The Cambridge Pro Bono Project has recently completed three background papers exploring options for the reinforcement or reconceptualisation of international supervision of the 1951 Refugee Convention.
On 28/29 September 2012 the papers will serve as a point of departure for a Roundtable on the Future of Refugee Convention Supervision to be held at Downing College in Cambridge. The Roundtable will be co-convened by Professor James Hathaway, Director of the Program in Refugee and Asylum Law at the University of Michigan, and Justice Anthony North, Immediate Past President of the International Association of Refugee Law Judges. The Roundtable will involve a small group of judicial and academic experts, including the Chief Justice of Kenya, Hon. Willy Mutunga, Baroness Brenda Hale of the United Kingdom Supreme Court, and the UNHCR's Director of International Protection, Volker Türk. The graduate law students who took lead roles in drafting the papers will attend the Roundtable as rapporteurs.
In total, a team of fifteen Ph.D. and LL.M. students worked on the preparation of the three working papers. The team was led by Jason Pobjoy, the founding Chair of the Cambridge Pro Bono Project, and advised by Professor David Feldman. The supervisors of the three working papers were Alysia Blackham (Ph.D.), Claire Nielsen (Ph.D.) Katie O'Byrne (LL.M.), Josh Scheinert (LL.M.) and Joanna Whiteman (LL.M.). The lead researchers for the project were Daniel Costelloe, Konrad Duden, Sarah Grimmer, Callista Harris, Leigh Hudson, Tarini Mehta, Toni Palmer, Stuart Scott, Daniella Waddoup. Additional research assistance was provided by Alice Lam, Claire Simmonds, Janaki Tampi, Chanelle Taoi and Alex White.
Image copyright UN archive.