LAW 7495 - Refugee and Asylum Law.

2 to 3 Credit Hours

Description
This is an elective course. This course explores the international and domestic legal regimes for the protection of refugees and asylees. Topics include the history of the U.N. Convention on the Status of Refugees, the implementation of that convention through the U.S. Refugee Act of 1980 and subsequent related legislation, political and judicial efforts to define the extent of the protections afforded under international and domestic law, current proposals to amend the laws, and the practice of asylum law in the United States. The central goal of this course is to prepare you to represent an asylum seeker in the United States, while giving you a strong foundation in the laws that protect refugees and asylum-seekers. To this end, the course aims to: (1) give you a substantive basis in the law and the tools you need to answer questions of law that arise in your future practice; (2) orient you in the relevant procedures and highlight the skills you will need in order to meaningfully engage with clients seeking asylum; and (3) introduce you to issues in law and policy that your generation of lawyers must struggle with, and hopefully resolve. This class emphasizes learning by doing, so you should not only be prepared to participate actively in class discussion but poised to engage in group exercises and the representation of a simulated client created for this class, which will occupy much of the second half of the course.