Opening Lecture of the Academic Year: The Political Participation of Refugees and Other Displaced Persons in their Country of Nationality and in the Host State

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In this opening lecture, Professor Geoff Gilbert will discuss how, as conflict and repression end and states move towards a period of transition, those who have been displaced can participate in the restoration process.

What governs participation in the country of nationality by persons who are overseas? What are their rights to be included in the democratization and stabilisation process? How might the law of the host state affect participation? What role exists for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)? And what of those excluded from refugee status because of their ties to the rebel movement, when they may be the very ones who have provided an avenue for political dialogue during their displacement?

Geoff Gilbert is Professor of International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the University of Essex and is currently on secondment to the UNHCR. He was Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Refugee Law from 2002 to 2015. He has written widely on international law and forced displacement, international humanitarian law, international criminal law and international human rights law.

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