Advisers

Merrill Smith, Adviser

Merrill Smith holds a B.A. from Columbia, a J.D. from Vanderbilt, an LL.M. from NYU, and the Diplome from the International Institute of Human Rights and is admitted to practice in the State of NY. He was the editor of the annual World Refugee Survey, (editions 2003-9), with the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), and an active leader in the international civil society advocacy movement to end the human "warehousing" of refugees. He was the Washington Representative of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (2000-2), a leading lobbyist for increased appropriations to the U.S. Migration and Refugee Assistance account and for the establishment of Legal Orientation Presentations for immigration detainees. He also directed Church World Service's legal department representing Haitian asylum seekers from Guantanamo in Miami, worked as human rights observer for the UN in Haiti, and directed Haiti Advocacy in the United States. Merrill advises the Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Network on international refugee protection and advocacy.

Richard Carver, Adviser

Richard Carver is Senior Lecturer in Human Rights and Governance in the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice at Oxford Brookes University. Previously an associate of the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, he has been on the research staff of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and ARTICLE 19. An early proponent of understanding refugee law in the context of human rights, he was the author, with Chaloka Beyani and Joe Oloka-Onyango, of African Exodus (1995), the first study of protection and human rights of refugees in Africa, as well as Voices in Exile (2001), a study of African refugees’ right to freedom of expression, with Guglielmo Verdirame. Richard teaches on human rights and refugee protection. As an international law scholar, his focus is on mechanisms for implementing international standards at the national level and he is currently researching the role of national human rights institutions in protecting the rights of refugees.

The Southern Refugee Legal Aid Network (SRLAN) was established in 2007 at a conference in Nairobi, Kenya. It was born out of a common understanding amongst its members that refugees are people with rights enshrined in international human rights and refugee law. However, those seeking asylum are often treated as passive victims with endless needs and their rights are regularly violated. The human suffering refugees endure often results from restrictions on their autonomy as human beings, and thus must be addressed by ensuring their ability to exercise basic rights. This is particularly challenging in the global south, where judicial institutions to redress rights violations are less developed and/or accessible. To remedy this, increasing numbers of organisations are conducting rights-based advocacy for refugees in the global south, through pro bono legal aid and/or research and policy advocacy. These organisations are bound by a common desire to foster respect for the rights of refugees in the global south.
These organisations are often unique in their countries and isolated from each other internationally. While they face common challenges, they have not had sufficient opportunities to learn from each other’s experiences. Slowly and informally, however, rights-based refugee organisations have been increasing their information sharing and coordinated advocacy. The Southern Refugee Legal Aid Network was thus initiated to formalise such cooperation, with a view to channelling disparate refugee rights organisations into a movement for refugee rights in the global south. At the time of inception, the SRLAN concluded the Nairobi Code by which all members of the Network agreed to abide. The SRLAN continues to develop and invites new members from the refugee legal aid world.

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