Webinar Series: The Rule of Law, Migration & Human Rights: Retreat, Retrenchment, Reimagining

Matrix, the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and the Refugee Studies Centre (University of Oxford), and the Sutherland School of Law (University College Dublin) are co-hosting a series of webinars to explore the contested relationship between the rule of law, human rights and migration governance.

The series will bring together experts from legal practice, advocacy, and academia to share expert insights into contemporary contestations across a range of fields – clarifying how and why political actors distort and undermine human rights commitments, and exploring whether current systems differentiating refugees, victims of trafficking and other migrants are fit for purpose. Are universalist commitments part of the problem or the solution in the face of anti-migrant politics and xenophobic policy reflexes? Can human rights survive the current onslaught? Or do the rule of law and human rights provide vital bulwarks to humanise, or even potentially reimagine migration governance?

• Date: Wednesday 7 October 2026
• Time: 17:00-18:00
• Register here

In the context of growing political pressure to restrict the already very limited rights of refugees and migrants, this webinar will examine the Council of Europe’s May 2016 Chișinău Declaration and the EU Pact on Asylum and Migration of June 2016. Our speakers will consider these recent legal developments and whether existing legal safeguards embedded in international and domestic law remain capable of protecting the rights of refugees and migrants in a challenging political climate.

Chair:

• Professor Philip Leach, Middlesex University & Matrix

Speakers:

• Professor Başak Çalı, Bonavero Institute of Human Rights
• Professor Alice Donald, Middlesex University
• Professor Andrew Forde, Dublin City University, Chairperson, Irish Refugee Council, Member, Irish Human Rights & Equality Commission

• Date: Wednesday 28 October 2026
• Time: 17:00-18:00
• Register here

The 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees was drafted 75 years ago. It has evolved through formal additions (the 1967 Protocol), expansion (regional instruments in Africa and Latin America), and human rights driven evolutive interpretation. This webinar explores whether it is fit for purpose – does it meet the challenge to protect those fleeing war and conflict and climate crises? What additional sources of international protection are available or needed? What are the implications of current containment practices and the erosion of international protection?

Chair:

• Eleanor Mitchell, Matrix

Speakers:

• Professor Cathryn Costello, UCD & Matrix
• Professor Catherine Briddick, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford
• Randhir Gayan Wanigasekara, UNHCR London

• Date: Wednesday 4 November 2026
• Time: 17:00-18:00
• Register here

International, regional and domestic laws on trafficking aim to prevent trafficking, protect victims and ensure prosecution of perpetrators. This webinar explores whether the current regime meets its stated purposes, and whether anti-trafficking measures work when confronted with increasingly oppressive migration controls.

Chair:

• Samantha Knights KC, Matrix

Speakers: 

• Ahmed Aydeed, Deighton Pierce Glynn
• Professor Siobhán Mullally, Established Professor of Human Rights Law; Director, Irish Centre for Human Rights, University of Galway; former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons.
• Dr Maayan Niezna, University of Liverpool

• Date: Wednesday 18 November 2026
• Time: 17:00-18:00
• Register here

Migration for work and study are the most significant forms of migration in terms of numbers, including to the UK and Ireland. This webinar will explore the myths and realities surrounding the law and policy in these fields, examining the trade-offs in immigration policy, including the implications of temporariness for the right to work and human rights of migrants.  Are temporariness and selectivity desirable or necessary features in this field, or a mask for precarity and discrimination?   What would a human-rights based immigration policy look like?

Chair:

• Professor Cathryn Costello, UCD & Matrix

Speakers: 

• Professor Diamond Ashiagbor,  University of Birmingham & Matrix
• Madeleine Sumption, Director, Migration Observatory, University of Oxford
• Professor Martin Ruhs, Migration Policy Centre, European University Institute

• Date: Wednesday 2 December 2026
• Time: 17:00-18:00
• Register here

The ideal of the rule of law is poorly institutionalised in immigration law and enforcement.  In this final seminar, we invite speakers to reflect on how the rule of law could be used to reimagine immigration law and enforcement, by taking state violations more seriously, tempering the coercive power of the state, enabling migrants to legalise their status, or even questioning the conception of sovereignty underpinning contemporary borders.

Chair: 

• Professor Cathryn Costello, UCD & Matrix

Speakers: 

• Professor E Tendayi Achiume, Stanford Law & former UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance
• Professor Bridget Anderson, Director, Migrant Futures Institute, Goldsmiths, University of London
• Bella Mosselmans, Director, Global Strategic Litigation Council, Zolberg Institute, the New School, New York