Submitted by crinadmin on
Summary: The Refugee Caselaw Site is a collection of carefully selected leading cases from around the world which interpret and apply the UN's definition of "refugee", the basis for access to protection in nearly 150 countries. The site is completely free to use, can be searched via structured and free-text queries, and allows users to download full-text judgments. It represents the collaborative effort of academics, judges, and practitioners from nearly 30 countries to make their knowledge of and experience with refugee law available to the public.
Nearly 150 countries have agreed to apply the same legal definition of a "refugee" to decide who is entitled to their protection. This site is designed to assist judges, advocates, and policymakers around the world to access leading court decisions that interpret the refugee definition set by the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol. Our core collection contains cases from the highest national courts of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These cases have been selected and summarized by the Director of the Refugee Caselaw Site, Professor James Hathaway, Dean of the University of Melbourne Law School. The collection is managed by the Assistant Director of the Refugee Caselaw Site at the University of Michigan Law School. Since 2004, the collection has been incrementally expanded to include decisions from 28 other asylum countries, as well as the most important decisions of lower courts and tribunals in the core collection states. These cases are selected and indexed by teams of leading experts and members of the International Association of Refugee Law Judges from around the world.