Synopsis:

Although Australia receives a disproportionately small share of the world’s refugees, the ‘problem’ of unauthorized boat arrivals has been a highly controversial and political one in recent decades.  In this Grand Round for Refugee week, Professor Michelle Foster, from the Melbourne Law School, will discuss the key problems with Australia’s current system of refugee protection, focusing in particular on mandatory indefinite detention.

Speaker:

Michelle Foster is a Professor and the inaugural Director of the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness at Melbourne Law School. Michelle has published widely in the field of international refugee law, including International Refugee Law and Socio-Economic Rights: Refuge from Deprivation (CUP, 2007) and, with James Hathaway, The Law of Refugee Status, Second Edition, (CUP, 2014). Michelle’s most recent publications explore various legal issues concerning the recognition and protection of stateless persons, including a monograph with Professor Helene Lambert, entitled The Protection of Stateless Persons in International Refugee Law (forthcoming OUP, 2018). Michelle teaches Refugee Law and International Refugee Law at Melbourne Law School, and in 2017 taught in the International Summer School in Forced Migration at Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre.