Jill Goldenziel: International Law Must Protect Refugees' Rights

At the end of 2012 there were 15.4 million refugees worldwide, a number that continues to grow.

"The international refugee system is in a perpetual state of crisis," says International Security Program Research Fellow Jill Goldenziel.

Before joining the Belfer Center last summer, Goldenziel studied international law and international relations as a doctoral student at Harvard. She also holds a law degree from NYU. Goldenziel recently published an article, "Regulating Human Rights: International Organizations, Flexible Standards, and International Refugee Law," in the Chicago Journal of International Law. Now she's working on a book about international refugee law and U.S. foreign policy.

"Refugee flows are one of the greatest human rights issues of our time," says Goldenziel, adding that current international refugee law is rather dated.

"International refugee law wasn't designed for the types of refugee crises that have occurred as the result of civil conflicts and state failure since the end of the Cold War," she says. The law should allow states to share the burden of managing refugees, while ensuring human rights, she believes.

"International law is understood very differently in different regions of the world," Goldenziel says, emphasizing the importance of refugee needs and their legal predicaments in the countries to which they flee.

Her recent article explains how international organizations can improve human rights, even in rogue states where human rights treaties have failed. She argues that international organizations can do so by using their authority to interpret international law, providing legal cover for state actions, and by linking human rights improvements to economic incentives and development programs. Goldenziel's fieldwork focused on finding better solutions to the current refugee crisis.

From 2007 to 2010, Goldenziel's work in Jordan, Syria, and Egypt brought her face-to-face with refugees.

"There's really nothing like talking to refugees and listening to their stories," she says. "To learn how to help refugees, one needs to understand what they've been through and how they interact with an international legal system that wasn't initially designed to provide the types of assistance they now need."

For more on Jill Goldenziel, see http://belfercenter.org/Goldenziel