of criminal responsibility of those who, by virtue of their facilitative contributions, can be deemed criminally culpable. Through a comparative analysis of recent jurisprudence from the UK, Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands, this article explores how refugee decision-makers have interpreted the ICL concept of “complicity through facilitation” for the purposes of exclusion. The analysis reveals that decision-makers have borrowed ICL principles, but adapted them for the administrative context of asylum adjudication. While the four jurisdictions demonstrate strong theoretical alignment with ICL, divergences arise in practice. The result is a process of hybridisation: ICL concepts are absorbed and re-contextualised within exclusion decision-making, producing a flexible approach to “complicity through facilitation”.

The Problem of Punishing International Crimes through Immigration Law

2026-08-10T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

This article offers a doctrinal and empirical examination of US immigration and asylum cases concerning Rwandan nationals alleged to have been involved in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. A close reading of these cases illuminates how the charge of participation in the international crime of genocide has offered justifications for increasingly harsh sentences for immigration fraud and perjury while setting a low evidentiary threshold for the determination of asylum applications as automatically inadmissible. The article argues that this legal decision-making against the migrant accused of international crimes in the US foreshadows and has helped to legitimise the increasingly broad practices of arrest, detention, citizen deprivation, deportation, and exclusion of people labelled as migrants. If we make clear these problems in punishing international crimes through immigration law, it opens up the possibility to look outside of criminal law and towards refugee law and a wider notion of international law on migration in thinking about the current legal responses to large-scale violence.

Caught between Justice and Injustice: Interactions and Frictions between International Criminal Law and International Refugee Law

2026-07-10T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

This Special Issue examines the growing interaction and friction between international criminal law (ICL) and international refugee law (IRL). Central to this interaction is Article 1F of the Refugee Convention, which excludes individuals suspected of serious international crimes from refugee protection. This introduction highlights how IRL increasingly draws on ICL concepts to determine exclusion, despite significant differences in evidentiary standards, procedural safeguards, and underlying objectives. These differences risk producing legal misalignment, lowering thresholds of proof, and encouraging States to rely on immigration law as an alternative to criminal prosecution. Introducing the contributions to the Special Issue, the article identifies four broader trends: the expansion of exclusion and immigration control mechanisms, the shift of accountability efforts from criminal trials to immigration procedures, the creation of prolonged legal limbo for excluded individuals, and the problematic transfer of criminal law language into refugee decision-making without equivalent safeguards. The article calls for critical scrutiny of these developments and advocates for better coordination between ICL and IRL to ensure accountability while safeguarding fundamental rights.

From Asylum to the Witness Stand: Asylum Seeking Witnesses in Universal Jurisdiction Trials in Europe

2026-07-02T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

Scholarship at the intersection between international refugee law (IRL) and international criminal law (ICL) focuses on the exclusion of certain individuals from refugee protection because of their involvement in atrocity crimes. However, this focus overlooks the role of people seeking asylum who choose to testify against the alleged perpetrators in universal jurisdiction (UJ) trials. These individuals hold a unique place because they need protection from persecution, but they are also essential for the pursuit of international justice. Using a thematic comparative analysis of the relevant international and domestic provisions applicable to countries that have conducted UJ trials in Europe, this article critically analyses how the different objectives of IRL and ICL exacerbate the challenges people seeking asylum face as witnesses. Focusing on three critical phases (the asylum identification phase; the trial, where they are called to testify; and the post-trial circumstances), this article raises some critical questions about the inadequacy of the current legal framework, which provides only fragmented and insufficient protection. Finally, it advocates for long-term reforms in both ICL and IRL that fully acknowledge asylum seekers’ roles as witnesses. Without such recognition, this category of individuals is re-victimised by the same legal systems that promised to protect them.

Does “Undeserving” Last Forever?

