A group of 12 academics from Kent Law School are amongst 343 signatories to a statement calling for an ‘urgent, humane and effective governmental response to the refugee crisis’.
Entitled ‘Call from the Legal Community for Urgent Action’, the statement condemns the Government’s response of offering to take in 20,000 Syrian refugees over five years as ‘too low, too slow and too narrow’. It was published in both The Times and The Guardian last week and is available to read in full on the Lawyers’ Refugee Initiative website.
The statement also requests:
- The UK should take a fair and proportionate share of refugees, both those already within the EU and those still outside it
- Safe and legal routes to the UK, as well as to the EU, need to be established
- Safe and legal routes within the EU, including the UK, should be established
- There should be access to fair and thorough procedures to determine eligibility for international protection wherever it is sought
Kent Law School academics who have signed their names to the statement include: Professor Davina Cooper, Professor Maria Drakopoulou, Professor Harm Schepel, Professor Sally Sheldon, Dr Kate Bedford (Reader in Law), Dr Eleanor Curran (Senior Lecturer in Law), Dr Luis Eslava (Lecturer in Law), Dr Sara Kendall (Lecturer in Law, Per Laleng (Senior Lecturer and Barrister), Dr Sinead Ring (Lecturer in Law), Dr Sophie Vigneron (Senior Lecturer in Law) and Dr Thanos Zartaloudis (Senior Lecturer in Law).
In total, the statement has been signed by 12 retired judges, 105 Queen’s Counsel, 130 barristers, 27 solicitors and 26 professors and 23 law academics. Signatories also include the former President of the Supreme Court, Lord Phillips, former Law Lords Lord Steyn, Lord Walker and Lord Woolf, the former president of the European Court of Human Rights Sir Nicolas Bratza, and the ex-director of Public Prosecutions Lord MacDonald.
Further information about the statement is available from Dr Zartaloudis: t.zartaloudis@kent.ac.uk