The word ‘refugee’ is both evocative and contested; it means different things to different people. For lawyers, the main legal reference point is the UN Refugee Convention of 1951.
This concise and engaging book follows the structure of the Convention to explore international refugee law. Including an introduction to the historical and legal context, Colin Yeo draws on his experience as an immigration barrister to explain the present-day legal framework for global refugee protection. Chapters consider:
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well-founded fear;
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persecution;
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the loss of refugee status and exclusion;
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the rights of refugees;
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and state responses to refugee claims.
The book includes studies of key legal cases, reviews the successes and failures of the Convention and looks ahead to the future, including the impact of climate change and the Global Compact on Refugees.
Communicating important legal concepts in an approachable way, this is an essential guide for students, lawyers and non-specialists.
121 7 Law Definition1 It [the law] is the ultimate source of legitimation of all public action. The different actors are allocated legal resources by all of the general rules of constitutional, civil and public law and by the rules specific to a given sectoral policy. By way of illustration, we can refer here to the right of appeal of NGOs, the rights guaranteed under private law contracts and property rights, the permanent legal basis enabling a public authority to impose speed limits and driving bans (for example, to reduce smog levels in Berlin), the
Marriage law in England and Wales is a historical relic which reflects a bygone age.
Successive governments have made a series of progressive but ad hoc reforms, most notably the introduction of civil partnerships and same-sex marriage. However, this has resulted in a legal framework which is complex and controversial, especially in relation to religion.
This book provides the first accessible guide to how contemporary marriage law interacts with religion and identifies pressure points in relation to non-religious organisations and unregistered religious marriages. It reveals the need for the consolidation, modernisation and reform of marriage law and sets out proposals for how the transformation of these laws can be achieved.
Court decisions are typically seen as one-off interventions relating to an incident in a person’s life, but a legal decision can impact on the person as they were and the person they will become.
This book is the first to explore the interactions of the law with the life course in order to understand the complex life journey as a whole.
Jonathan Herring reveals how the law privileges ‘middle age’ to the detriment of the whole life story and explains why an understanding of the life course is important for lawyers.
Relevant to those working in family law, elder law, medical law and ethics, jurisprudence, gender and the law, it will promote new thinking by exploring the engagement of the law with the life course of the self.
When a death is investigated by a coroner, what is the place of the family in that process?
This accessibly written book draws together empirical, theoretical and historical perspectives to develop a rich, nuanced analysis of the contemporary inquest system in England and Wales. It investigates theories of kinship drawn from socio-legal research and analyses law, accountability and the legal process.
Excerpts of conversations with coroners and officers offer real insights into how the role of family can be understood and who family is perceived to be, and further, how their participation fundamentally shapes the investigation into a death.
201 8 Family Law Introduction At one level it might be thought that family law is the most natural area for a life course approach to be taken. yet it is striking how the term ‘family law’ has become restricted to a very narrow understanding of families and a rather restrained set of issues. For example, older people rarely feature in textbooks on family law, although they play a key role in family life. Similarly, family law still centres on marriage, or marriage- like relationships, with friendships receiving little recognition, although they may be a key
This comprehensive yet concise textbook is the first to provide a focused, subject specific guide to planning practice and law. Giving students essential background and contextual information to planning’s statutory basis, the information is supported by practical and applied discussion to help students understand planning in the real world. The book is written in an accessible style, enabling students with little or no planning law knowledge to engage in the subject and develop the necessary level of understanding required for both professionally accredited and non-accredited courses in built environment subjects. The book will be of value to students on a range of built environment courses, particularly urban planning, architecture, environmental management and property-related programmes, as well as law and practice-orientated modules.
139 8 GETTING FROM THE STORY OF A DISPUTE TO THE LAW Emily Rose* Introduction What is your approach to giving employment advice? Responses to this question from specialist and generalist advisers, as well as solicitors working with the Citizens Advice service, emphasised a particular process. While the advice interview must start with the client’s story, this initial narrative account represents only the first step; it is in what comes after this that the critical work of advice is achieved. In this chapter I explore how advisers move from the story of a
147 9 “ADVICE ON THE LAW BUT NOT LEGAL ADVICE SO MUCH”: WEAVING LAW AND LIFE INTO DEBT ADVICE Samuel Kirwan* Second unsupervised interview. Client had come in with water debt, but then mentioned that she had an unpaid Council Tax Bill. She was visibly upset when I explained the importance of engaging with this. Had a sudden, strong feeling of how easy it is to end up in this position, where outgoings are so much more than income, where it’s impossible to imagine how you can afford to meet ongoing bills, and have difficulty opening the post. (Field Diary
Slaves, mistresses, concubines – the English courts have used these terms to describe polygamous wives in the past, but are they still seen this way today?
Using a critical postcolonial feminist lens, this book provides a contextualised exploration of English legal responses to polygamy. Through the legacies of British imperialism, the book shows how attitudes to polygamy are shaped by indifference and hostility towards its participants. This goes beyond the law, as shown by the stories of women shared throughout the book negotiating their identities and relationships in the UK today.
Through its analysis, the book demonstrates how polygamy and polygamous wives are subjected to imperialist and orientalist discourses which dehumanise them for practising a relationship that has existed for millennia.
