The challenges faced by refugees fleeing from armed conflicts can only be understood holistically. Hence, this research sheds light on the multifaceted interactions between humanitarian law, refugee law, criminal law and human rights law.
Armed conflicts are generally considered as the main cause of forced migration. However, the applicable international legal framework is plagued by recurrent ambiguities and controversies. Norms and instruments governing refugee protection in times of war are indeed scattered among four branches of international law: humanitarian law, refugee law, criminal law and human rights law. Their concurrent applicability is arguably both the solution and the problem to the plight of war refugees. On the one hand, the great variety of applicable instruments reflects the diverse dimensions of forced migration and its cross-cutting character. On the other hand, such a fragmentation undermines the understanding and cogent application of the existing legal norms.
The Research Project sheds lights on the multifaceted interactions between international humanitarian law, refugee law, criminal law and human rights law. While none of these branches can offer a definitive answer to the contemporary challenges faced by refugees in and fleeing from armed conflicts, the reach of the protection that they offer can only be understood through a comparative assessment. The Research Project thus investigates their mutual influence with the aim of providing a holistic approach to refugee protection.
Moving Towards an Integrated Approach of Refugee Law and Human Rights Law Vincent Chetail, in: C. Costello, M. Foster & J. McAdam (eds), The Oxford Handbook of International Refugee Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021, 202-220.
Crisis without Borders: What Does International Law Say About Border Closure in the Context of Covid-19? Vincent Chetail in Frontiers in Political Science, 2020, 1- 6.
Is There Any Blood on My Hands? Deportation as a Crime of International Law Vincent Chetail, Leiden Journal of International Law, Vol. 29, 2016, pp. 917-943
