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The Shifting Sands of Refugee Protection: Normativity, Crisis, and Contemporary...
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The Shifting Sands of Refugee Protection: Normativity, Crisis, and Contemporary UK Asylum

A special issue of Laws (ISSN 2075-471X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2025 | Viewed by 5780

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Reuven (Ruvi) Ziegler

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Law, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6UR, UK
Interests: human rights law; citizenship and electoral rights; international refugee law; international humanitarian law
Dr. Alex Powell

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Warwick Law School, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7EQ, UK
Interests: refugee law; queer theory; international human rights law and theory; socio-legal methods; critical approaches to law
Dr. Raawiyah Rifath

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Law, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4PY, UK
Interests: refugee and asylum law; international human rights law; transdisciplinary studies; sexuality studies; vulnerability theory

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

With the UK, building on previous legacies of offshoring, such as those seen in Australia and now becoming one of the most active states in terms of steps to limit the ability of people to seek sanctuary, this Special Issue brings together a range of experts on refugee protection whose knowledge and experience pertains, inter alia, to UK asylum law and practice. It will explore policy and legislative changes introduced by the British government in the years 2022–2024, with a view to understanding how different elements of the Refugee Status Determination process and ensuing refugee rights have been impacted. The works across this Special Issue draw on scholars with specialised expertise, such as understanding of LGBTQIA+, women’s and, children’s asylum claims, expanding criminalisation, externalisation as well as legal aid and situating the UK in a comparative and global perspective. This is accompanied by broader analysis of the systemic shifts we have witnessed across the UK asylum system.

The volume offers the first in-depth and comprehensive appraisal of the state of the UK asylum system following the proliferation of restrictive legislation enacted by the Conservative government across the years 2022 to 2024, including the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, the Illegal Migration Act 2023 and the Safety of Rwanda Act 2024 as well as the broader practical and discursive shifts around issues of migration and refugee status.

Dr. Reuven (Ruvi) Ziegler
Dr. Alex Powell
Dr. Raawiyah Rifath
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Laws is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • UK asylum
  • vulnerability
  • refugees
  • RSD

