This book presents a multidimensional case study of international human rights in the immediate post-Second World War period, and the way in which complex refugee problems created by the war were often in direct competition with strategic interests and national sovereignty. The case study is the clandestine immigration of Jewish refugees from Italy to Palestine in 1945–1948, which was part of a British–Zionist conflict over Palestine, involving strategic and humanitarian attitudes. The result was a clear subjection of human rights considerations to strategic and political interests.

The Nature of the Problem

Refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe in British Overseas Territories focusses on exiles and forced migrants in British colonies and dominions in Africa or Asia and in Commonwealth countries. The contributions deal with aspects such as legal status and internment, rescue and relief, identity and belonging, the Central European encounter with the colonial and post-colonial world, memories and generations or knowledge transfers and cultural representations in writing, painting, architecture, music and filmmaking. The volume covers refugee destinations and the situation on arrival, reorientation–and very often further migration after the Second World War–in Australia, Canada, India, Kenya, Palestine, Shanghai, Singapore, South Africa and New Zealand. Contributors are: Rony Alfandary, Gerrit-Jan Berendse, Albrecht Dümling, Patrick Farges, Brigitte Mayr, Michael Omasta, Jyoti Sabharwal, Sarah Schwab, Ursula Seeber, Andrea Strutz, Monica Tempian, Jutta Vinzent, Paul Weindling, and Veronika Zwerger.

One woman’s national, political, ethnic, social, and personal identities impart an extraordinary perspective on the histories of Europe, Polish Jews, Communism, activism, and survival during the twentieth century. Tonia Lechtman was a Jew, a loving mother and wife, a Polish patriot, a committed Communist, and a Holocaust survivor. Throughout her life these identities brought her to multiple countries—Poland, Palestine, Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Israel—during some of the most pivotal and cataclysmic decades of the twentieth century. In most of those places, she lived on the margins of society while working to promote Communism and trying to create a safe space for her small children. Born in Łódź in 1918, Lechtman became fascinated with Communism in her early youth. In 1935, to avoid the consequences of her political activism during an increasingly antisemitic and hostile political environment, the family moved to Palestine, where Tonia met her future husband, Sioma. In 1937, the couple traveled to Spain to participate in the Spanish Civil War. After discovering she was pregnant, Lechtman relocated to France while Sioma joined the International Brigades. She spent the Second World War in Europe, traveling with two small children between France, Germany, and Switzerland, at times only miraculously avoiding arrest and being transported east to Nazi camps. After the war, she returned to Poland, where she planned to (re)build Communist Poland. However, soon after her arrival she was imprisoned for six years. In 1971, under pressure from her children, Lechtman emigrated from Poland to Israel, where she died in 1996. In writing Lechtman’s biography, Anna Müller has consulted a rich collection of primary source material, including archival documentation, private documents and photographs, interviews from different periods of Lechtman’s life, and personal correspondence. Despite this intimacy, Müller also acknowledges key historiographical questions arising from the lacunae of lost materials, the selective preservation of others, and her own interpretive work translating a life into a life story.

This book presents the first comprehensive analysis of the human rights of refugees as set by the UN Refugee Convention. In an era where States are increasingly challenging the logic of simply assimilating refugees to their own citizens, questions are now being raised about whether refugees should be allowed to enjoy freedom of movement, to work, to access public welfare programs, or to be reunited with family members. Doubts have been expressed about the propriety of exempting refugees from visa and other immigration rules, and whether there is a duty to admit refugees at all. Hathaway links the standards of the UN Refugee Convention to key norms of international human rights law, and applies his analysis to the world's most difficult protection challenges. This is a critical resource for advocates, judges, and policymakers. It will also be a pioneering scholarly work for graduate students of international and human rights law.

This book addresses the relationship between International Refugee Law and International Human Rights Law. Using international refugee law’s analytical turn to human rights as its object of inquiry, it represents a critical intervention into the revisionism that has led to conceptual fragmentation and restrictive practices. Mainstream literature in refugee law reflects a mood of celebration, a narrative of progress which praises the discipline’s rescue from obsolescence. This is commonly ascribed to its repositioning alongside human rights law, its veritable rediscovery as an arm of this far greater edifice. By using human rights logic to construct the current legal paradigm and inform us of who qualifies as a refugee, this purportedly lent areas of conceptual uncertainty a set of objective, modern criteria and increased enfranchisement to new, non-traditional claimants. The present work challenges this dominant position by finding the untold limits of its current paradigm. It stands alone in this orientation and hereby represents one of the most comprehensive, heterodox and structurally detailed reviews of this connection. The exploration of the gap between modern approaches and the unsatisfactory realities of seeking asylum forms the substance of this book. It asserts, by contrast, the existence of revolution rather than evolution. Human rights law has erased the founding tenets of the Refugee Convention, enabling powerful states to contain refugees in their region of origin. The book will be essential reading for those interested in Refugee Law, Refugee Studies, Postcolonial Legal Studies, Postmodern Critiques and Critical Legal Theory. Additionally, given its relevance for the adjudication of refugee claims, it will be an important resource for solicitors, barristers and judges.

