Jubilut, Liliana Lyra, Espinoza, Marcia Vera, Mezzanotti, Gabriela. 2021. Latin America and Refugee Protection: Regimes, Logics and Challenges. Berghahn Books: New York. pp. 434.
| Published date | 01 August 2022 |
| Author | Omar Hammoud Gallego |
| Date | 01 August 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.13036 |
234
|
International Migration. 2022;60:234–237.
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/imig
Received: 15 Jun e 2022
|
Accepted: 15 June 20 22
DOI: 10.1111/imig.13036
BOOK REVIEW
Jubilut, Liliana Lyra, Espinoza, Marcia Vera,
Mezzanotti, Gabriela. 2021. Latin America
and Refugee Protection: Regimes, Logics and
Challenges. Berghahn Books: New York. pp. 434.
About 5 milli on Venezuelans are currently migrant s and refugees i n Latin Americ a (R4V, 2021). Close to 8 million
Colombians have been inter nally displaced over the last three decade s, and many c ontinue being d isplaced, de-
spite the signing of a peace accor d in 2016 (see Pereira Carneiro in this volume). To these two disp lacement crises
should be added worse ning conditions for migrants and refug ees in North and Central Americ a, as well as the dire
situation Haiti ans face both back home as well a s those seeking to settl e across Latin Americ a.
Considering t he current scenario then, do recent developments in refugee law in Latin America matter?
Starting in 1984, countries in the region began d eveloping a comprehensive framework for refugee p rotection
that has since been hailed as innovative and world- leading both by academic s and practitioners worldwide (Ca ntor
et al., 2015; Fernandez- Rodriguez et al., 2020; Hammoud- Gallego & Freier, 2022), and yet , have these d evelop-
ments had any impact on asylum seekers and refu gees' effec tively enjoye d rights? Or has it all been a purely
theoretica l exercise in norms building wi th few real- life consequences fo r their targeted benefi ciaries? These and
many other fundame ntal questions on refugee prote ction were at the back of my mind, as I read through th is new
volume edited by Ju bilut, Vera Espinoza and Mez zanotti on refugee law in L atin America.
In this bo ok, the edi tors bring to gether some of the most inf luential ac ademics o n refugee leg islation an d poli-
cies in Latin Amer ica, as well as some of the practit ioners involved in the drafti ng and negotiations of many of the
soft law instruments— such as the 1984 Cartagen a Declaration— analysed in th is volume. In practical terms, the
book is div ided in five par ts, each conclu ding with a brief commentary that summarises each of the previous se t
of chapters, for a tot al of 15 chapters.
In the first part of this work, the authors focus on the regime that grew from the 1984 “Cartagena Declaration,”
the foundational do cument that spurred the develop ment of a regional framework for the p rotection of refugees
in Latin Americ a. In this much touted declaration , a new “expanded” refugee definitio n was formulated, to include
persons “who have fled their country bec ause their lives, safety and freedom have been threatened by generalized
violence, f oreign aggression , internal conflic ts, massive vi olations of human rights or othe r circumstances which
have seriously dis turbed the public ord er” (UNHCR, 1984).
Yet, foreshadowing the broad er issue that resurfaces through out this volume, de Andrade makes clear alread y
in the first chapter on the negotiations that led to the drafting of the Cartagena Declaration, that its “broad [ref-
ugee] defin ition is seldo m used, thus having greater application in rhetoric t han in prac tice” (p.41), even th ough
most L atin Americ an countries have inclu ded it i nto their refugee legisl ation (Hammoud - Gallego, 2022). In the
following chapter, Rushin g and Lizcano Rodriguez focus ins tead on the lesser- known 1994 “San José Declar ation”
which— despite n ot having been refer enced explicitly i n any national legis lation or policy— they cl aim has put “in-
ternal displacem ent on the humanitarian agenda both regiona lly and globally” (p. 53). Still, doubts about the pol icy
implications of t hese soft law instrum ents keep resurfacin g in the following chapters .
© 2022 Internat ional Organizat ion for Migration.
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