It is not often acknowledged that the most of the movement of African refugees takes place within Africa itself, rather than from Africa to the West, but Dr Cristiano d'Orsi, a post-doctoral fellow based at the University of Pretoria’s Centre for Human Rights, recently published a book on the protection of asylum seekers and refugees in Sub-Saharan Africa. His book forms part of Routledge's Research Series on Asylum, Migration and Refugee Law.

The book examines the specific characteristics and challenges of the refugee situation in Sub-Saharan Africa and offers a new and critical vision of the situation of asylum seekers and refugees on the African continent. Dr D’Orsi considers the international, regional and domestic legal and institutional frameworks linked to the protection of refugees in Sub-Saharan Africa, and explores the contributions that refugee protection in Africa has made to the cause globally. Key issues covered in the book include the theory and practice of non-refoulement, an analysis of the phenomenon of mass-influx, the concept of burden-sharing, and the role of freedom fighters.

The book goes on to examine expulsions of refugees and the historical role played by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Sub-Saharan Africa. As a work that follows the persecution and legal challenges of those in search of a safe haven, this book will be of great interest and use to researchers and students of immigration and asylum law, international law, human rights and African studies.

Dr D’Orsi is a post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for Human Rights in the Faculty of Law at the University of Pretoria. He holds a PhD in International Relations (International Law) from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland; a two-year master’s degree in International Relations (International Law) from the same institution; and a master’s degree in Diplomacy from the Italian Society for International Organisation in Rome, Italy. Among his many achievements, he has been a candidate at the Centre for Studies and Research at The Hague Academy of International Law in the Netherlands; a Europaeum Fellow at the Refugee Studies Centre in Oxford, UK; a DAAD Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for International and Comparative Law in Heidelberg, Germany; an Albert Gallatin Fellow at the University of Virginia School of Law in Charlottesville, USA; and a Hugo Grotius Fellow at the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor, USA.

Publication details

Title: Asylum-seeker and refugee protection in Sub-Saharan Africa: The peregrination of a persecuted human being in search of a safe haven

Author: Cristiano d'Orsi

Publisher: Routledge 2016

Link: https://www.routledge.com/products/9781138025424