Complementary Protection in International Refugee Law by Jane McAdam
| Author | Angela Williams |
| Published date | 01 March 2008 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2008.00695_2.x |
| Date | 01 March 2008 |
register, under these legal systems ^ is at the root of all title transfer questions in
these two countries. This leads to a cumbersome structure for enabling indirect
investors, who hold their securit ies through an intermediary, to enjoy their rights.
The arrangements may not be as cumbersome as English equitable notions of
constructive trusts, but nevertheless present some challenges, particularly if the
objective is to reach a single EU-wide code on securities ownership.
Dr Micheler’s conclusions are that convergence of the laws of the member
states should proceed in a functional way. It is probably asking too much to
require member states to tear up their existing traditional approaches to property
law and opt for something wholly new which has no foundations i n jurispru-
dence or established legal theory. Rather, the new international code should ¢t
into these traditions, byspecifying outcomesand objectives.This approachshould
make reform possible. Aiming for something less thanperfection makes it much
more likely to be achieved, and practitioners and investors alike will be well
served if a simpler, more harmonious approachto legal questions about holdings
of securities of issuers from many countries in accounts is possible.
DermotTuring
n
Jane McAdam, Complementary Protection in International Refugee Law,
Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2007,336 pp, hb d60.
Jane McAdam’s new book examines the way in which traditional notions of refu-
gee status are being challenged, and the extent to which contemporarydiscourse
responds(or rather,should respond) to newand escalatingmigration £ows.While
much of the existing scholarship examines the status and protection of refugees
within international law, this current work, which is based on the author’s DPhil
thesis, focuses on complementary protection available to such individuals over
and above the provisions of the 1951 Refugee Convention. McAdam argues that
the extended principle of non-refoulement attributes a legal statusto all persons ana-
logous to that accorded by the Refugee Convention. More broadly, the universal
obligation not to return a personwhere there is a risk of persecution or otherrele-
vant harm e¡ectively negates any legal justi¢cation for di¡erentiating between
those accorded status under the Refugee Convention, and the status of bene¢ci-
aries of complementary protection. Advocating the merits of complementary
protection (i.e. protection granted to individuals on the basis of alegal obligation
other than the principal refugee treaty), this book considers various aspects of
international huma n rights law in order to determine how, and to what extent,
international protection has been extended beyond the Refugee Convention.
A survey of traditional human rights instruments includi ng the Torture Con-
vention, the ECHR,the ICCPR and the Conventionon the Rights of the Child,
reveals a variety of ways in which compleme ntary protection may be accommo -
dated byexisting human rights law. (The Conventions onTorture and Rights of
n
Cli¡ord Chance.
Reviews
323
r2008 The Authors.Journal Compilation r20 08The Modern Law Review Limited.
(2008) 71(2) 320^330
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