The fourth volume in this series contains insightful analyses on a variety of international problems within the context of refugee issue. Contributions in this volume are as follows: Ahmet Sapmaz “Refugees and Security”; Saadat Demirci “Refugees, Migration and Security Threats”; Hüsmen Akdeniz “The Impact of Irregular Migration on Security in the Framework of Changing Security Context”; Mehmet Emin Erendor “Refugees and Terrorism”; Burak Şakir Şeker and Hasret Çomak “Mena Versus Europe: Arising Dimensions of Mediterranean Maritime Security”; Cem Oğultürk “The Impact of Food Insecurity on Migration and Conflict in the Horn of Africa”; Burak Şakir Şeker and Hasret Çomak “Migration by Sea: Libyan Case and EU Approach”; Neziha Musaoğlu “Demografic, Economic, Political and Legal Dimensions of the Russian Federation’s Migration Policy”; Ainur Nogayeva “Central Asian Fighters and their Families in Syria: Refugees or Terrorists?”; Murat Pinar and Soyalp Tamçelik “Determining the Socio-Economic and Security Impacts of Rohingya Refugees on Neighbouring Countries: Bangladesh and India”; Ferdi Güçyetmez “Immigration and Belonging Issue on the American - Mexico Border”; Zekeriya Alperen Bedirhan “The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca)”; Akın Sağıroğlu and İlhan Aras “The Issue of Immigration in the United States Elections: A Look at Trump-Era”; Saadet Çalişkan Ciğer “An Alternative Solution to Problems Arising in Refugee Crises: Humanitarian Space and Humanitarian System”; Murat Koray “Developing Effective Resilience Based Strategies for Refugees”; Tarık Demir “Enclavity and Refugees”; and Sezin İba Gürsoy “Refugee and Climate Change”.

The treatment of migrants is one of the most challenging issues that human rights, as a political philosophy, faces today. It has increasingly become a contentious issue for many governments and international organizations around the world. The controversies surrounding immigration can lead to practices at odds with the ethical message embodied in the concept of human rights, and the notion of 'migrants' as a group which should be treated in a distinct manner. This book examines the way in which two institutions tasked with ensuring the protection of human rights, the European Court of Human Rights and Inter-American Court of Human Rights, treat claims lodged by migrants. It combines legal, sociological, and historical analysis to show that the two courts were the product of different backgrounds, which led to differing attitudes towards migrants in their founding texts, and that these differences were reinforced in their developing case law. The book assesses the case law of both courts in detail to argue that they approach migrant cases from fundamentally different perspectives. It asserts that the European Court of Human Rights treats migrants first as aliens, and then, but only as a second step in its reasoning, as human beings. By contrast, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights approaches migrants first as human beings, and secondly as foreigners (if they are). Dembour argues therefore that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights takes a fundamentally more human rights-driven approach to this issue. The book shows how these trends formed at the courts, and assesses whether their approaches have changed over time. It also assesses in detail the issue of the detention of irregular migrants. Ultimately it analyses whether the divergence in the case law of the two courts is likely to continue, or whether they could potentially adopt a more unified practice.

Offering a cultural history of blood as it was mobilized across twentieth-century U.S. medicine, militarisms, and popular culture, Hannabach examines the ways that blood has saturated the cultural imaginary.

This book discusses ethical behavior through the genocidal stages of the Holocaust. Paul E. Wilson first looks at the antisemitism in Germany and Europe beginning in the decades preceding the Nazis reign of terror, and goes on to discuss the ethical decisions made in the initial stages that moved society toward genocide. The author maintains that the stages of genocide represent subtle changes that can be happening within a society in response to the moral choices made by actors. By giving attention to the stages of genocide in the Holocaust, this book contributes to the overall understanding of how the Holocaust was possible, and encourages the moral community to join the watch for the development of genocide in the modern world.