2026-04-19T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

This article examines the enduring consequences of refugee exclusion under Article 1F(a) of the Refugee Convention for individuals associated with core international crimes (CICs), focusing on two groups: acquitted or sentenced former international defendants, and excluded but unprosecuted asylum-seekers at the domestic level. It argues that the interaction between international refugee law and international criminal law creates a structural mismatch. This mismatch, combined with a persistent “enemy of mankind” narrative, condemns individuals to prolonged legal limbo, often without prosecution, removal, or access to residence rights. The article critiques the assumption that association with CICs justifies permanent exclusion, highlighting how security rationales and stigma overshadow individualised assessments and evidence of rehabilitation. Against this backdrop, it proposes conceptualising a “right to start over”, grounded in human dignity. Two normative foundations support this right: European Union law protections of family life and residency, and the European Court of Human Rights’ recognition of a “right to hope” under Article 3 European Convention of Human Rights. The article concludes by advocating concrete solutions: resettlement mechanisms for acquitted or released international defendants, and leave-to-remain regimes for excluded but unprosecuted individuals. It argues that “undeservingness” should not be permanent, and that redemption must have a place within both refugee protection and international criminal justice.

Persecuted but Undeserving

2026-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

This article examines the rationale for the exclusion from international refugee status of persons who have committed serious crimes or guilty acts. Specifically, the article asks whether exclusion under Article 1F of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees on the ground that those with a serious criminal past are “undeserving” of international refugee status is compatible with a theoretical view that international refugee law serves as a “legitimacy-repair mechanism” for the international state system. It argues that to support this legitimacy-repair function, judgments of undeservingness must be grounded in a political ideal implicit in the founding documents of the United Nations. Judgments of undeservingness grounded in the United Nations ideal reaffirm the norms of human rights and self-determination necessary to ensure minimal conditions of legitimacy for the international state system. The resulting account allays some but not all of the legitimacy concerns raised by the reliance on “undeservingness” to justify and guide exclusion decisions.

“No Safe Haven” and the Politics of Accountability: The Extradition and Exclusion of Rwandan Genocide Suspects

2026-02-12T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

This article examines the complex interplay of criminal and immigration law, studying the case of Rwandan (former) asylum-seekers suspected of genocide. The Dutch Government actively pursued their extradition, forging a distinctive cooperation with Rwanda, tied to its “No Safe Haven” policy. The analysis considers how the Netherlands has navigated the legal and political complexities of cooperating with a country lauded for post-genocide judicial reforms but criticised for instrumentalising criminal justice to suppress dissent. The article shows that while early extraditions and deportations did not result in findings of rights violations by the Rwandan or Dutch Governments, more recent cases involving political opponents have altered the picture. For host States, including the Netherlands, persistent impunity for international crimes, the challenges of domestic universal jurisdiction prosecutions, and growing political pressure to restrict immigration have created incentives to fully leverage legal tools to deny residence and facilitate removal. In a context where extradition requests may serve political purposes, the lack of substantive case assessment, combined with the low thresholds and broad discretion that characterise 1F exclusion and citizenship revocation procedures, risks turning immigration law into a proxy for criminal justice and fostering a perception that host States contribute to politicised accountability efforts.

Recent publications

2026-08-08T05:00:48+00:00

Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, Volume 44, Issue 3, Page 312-317, September 2026.

Climate change and human rights: the emerging role of NHRIs in law and practice

2026-08-07T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

The intersection between climate change and human rights has attracted growing academic and institutional attention, particularly regarding the obligations of states under international law. However, the role of national human rights institutions (NHRIs) in addressing this nexus remains underexplored. This article addresses this gap by examining how and to what extent NHRIs in Europe engage with the human rights implications of climate change. By combining doctrinal legal analysis with original empirical data from a regional survey of European NHRIs, the article demonstrates that while engagement varies significantly among institutions, their mandates and legal frameworks provide a strong foundation for meaningful involvement. Drawing on the findings of both legal and empirical analysis, the article formulates practice-oriented implications for NHRIs, their networks, and states. It argues that NHRIs, as independent institutions grounded in law and legitimacy, are uniquely positioned to help ensure that climate action respects human rights—both now and for future generations.

