In
contrast to the claim that refugee law has been a key in guaranteeing a
space of protection for refugees, this book argues that law has been
instrumental in eliminating spaces of protection, not just from one’s
persecutors but also from the grasp of sovereign power. By uncovering
certain fundamental aspects of asylum as practised in the past and in
present day social movements, namely its concern with defining space
rather than people and its role as a space of resistance or otherness to
sovereign law, this book demonstrates that asylum has historically been
antagonistic to law and vice versa. In contrast, twentieth-century
refugee law was constructed precisely to ensure the effective management
and control over the movements of forced migrants. To illustrate the
complex ways in which these two paradigms – asylum and refugee law –
interact with one another, this book examines their historical
development and concludes with in-depth studies of the Sanctuary
Movement in the United States and the Sans-Papiers of France.
The
book will appeal to researchers and students of refugee law and refugee
studies; legal and political philosophy; ancient, medieval and modern
legal history; and sociology of political movements.
