Course Description

This course offers a comprehensive and critical examination of International Refugee Law (IRL)  as a standalone elective within the broader curriculum of public international law and human  rights. It does not presuppose any prior coursework in IRL, though students with foundational  knowledge of public international law and international human rights law will find the material  more immediately accessible.

The course is structured around three intellectual movements across ten weeks. The first  movement (Weeks 1–3) establishes the doctrinal foundations: the historical evolution of international refugee protection, the normative and institutional architecture of the 1951  Convention and its 1967 Protocol, the role of the UNHCR, and the refugee definition including  the five Convention grounds and the concept of well-founded fear of persecution. The second  movement (Weeks 4–7) addresses the core doctrines and regimes: asylum and non-refoulement,  refugee status determination procedures and exclusion clauses, internal displacement and  statelessness, climate-induced displacement, and regional protection frameworks across Europe,  Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The third movement (Weeks 8–10) turns to India, South Asia,  and contemporary frontiers: the Global Compacts, durable solutions, India’s constitutional  framework and the Supreme Court’s evolving jurisprudence on refugee rights, South Asian state  practices, TWAIL perspectives, and the emerging role of artificial intelligence and algorithmic  decision-making in refugee governance.

The choice of materials relies heavily on primary sources: treaty provisions (with specific article  references), landmark case law from international and domestic courts and tribunals, UNHCR  guidelines and handbooks, and UNGA resolutions. Secondary readings draw on canonical texts  in the field, including Goodwin-Gill and McAdam, Chimni, Hathaway, and Feller, Türk, and  Nicholson. The course also incorporates the instructor’s published research on AI and refugee  status determination and on the Supreme Court of India’s stance on non-refoulement.

The pedagogical method is primarily seminar-style, combining structured lectures for  technically demanding doctrinal sessions with Socratic and guided discussion for sessions  anchored in case law and policy analysis. Each session identifies one leading case for close  reading and discussion, together with two or three focused discussion questions. Students are  expected to prepare assigned readings (capped at 80 pages per session) and engage actively in  class. All 20 sessions (40 teaching hours) are dedicated to substantive content delivery. All oral  evaluation components (viva voce, term paper presentations, and response paper discussions)  are conducted during office hours (small group discussions) and designated Saturdays, not  during class time.