22 February 2012 - 3 April 2012

This short certificate course offered by HREA and the Human Rights Center of the University for Peace introduces participants to the international system for refugee protection, from the historical, legal, theoretical and practical perspectives. Issues concerning international protection of refugees have undergone a sea change from the time when the 1951 Refugee Convention came into force. The contemporary world order poses serious challenges to refugee protection, beginning with identifying refugees within mixed migratory flows, inadequate national policies by states to protect refugees, their incompatibilities with international refugee law, the role of international organisations like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), issues of xenophobia and security in host countries amongst various other issues. This course is designed to provide a comprehensive picture to participants of how and why refugee protection is indispensable from the historical and human rights perspective, what are their needs and available legal protections, which are the relevant actors involved in refugee protection and what are the challenges facing today's refugees and host countries. The course also analyses the regional systems of refugee protection with the help of selected case studies. The course is based on a dynamic pedagogy including reading materials, video clips, case studies, and interactive webinars with the instructor as well as practitioners from NGOs and officials of UNHCR.

Course outline

Week 1: Introduction to refugee law – history of population movements, evolution of refugee regime and basic concepts
Weeks 2-3: Contemporary international framework for refugee protection – the 1951 Refugee Convention, the Protocol of 1967, essential concepts and case studies
Week 4: UNHCR and other relevant actors; internally displaced persons and stateless persons
Week 5: Regional systems of refugee protection and selected cases.
Week 6: Contemporary challenges to refugee protection

Level: professional , post-graduate graduate

Location: Internet (e-learning course)

Participants: staff members of NGOs and government agencies advocating for and servicing asylum seekers and refugees, staff of inter-governmental agencies and others interested in refugee issues. Candidates should have a good written command of English and have high competence and comfort with computer and Internet use.

Tuition, fee, lodging: The course tuition fee is US$ 435 (tuition for auditors is US$ 165). There are no discounted tuition rates or scholarships available for this course. Further information and application form can be found at: www.hrea.org/refugeelaw. Participants will be accepted on a first-come-first-serve basis.

Contact Information:
Sandra Quintin
Distance Learning Programme
HREA
689 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139-3302
USA
Tel: +1 617 301-4379
Fax: +1 617 249-0278
E-mail: applications@hrea.org
Web: http://www.hrea.org