Is the externalisation of asylum a good idea?
The UK-Rwanda deal and implications for Denmark and beyond
In April 2022, the UK and Rwanda announced an agreement for the transfer of asylum seekers reaching the UK irregularly for asylum processing and eventual refugee protection in Rwanda. The agreement has yet to be implemented as it faces legal challenges in the UK courts. Meanwhile, Denmark has recently passed legislation allowing for the transfer of asylum seekers to a third country and signed multiple agreements with Rwanda on refugee cooperation.
This seminar will provide insights into the UK-Rwanda agreement, the concept and practice of externalisation and implications for Denmark and other countries considering externalisation approaches. It features a talk by David Cantor from the University of London, followed by a discussion led by Nikolas Feith Tan of the Danish Institute for Human Rights, who will draw parallels to the Danish legislation.
The seminar is open to the public. It is jointly hosted by KU and the Danish Institute for Human Rights and organised by the Oresund Migration Law Initiative (OMiLI). We encourage in person attendance, but the meeting can be attended over Zoom (meeting details available upon request at sarah.scott.ford@jur.ku.dk).
Speaker bios
Professor David Cantor is the founding Director of the Refugee Law Initiative (RLI) and its Internal Displacement Research Programme at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, where he is Professor of Refugee Protection and Forced Migration Studies. David’s research has a strong legal and policy focus that covers the protection of refugees and internally displaced persons. Trained originally as a social anthropologist, David worked as a practitioner in the legal field during the 2000s for organisations such as the Refugee Legal Centre, a London-based public law centre where he litigated refugee and human rights cases until 2007, and UNHCR. In a consultancy capacity, he has advised, trained and undertaken research for over fifteen governments mostly from the global south, as well as numerous INGOs and northern and southern NGOs. During 2016-17, David was seconded as a Principal Advisor to the UNHCR Americas Bureau. His work won the Times Higher Education Research Project of the Year 2017-18.
Dr Nikolas Feith Tan is a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, where he works on refugee and asylum law. Nikolas is the chair of the Refugee Law Initiative’s Working Group on Externalisation. His academic work has been published in the International Journal of Refugee Law, European Journal of Migration and Law and Nordic Journal of International Law and in specialist edited volumes. He has acted as legal consultant for Amnesty International, Danish Refugee Council Migration Policy Institute and UNHCR on various aspects of international protection.
Professor Cantor and Dr Tan are convenors of the RLI Declarations on International Protection, which provide timely, expert guidance from the legal academic community specifically, and address topical cross-cutting legal challenges of fundamental importance for the protection of refugees and other displaced persons. The inaugural RLI Declaration on Externalization and Asylum and accompanying article were launched in June 2022.
Click here to register for the event.