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Daniel Ghezelbash’s article considers how wealthy democratic states evade their international obligations towards refugees and sets out two principal methods: hyper-legalism, an overly formalistic and bad-faith way of interpreting international law, and obfuscation, which works through secrecy about what the government is doing and deliberate silence about the legal justifications invoked. The discussion is illustrated with examples from the United States, Australia and Europe, and the article closes by considering tactics for resisting these strategies and holding governments accountable.
How states evade their international obligations toward refugees through hyper-legalism and obfuscation.
The American Journal of Comparative Law · 2020
DOI 10.1093/ajcl/avaa019