This article critiques the increasingly popular concept of the “safe legal pathway” in refugee po... more This article critiques the increasingly popular concept of the “safe legal pathway” in refugee politics, policy and law, using European engagement and intervention in the Sahel as its primary case study. It draws upon neo-colonial studies, necropolitics, border studies and the legal literature on sovereignty and extraterritoriality to explore the function, structure, and import of the “safe legal pathway”, and its compatibility with contemporary understandings of international legal history and argumentation. Divided into four sections, the article focuses on the drivers behind Europe’s migration-development-security objectives in the Sahelout of which the pathways discourse emerges, the EU’s concomitant insistence on criminalising the illusive “people smuggling business model”, and the role which the traditional tropes of sovereignty, territory, and civilisation play in determining policy parameters. Noting the multidirectional nature and multifunctional purposes of pathways, and f...
This article considers the approaches taken in the United States (US) and Australia to prioritisi... more This article considers the approaches taken in the United States (US) and Australia to prioritising the resettlement of Christians from Syria and Iraq. Focusing first upon respective models and the immediate political factors that lead to their adoption, it analyses in depth the specific role played by the evangelical constituency in the US, and their theologically-infused concern for the "persecuted church" in "enslaved" lands. Recognising this movement enjoys less influence in Australia, the article considers the ways in which Australia's resettlement policies and political narratives have nonetheless increasingly participated in tropes familiar to classical antinomian political theology, not least that resettlement is tied to a redemptive generosity of the State that works to denigrate and undermine the legal obligations demanded by those who arrive irregularly by boat. The article also critiques the use of "vulnerability" as a touchstone principle for the fair allocation of scarce resettlement places, and its propensity to be used for cherry-picking purposes. Finally, as part of the argument that resettlement is susceptible to being used as a vehicle for those motivated by more explicit theological concerns, the article explores the leveraging for political, redemptive, and eschatological purposes of images and narratives of the "martyred" middle-eastern Christian.
Rewriting Refugee Law: Centring Refugee Knowledges and Lived Experience
Refugee survey quarterly, Apr 4, 2024
The imperative of constitutional enshrinement - Submission in response to Interim Voice Co-Design Report
Submission to the PJCIS: Inquiry into the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Strengthening the Citizenship Loss Provisions) Bill 2018
Submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights: Complementary Protection
Human Rights and Structural Inequality in the Shadow of COVID-19—A New Chapter in the Culture Wars?
The Australian Year Book of International Law Online, 2021
This article takes as its starting point the convergence of two rights-related grassroots movemen... more This article takes as its starting point the convergence of two rights-related grassroots movements given momentum by the pandemic’s manifestly discriminatory impact: the push to recognise and address racism as a public health crisis, and the global influence of the Black Lives Matter (‘BLM’) movement. It considers the relevance of this moment to international human rights law, the adequacy of the response from its key institutions, and the conservative backlash, framed within the rhetoric of rights, that is challenging the very idea of structural racism. In doing so, it argues that we are witnessing a new stage of the culture wars around the language, method and assumptions of human rights law with which the discipline must engage pragmatically and strategically.
This article considers the approaches taken in the United States (US) and Australia to prioritisi... more This article considers the approaches taken in the United States (US) and Australia to prioritising the resettlement of Christians from Syria and Iraq. Focusing first upon respective models and the immediate political factors that lead to their adoption, it analyses in depth the specific role played by the evangelical constituency in the US, and their theologically-infused concern for the “persecuted church” in “enslaved” lands. Recognising this movement enjoys less influence in Australia, the article considers the ways in which Australia’s resettlement policies and political narratives have nonetheless increasingly participated in tropes familiar to classical antinomian political theology, not least that resettlement is tied to a redemptive generosity of the State that works to denigrate and undermine the legal obligations demanded by those who arrive irregularly by boat. The article also critiques the use of “vulnerability” as a touchstone principle for the fair allocation of scar...