Contested Frameworks: Understanding the Lived Experience of Human Rights Defenders in the Mapuche Struggle in Chile

2026-08-07T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

Despite growing recognition within global human rights frameworks of the need to protect human rights defenders (HRDs), understanding the nuanced threats and risks they face—and developing effective monitoring mechanisms—remains a complex and unresolved challenge. At the same time, the question of ‘Who are HRDs?’ is not straightforward and encompasses various contested issues in the field. In this article, we focus on the situation of legal defenders advocating for Indigenous communities in Southern Chile within a context of dual judicialization—state-led criminalization through anti-terrorism laws and community-driven reliance on human rights frameworks. Through qualitative research comprising interviews with 35 HRDs, including lawyers, activists, and experts, this article examines (1) the contested meaning of the HRD category in the local scenario; (2) the multiple risks and threats that legal defenders of Indigenous rights encounter; and (3) the strategies they employ to respond to these threats. The findings show that legal HRDs operate as intermediaries between Indigenous communities, national courts, and international human rights frameworks. While some actors adopt the HRD label strategically, others question or distance themselves from it, revealing tensions surrounding the application of this category in Indigenous struggles. At the same time, legal defenders are exposed to a range of risks, from state-sponsored criminalization and extra-institutional harassment to everyday stigmatization. These experiences are shaped by broader contextual factors, including systemic racism, multifaceted violence, and complex power dynamics. The article concludes by advocating for a multidimensional approach to understanding and addressing violence impacting environmental and Indigenous struggles, while recognizing both the potential and limitations of the HRD framework in such contexts.

Institutionalized Trafficking and the Gendered Governance of Seasonal Migration in Spanish Agriculture

2026-08-06T04:54:02+00:00

Awareness and Perceptions of Faith-Based Organizations’ Competencies as Stakeholders in the Fight Against Human Trafficking

2026-08-06T03:40:54+00:00

The judicialization of memory in Chile

2026-08-05T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

This article examines the phenomenon of the judicialization of memory in Chile, focusing on how courts have addressed demands for symbolic reparations arising from human rights violations committed during the military dictatorship. It asks whether Chilean jurisprudence recognizes the exercise of the right to memory through judicial mechanisms within the framework of transitional justice. Based on a qualitative analysis of relevant case law, the study explores how victims have resorted to human rights litigation to pursue memory-related measures. The findings show that Chilean courts have recognized such claims in an inconsistent and fragmented manner, occasionally ordering symbolic measures. However, this jurisprudence does not amount to a consolidated judicial recognition of the right to memory. The article concludes that, while the judicialization of memory has fostered innovative forms of legal mobilization and broadened the repertoire of strategies available to victims, it has not succeeded in generating a sustained or profound democratic debate on memory.

Europe's Dilemma with International Surrogacy Arrangements: A New Means to Parenthood or Transnational Crime?

2026-08-04T04:45:33+00:00

Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, Ahead of Print.
European Union (EU) Directive 2024/1712 mandates Member States to criminalise the ‘exploitation of surrogacy’ where all constitutive elements of human trafficking are present. Prior to this Directive, European States were mainly guided by the European ...

The Challenges of the Right to Consent of Non-State Armed Groups to Offers of International Humanitarian Relief

2026-08-04T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

Different members of the epistemic humanitarian legal community have sought to reinterpret and reshape the rules governing international humanitarian relief in non-international armed conflicts (NIACs). Through their normative agendas, they aim to restrain the exercise of the right of fighting parties to consent to offers of humanitarian relief—both during the earliest, strategic phase of humanitarian negotiations and the subsequent operational phase of relief actions. Central to their claims is the emergence of a customary obligation to accept relief and a prohibition of arbitrary denial as well as the criminalization of wilful impediment of relief amounting to starvation under the Rome Statute. These actors have advanced various interpretative techniques to argue for a right to strategic consent held by non-state armed groups, despite Additional Protocol II reserving this right to the government party alone. However, the legal status of this putative right remains unsettled. While some developments suggest a shifting normative landscape, treaty law, state practice, and institutional positions reflect persistent ambiguity. This article explores how legal indeterminacy in this area is shaped not only by doctrinal limitations but also by the political sensitivities surrounding the recognition and legitimacy of non-state armed groups. It also considers the operational dilemmas faced by humanitarian actors navigating this such legal and political minefield. In doing so, the article highlights the complex interaction between normative ambitions, political resistance and the operational realities of international humanitarian relief action in NIACs.

