Prof. Meili Discusses Research on Treaties at Nordic Asylum Law Seminar

Professor Stephen Meili presented a paper on complimentary protection in comparative perspective at the Nordic Asylum Law Seminar at the University of Bergen, Norway. Meili used his research on the impact of human treaties on asylum jurisprudence and practice in five common law countries as the basis for analyzing the effectiveness of such treaties in civil law systems, using Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden as examples. His conclusion, based on a preliminary analysis of data from a variety of common and civil law countries, is that the type of legal system is not a significant variable in analyzing treaty impact in the asylum context. A more important factor is whether countries have adopted legislation at least as protective of refugees as relevant international instruments.