How to respond to the current violations of international asylum and human rights law? Reflections from a human rights clinic in Palermo (Sicily)

How can a legal clinic respond to the current violations international asylum and human rights law? by Dr Elena Consiglio

Discussant: Dr Rosana Garciandia

Abstract

In the attempt to block migration flows by sea from North Africa, European and Italian authorities have drastically reduced Search and Rescue missions, and increased border control activities. Last year, in order to prevent sea crossing, the Italian government signed agreements with the Libyan authorities in Tripoli, while Libya is, according to the UNHCR an unsafe third Country for returning asylum seekers. Italy has also provided vessels, training and equipment to the so-called 'Libyan Coast Guard' to conduct search and rescue activities, so that now migrants intercepted by Libyan vessels are disembarked on Libyan shores. The 'Code of Conduct for NGOs undertaking activities in migrant's rescue operations at sea' and the closure of Italian ports resulted in the de facto annihilation of NGOs activity at sea.

Migrants disembarked on Italian shores may encounter serious difficulties in accessing asylum proceedings, getting sufficient information on their right to request asylum, and finding legal support. Oftentimes they suffer abuses from the administrative authorities, abuses that, most of the times, remain unchallenged.

The Legal Clinic for Human Rights of the University of Palermo operates in this context, to increase protection of the rights of migrants and asylum seekers.

After illustrating the specific violations of migrants', asylum seekers' and refugees' rights, the seminar will focus on the responses that a legal clinic for human rights can give on the territory to increase actual protection for persons and respect for the rule of law.

Speaker Bio

Dr Elena Consiglio is currently a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Philosophy of Law at the University of Palermo. She is a qualified Italian Lawyer. Her work, grounded in her solid background on human rights theory, focuses on human rights and anti-discrimination law in two fields: Immigration and Asylum Law and Chinese Law. Since 2011, Dr Consiglio has devoted her research to European Immigration and Asylum Law, coupling theoretical commitment with legal practice within the Italian and British jurisdiction.

From 2013 to 2014 Dr Consiglio was a Visiting Research Fellow at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, were she took part in a research project on Administrative Detention in Europe, publishing a dossier on Administrative Detention Law and Practice in Italy.

Dr Consiglio is a co-founding member of the Legal Clinic for Human Rights (CLEDU) at the University of Palermo, whose mission is to protect the rights of persons in vulnerable situations, including migrants, asylum seekers, detainees and victims of discrimination.

Her doctoral dissertation 'Human Rights in China: Domestic Resources, Domestic Resistances' focused on the evolution of human rights discourses in China from 1978 to 2011. Dr Consiglio has conducted extensive fieldwork in China in the years 2009, 2010 and 2011. In 2009/2010 she was Visiting Scholar at the University of Chongqing, where she taught European Law and Legal English.

Dr Consiglio is the convenor of the courses 'Introduction to Chinese Legal Culture' and 'Discrimination Law' at the Law School of the University of Palermo. Her monograph on 'The Doctrines of Human Rights in China' is forthcoming, and she is currently writing a monograph on Discrimination Law.

Discussant Bio

Dr Rosana Garciandia is Research Associate and Visiting Lecturer of Public International Law at King’s College London. Her work focuses on a project on State responsibility for modern slavery (PI Dr Philippa Webb, funded by the British Academy’s Tackling the UK’s International Challenges Programme). The project, conducted in cooperation with the UN University, explores the involvement of States or their organs in modern slavery cases and analyses the international framework of State responsibility to determine whether it is possible to hold States accountable in such situations and what the challenges of that approach are.

Dr Garciandia joined the Dickson Poon School of Law in 2018 after having acquired extensive experience working at international organisations in the areas of EU Law, human rights and international anti-corruption law. She was the Secretary General of the European Law Institute, an organisation working to improve the quality of law in Europe. She also worked as Legal Research Officer at the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) focusing mainly on socio-economic rights. At the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, she contributed and continues to contribute with her work to the review of the implementation of the UN Convention Against Corruption by States Parties. She was previously Lecturer in Public International Law and EU Law at University of Murcia in her native Spain.

She holds a doctorate in Law (PhD) from University of Navarra School of Law, and has been a visiting researcher at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, the Graduate Institute and Queen Mary University of London. She was the Coordinator of the Africa Working Group of the Solicitor’s International Human Rights Group (London, 2012) and is a fellow of the European Society of International Law, of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law and of the European Law Institute.

About the Human Rights, Development and Global Justice Series

Our series aims to create an open, interdisciplinary academic platform for the discussion of issues related to human rights, development and global justice. Special attention is given to the global south, but not to the exclusion of other places.

We hope to generate exchanges furthering academic insight and creativity, to strengthen the School’s connections with scholars around the world, and to enrich undergraduate and postgraduate teaching curricula among the School’s wide offering of modules related to the jurisprudence of human rights, transnational human rights, and global justice more widely.

The events series is currently convened by Professor Eva Pils. It is supported by funding provided by The Dickson Poon School of Law. For information about other events in the series, please visit the King's College London website.