Healthcare Inequities and Human Rights Violations: Examining Hospital Detention Practices in Cameroon

2026-08-04T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

Hospital detention—the confinement of patients after discharge or the withholding of deceased bodies for unpaid medical bills—is a pervasive yet understudied phenomenon in low-resource health systems. In Cameroon, it remains normalized, yet little is known about how patients experience and navigate this coercive practice. This study applies a Structural Justice Framework to ethnographic research in two faith-based hospitals in the Fundong Health District of the Northwest Region. Data were collected through interviews, focus groups, and participant observation with patients, healthcare workers, and community members, and analyzed thematically to link lived experiences to structural and institutional inequities. Findings reveal that detained patients adopt diverse survival strategies—including begging, informal labor, installment payments, reliance on family or community networks, and escape—that illuminate vulnerabilities across Fraser’s three dimensions: redistribution, in inequitable allocation of healthcare resources; recognition, in the systematic disregard for patient dignity; and representation, in the exclusion of marginalized voices from health governance. These strategies reflect the entanglement of economic precarity, institutional imperatives, and systemic injustice. The study concludes that hospital detention constitutes a multidimensional violation of rights to health, 20 dignity, and equitable treatment. Addressing this practice requires coordinated reforms, including legal protections, strengthened regulation of healthcare facilities, expansion of social health protection, and the pursuit of universal health coverage. Such measures are essential for dismantling structural inequities and advancing justice for vulnerable populations.

The Will Of The Many Against The Rights Of The Few: Penal Populism's Influence On Human Rights Protection In Europe

2026-08-03T01:47:23+00:00

Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, Volume 44, Issue 3, Page 292-311, September 2026.
This article examines how the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) responds when penal populist resistance places its authority under strain. Focusing on three domains – prisoner disenfranchisement, whole-life sentencing, and preventive detention – it ...

Deterring Dissent? Climate Activism and the Recalibration of Articles 10 and 11 in Recent ECtHR Jurisprudence

2026-08-03T01:34:24+00:00

Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, Ahead of Print.
This article examines whether recent jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights reflects a recalibration from protection toward deterrence in cases involving climate activism. While the Court has historically afforded comparatively strong ...

The Limited Impact of Rights-Affirming ECtHR Judgments: Contesting Non-Execution in Migration and Border Control Case Law

2026-07-31T02:20:48+00:00

Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, Volume 44, Issue 3, Page 253-273, September 2026.
This article examines the execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights as a site of legal and political contestation, in the context of migration and border control. It introduces the concept of reverse strategic (post)litigation to ...

On the Colonialism and Decolonization of Human Rights: A Review Essay

2026-07-31T00:00:00+00:00

Abstract

This review essay considers The Colonialism of Human Rights: Ongoing Hypocrisies of Western Liberalism, by Colin Sampson, and Decolonization, Self-Determination and the Rise of Global Human Rights Politics, edited by A. Dirk Moses, Marco Duranti, and Roland Burke. The essay explores the key implications of these books for human rights practitioners and their organizations.

Transforming the Right to Religious Freedom in and through Cities

2026-07-30T02:28:04+00:00

Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, Volume 44, Issue 3, Page 274-291, September 2026.
This article considers the content and implementation of the right to freedom of religion at city-level. Focusing on hyper-diverse Western European cities, it explains how religious belief is manifested in urban space and critically discusses the European ...