Join the Global Strategic Litigation Council, Refugees Seeking Equal Access at the Table (R-Seat) and the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility for an in-person panel event with Mr. Gehad Madi, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, on 22 October at 4:30PM ET. The event will feature a discussion of the launch of the Special Rapporteur’s latest report to the United Nations on the human rights impacts of externalization practices, and a timely conversation with a panel of experts on how to uphold the rights
of all migrants.
Across the world, countries are increasingly externalizing border control: In North and West Africa, the European Union has pressured states to secure their borders to prevent arrivals, forcing many migrants onto longer and more dangerous routes. In the Americas, the US has concluded agreements with Mexico and other Central
American countries to curb northward migration, leading to the detention and deportation of hundreds to countries where they have no community, language, or protection. Despite the grave human rights consequences of these policies, states justify them on the basis of security, humanitarian, economic and legal-political discourses.Â
How do these discourses obscure accountability, and what can be done to ensure states respect and uphold the rights of everyone on the move?Â
At this event, the Special Rapporteur will present findings from his latest report to the United Nations General Assembly (A/80/302) on the externalization of migration governance and its human rights impact. The report calls on states to end arrangements that prevent arrival, outsource asylum processing, or allow for readmission or expulsion to countries different from the country of nationality, which effectively shift responsibility for migrants and refugees to third States and, in practice, lead to violations of their human rights..
Following his presentation, the Special Rapporteur will engage with a panel representing academic, legal and lived experience of migration to discuss:Â What should governments do to guarantee the rights of all migrants, including refugees, now and in the future?
This is a rare opportunity to engage directly with the UN Special Rapporteur and an esteemed panel of experts on this rapidly proliferating issue in global migration policy.
Presented by the Global Strategic Litigation Council, Refugees Seeking Equal Access at the Table (R-SEAT), and the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility at The New School for Social Research and The New School.
Mr. Gehad Madi was appointed by the Human Rights Council in October 2023 as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants starting on 1 November 2023.
Before his appointment as the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Mr. Madi served as a Committee Member of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child from 2011 to 2023. During dialogues with State Parties, Mr. Madi provided advice and recommendations concerning the rights of migrants, refugees and asylum-seeking children and their families.
Rez Gardi is an international lawyer and human rights advocate. Being born as a refugee in Pakistan, Rez sought to use her difficult start in life as motivation to help others. She became New Zealand’s first female Kurdish lawyer and the first Kurd to graduate from Harvard Law School, where she graduated as a Fulbright Scholar with a Master of Laws.
Bella Mosselmans is the Director of the Global Strategic Litigation Council and a human rights lawyer. At the Council, she leads global strategic litigation and advocacy efforts to advance the rights of displaced communities. The Council unites a growing global coalition of over 600 refugee leaders, lawyers, advocates and organisations. Together, they use the power of people and the law to drive change, securing education, employment, healthcare and more for over 400,000 displaced people to date.
Ian Matthew Kysel is a Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor of Law at Cornell Law School. He is the founder and director of the Transnational Disputes Clinic and of the International Migrants Bill of Rights (IMBR) Initiative, co-directs the Asylum and Convention Against Torture Appellate Clinic and is a core faculty member in the Migration and Human Rights Program. Kysel previously held appointments at the University of Oxford, as a Plumer Visiting Research Fellow at Saint Anne’s College and an Associate Member of Nuffield College, and at the Georgetown University Law Center, as the inaugural Dash/Muse Fellow and an Adjunct Professor of Law.
Leah Zamore is the Senior Research Fellow and directs the Institute’s global policy engagement efforts. Prior to joining the Zolberg Institute, Leah directed the Humanitarian Crisis program at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation (CIC). She also co-directs an Experts Group on Global Refugee Policy and is the co-author, with Alex Aleinikoff, of The Arc of Protection: Reforming the International Refugee Regime (Stanford, 2019).Â
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