Thanks to Adrienne Stone, John Williams and James Stellios for helpful discussions and comments, ... more Thanks to Adrienne Stone, John Williams and James Stellios for helpful discussions and comments, to the anonymous referees and the excellent Federal Law Review editors. 1 There is a potential dispute as to whether the detention should be described as 'indefinite' given the Court's finding that it cannot be said that detention will never end. As most judges use the term uncritically, I have adopted it for the sake of clarity.
Persecutor or Persecuted: Exclusion under Article 1F(A) and IF(B) of the Refugees Convention
The international refugee regime provides for states to exclude certain categories of persons who... more The international refugee regime provides for states to exclude certain categories of persons who do not deserve protection. This article explores the object and purpose of the two most used provisions in the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees as amended ...
Book Review: Watching Brief: Reflections on Human Rights, Law and Justice (Julian Burnside)
... Legal Scholarship Network ANU College of Law Research Paper No. 09-10 Matthew Zagor Book Rev... more ... Legal Scholarship Network ANU College of Law Research Paper No. 09-10 Matthew Zagor Book Review. Watching Brief: Reflections on Human Rights, Law and Justice (Julian Burnside) ...Matthew Zagor AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LAW ...
The struggle of autonomy and authenticity: framing the savage refugee
Social Identities, 2015
ABSTRACT
Adventures in the Grey Zone: Constitutionalism, Rights and the Review of Executive Power in the Migration Context
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
Recognition and Narrative Identities: The Legal Creation, Alienation and Liberation of the Refugee
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
Abstract: That a refugee often has a transformative experience in their encounter with a status d... more Abstract: That a refugee often has a transformative experience in their encounter with a status determination regime is uncontentious. The practical need for legal recognition of a pre-existing status for the purpose of protection marries with a very personal need for ...
England and the Rediscovery of Constitutional Faith
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
... constitutional faith MATTHEW ZAGOR An abstract of this paper can be downloaded without charge... more ... constitutional faith MATTHEW ZAGOR An abstract of this paper can be downloaded without charge from the Social Science Research Network electronic library at: http://ssrn.com/AbstractID= 1445138 Page 2. ... England and the rediscovery of constitutional faith Matthew Zagor * ...
Recognition and narrative identities: is refugee law redeemable?
Allegiance and Identity in a Globalised World, 2014
This chapter considers the production and reception of refugee narratives through the categories ... more This chapter considers the production and reception of refugee narratives through the categories of refugee law, and the creation of legal personhood arising out of the 'multiplicity of recognitions' involved in the determination process. It asks whether the legal categories provide opportunities for an empowering a self-narrating identity to be shaped by those involved in the narrative, drawing upon Ricoeur (on narrative), Taylor (on recognition) and Butler (on performativity) amongst others.
The language of morality and legality infuses every aspect of the Middle East conflict. From repe... more The language of morality and legality infuses every aspect of the Middle East conflict. From repeated assertions by officials that Israel has “the most moral army in the world” to justifications for specific military tactics and operations by reference to self-defense and proportionality, the public rhetoric is one of legal right and moral obligation. Less often heard are the voices of those on the ground whose daily experience is lived within the legal quagmire portrayed by their leaders in such uncompromising terms. This Article explores the opaque normative boundaries surrounding the actions of a specific group within the Israeli military, soldiers returning from duty in Hebron in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. By examining interviews with these soldiers by an Israeli NGO, it identifies different narratives of legality and illegality which inform their conduct, contrasting their failure to adhere to conventional legal discourses with the broader “legalization” of military ...
Book Review: Watching Brief: Reflections on Human Rights, Law and Justice (Julian Burnside)
Australian Yearbook of International Law, 2008
... Legal Scholarship Network ANU College of Law Research Paper No. 09-10 Matthew Zagor Book Rev... more ... Legal Scholarship Network ANU College of Law Research Paper No. 09-10 Matthew Zagor Book Review. Watching Brief: Reflections on Human Rights, Law and Justice (Julian Burnside) ...Matthew Zagor AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LAW ...
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