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

23 pages, 333 KB  
Article
Examining the Impact of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 on Refugee Women
by Nora Honkala
Laws 2025, 14(6), 82; https://doi.org/10.3390/laws14060082 - 27 Oct 2025
Viewed by 532
Abstract
The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 was enacted despite significant opposition from refugee charity and legal sectors. It is without question that the Act changes the domestic landscape of the refugee status determination system and has the potential to also negatively influence refugee [...] Read more.
The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 was enacted despite significant opposition from refugee charity and legal sectors. It is without question that the Act changes the domestic landscape of the refugee status determination system and has the potential to also negatively influence refugee status determinations in other jurisdictions. There are several sections of the Act that are particularly problematic for women’s claims of asylum. The Act reverses well-established international and regional human rights and refugee law principles and standards. The reversal, in some cases, of decades of jurisprudence on the interpretation of the Refugee Convention poses a concern for the integrity of the law and administrative justice. While the Act imposes barriers for all claimants, it disproportionately affects some of the most complex cases, including refugee women fleeing gender-based persecution. Of the various changes brought about by the Act, this article focuses on three that are particularly relevant to women asylum seekers: first, the regressive way in which membership of a particular social group has been framed; second, the heightened standard of proof now required; and third, the associated evidential burdens in relation to trauma and disclosure. Ultimately, these changes are likely to have a disproportionate and discriminatory impact on women seeking asylum, particularly those fleeing gender-based persecution. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Shifting Sands of Refugee Protection: Normativity, Crisis, and Contemporary UK Asylum)
19 pages, 297 KB  
Article
The Shifting Sands of Legal Aid Deserts: Access to Justice for Asylum in 2022–24
by Jo Wilding
Laws 2025, 14(5), 64; https://doi.org/10.3390/laws14050064 - 4 Sep 2025
Viewed by 930
Abstract
In this article, I argue that the state creates legal advice deserts in immigration and asylum by designing law and policy which drive up legal need, driving down provision through unfavourable conditions for providers, and by placing people in need into areas from [...] Read more.
In this article, I argue that the state creates legal advice deserts in immigration and asylum by designing law and policy which drive up legal need, driving down provision through unfavourable conditions for providers, and by placing people in need into areas from which they have no realistic prospect of accessing legal advice and representation. I draw on frameworks of spatial justice and of demand to analyse the impact of the legislative and policy developments in the Special Issue’s focal period of 2022–24 on legal aid in each of the UK’s three legal aid systems: England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The legislative changes included introducing new stages into asylum law, which created new legal needs. Policy changes drove a wholesale geographical shift in demand as all local authorities in the UK (except Scilly) now host people in the asylum process. The changes depended upon the involvement of legal aid lawyers in order to be workable, but the marketised model of legal aid provision in England and Wales, and the low-paid laissez faire model in Northern Ireland, are fundamentally incompatible with that demand. I conclude by arguing that legal aid cannot be an afterthought. Asylum policy should be shaped to reduce failure demand, while legal aid policy should be funded and designed so as to pay for the necessary provision, with interventions to remove the spatial inequalities in access to (legal) justice. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Shifting Sands of Refugee Protection: Normativity, Crisis, and Contemporary UK Asylum)
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23 pages, 339 KB  
Article
From Solidarity to Exclusion: The ‘Safe Country’ Concept in UK Asylum Law and the Irony of Borders
by Rossella Pulvirenti
Laws 2025, 14(5), 63; https://doi.org/10.3390/laws14050063 - 3 Sep 2025
Viewed by 2018
Abstract
This article argues that the asylum policy and legislative changes introduced by the UK government in the years 2022–2024 altered the original meaning of the concept ‘safe country’ as understood in international and EU law. The UK modified this concept, which from a [...] Read more.
This article argues that the asylum policy and legislative changes introduced by the UK government in the years 2022–2024 altered the original meaning of the concept ‘safe country’ as understood in international and EU law. The UK modified this concept, which from a solidarity concept became a means of exclusion, and which negatively affects the lives and rights of people seeking asylum in the UK. Using a doctrinal approach, the first part of this article sets the legal and historical context of the concept ‘safe country’. Departing from the analysis of the Refugee Convention, the article discusses how this mechanism was used by the EU legislation. From an idea of solidarity among EU Member States, it shifted from responsibility-sharing to burden-sharing while still allowing some guarantees to people seeking asylum. Using content analysis, the second part of this article evaluates the legal requirements set by the UK legislation together with implications of applying the ‘safe country’ concept to the asylum claims. It argues that, in recent years, the UK Government used the term ‘safe country’ as synonym of two (possibly three) different concepts, such as ‘first safe country’ and ‘safe third country’. It also shifted and pushed its meaning beyond the current commonly agreed interpretation of the term because it eroded the requirement of a link between the person seeking asylum and the ‘safe country’. Thus, the UK legislation deviated even further from the rationale underlying the Refugee Convention, international human rights standards and EU legislation because it passed the obligation to assess asylum claims to states with no link to people seeking asylum and without adequate risk assessment. The final part of this article discusses the limit to this policy and analyses the legal battle between the UK Parliament, the Government’s executive power, the UK Supreme Court and the Belfast High Court, which barred the UK Government from deporting people seeking asylum to a third country. This article concludes that there is some irony in the fact the term ‘safe country’ has been weaponised as a bordering tool by the UK Government, but ‘a border’ between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland is limiting the negative effect of the concept ‘safe country’ on the very same people that is attempting to exclude from protection. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Shifting Sands of Refugee Protection: Normativity, Crisis, and Contemporary UK Asylum)
22 pages, 339 KB  
Article
Socially Distancing the ‘Irregular’ Migrant: An Arendtian Political Analysis of Contemporary UK Asylum Law
by Joel Platt
Laws 2025, 14(5), 62; https://doi.org/10.3390/laws14050062 - 27 Aug 2025
Viewed by 1066
Abstract
Utilising Arendt’s ‘right to have rights’ thesis not only as an observation on citizenship but as an intrinsic eligibility and political opportunity for the stateless, this paper outlines how the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and Illegal Migration Act 2023 do not merely [...] Read more.
Utilising Arendt’s ‘right to have rights’ thesis not only as an observation on citizenship but as an intrinsic eligibility and political opportunity for the stateless, this paper outlines how the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and Illegal Migration Act 2023 do not merely continue the general trend of criminalising migrants but take the further step of socially distancing the securitised migrant object. The recent legislation provides that those who arrive in the UK via ‘irregular means’ (i.e., small boats) will likely have their asylum claims deemed ‘inadmissible’. The lack of a ‘negotiated settlement’ in the asylum complex has been well noted; however, the systematic prejudgement and consequent bureaucratic social distancing inherent in the new legislation now threatens to remove even the prospect of negotiation. The means of arrival instantly proving decisive precludes the possibility for asylum seekers to present evidence that they are genuine refugees, and, with it, the politico-legal space and opportunity for the ‘irregular’ person to generally make themselves seen and heard is maliciously obstructed. The result is not just the denial of humanity and concomitant human dues (rights), but a distinct move towards denial of even the possibility of humanity (the right to have rights). Such works to distance system administrators from issues of vulnerability, assuredly direful consequences, and humanness itself, as is essential for the expansion of a system where basic human rights are so lacking. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Shifting Sands of Refugee Protection: Normativity, Crisis, and Contemporary UK Asylum)
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