Asylum after COVID-19: the UK ‘New Plan for Immigration’ in global context

As uncertainty brought by COVID-19 intersects with shifting underlying political currents in society, some governments are pushing ‘new’ approaches to refugees and asylum. In the United Kingdom, this takes the form of the so-called ‘New Plan for Immigration’, a raft of legal and policy measures aimed principally at restricting protection and assistance for refugees and asylum-seekers.

This seminar series draws on a diverse range of perspectives from practitioners, researchers and affected persons to interrogate the law and politics of the New Plan in the global refugee context. The series aims to facilitate debate within both specialist and public circles in the UK and beyond about the legality and feasibility of approaches to asylum of the kind proposed by the New Plan.

The RLI seminar series this year is run jointly with the University of London Refugee Law Clinic. All seminars are held on zoom and free to attend. Register at rli.sas.ac.uk/events 

6 October 2021, 1pm BST (Zoom)

Asylum and politics after COVID-19: is the UK ‘New Plan for Immigration’ an outlier?

Discussants include: Catherine Woollard (European Council on Refugees and Exiles), Maryellen Fullerton (Brooklyn Law School), Achieng Akena (International Refugee Rights Initiative), Matthew Gibney (Refugee Studies Centre)

3 November 2021, 1pm GMT (Zoom)

Transforming refugee status: definitions and discrimination

Led by Ram Sabaratnam (Refugee Law Clinic), discussants include: Hugo Storey (International Association of Refugee and Migration Judges), Elspeth Guild (Queen Mary University of London), Colin Yeo (Garden Court Chambers / Free Movement), Maria O’Sullivan (Monash University)

8 December 2021, 1pm GMT (Zoom)

Moving the goalposts (yet again): access to justice in the UK asylum system

Led by Kelly Frevele (Refugee Law Clinic), discussants include: Sheona York (Kent Law Clinic), Nick Gill (University of Exeter) Ruth Brittle (Nottingham Trent University)

12 January 2022, 1pm GMT (Zoom)

Asylum and illegality: protecting refugees or criminalising asylum-seeking?

Led by George Tyler (Refugee Law Clinic), discussants include: Ana Aliverti (University of Warwick), Kudakwashe Vanyoro (African Centre for Migration and Society), Lucy Mair (Garden Court North), Regina Jefferies (Kaldor Centre)

9 February 2022, 1pm GMT (Zoom)

‘All friends together…?’: international cooperation in the asylum field

Led by Yuvan Aravindan (Refugee Law Clinic), discussants include: Nikolas Feith Tan (Danish Institute for Human Rights), Meltem Ineli Ciger (Suleyman Demirel University), Gerasimos Tsourapas (University of Glasgow)

16 March 2022, 1pm GMT (Zoom)

Refugee counter-proposals to the New Plan: integration and recognition

Discussants from the Syrian refugee community include: Ammar Bajboj (Refugee Law Initiative), Adnan Haj Omar (Arabisk Media), Dania Archid (Alarabi TV, London), Ahmed Abd Rabuoh (Oxford Brookes University)