Chair: Başak Çalı, Head of Research at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and Professor of International Law.

Speakers:

Catherine Briddick, Andrew W Mellon Associate Professor of International Human Rights and Refugee Law at the Refugee Studies Centre.  

Raza Husain KC, Barrister at Matrix Chambers

Yasmine Ahmed, UK Director of Human Rights Watch

Cathryn Costello, Professor of Global Refugee and Migration Law at the Sutherland School of Law, University College Dublin. 

Following the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, Illegal Migration Act 2023, and Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024, the ‘new’ Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced an end to the UK’s migration and economic development partnership with Rwanda and new legislation.

The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill is likely to include measures allowing ‘fast-track decisions and returns to safe countries’ and ‘stronger powers to disrupt, investigate and prosecute organised criminals facilitating organised immigration crime.’

Our expert panel analysed these developments, considering access to asylum, the impact of the AAA [2023] UKSC 42 litigation, the relationships between non-refoulement, non-penalisation, and non-discrimination, and the UK’s role in upholding international law.

We ended by considering what taking a progressive, rights-protective, approach to protection in the UK could and should involve.