RETHINKING ASYLUM: HISTORY, PURPOSE, AND LIMITS

Click here for my review of RETHINKING ASYLUM: HISTORY, PURPOSE, AND LIMITS, by Matthew E. Price. Here is the beginning:

“RETHINKING ASYLUM is a provocative effort to reconceptualize the law of asylum and refugee protection in the West. Offering a politically savvy look at an area of law that deserves just such attention, the book showcases the strengths of its author, Matthew Price, who is trained in both political science and law.

Price’s basic premise is that the principal function of asylum law, which is designed to provide relief to refugees from certain kinds of persecution, is – and should be – to allow governments to express political value judgments about the governments from which the persecuted flee. The book thus embraces `the political conception of asylum – as limited in focus to persecuted people, as expressing condemnation of the persecuting regime, and as linked to a broader strategy to reform that regime’ (p.26).”

KJ