James Hathaway (born 1956) is a Canadian-American scholar of international refugee law and related aspects of

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

and

public international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...

. His work has been frequently cited by the most senior courts of the common law world, and has played a pivotal role in the evolution of refugee studies scholarship. Hathaway pioneered the understanding of refugee status as surrogate or substitute protection of human rights, authored the world's first comprehensive analysis of the human rights of refugees, merging doctrinal study of refugee and human rights law with empirical analysis of the state of refugee protection around the world and directed a groundbreaking multidisciplinary and global team of scholars and officials in an initiative to reconceive the structures of refugee protection more fairly to share burdens and responsibilities. Hathaway also convened the Michigan Colloquium on Challenges in International Refugee Law, which met eight times between 1999 and 2017 to formulate guidelines to resolve cutting-edge concerns on both refugee status and refugee rights under international law. An archive of Hathaway’s scholarly working papers has been established at the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library. Hathaway is the Founding Editor o
Cambridge Asylum and Migration Studies
and served as Senior Advisor t
Asylum Access
a non-profit organization committed to delivering innovative legal aid to refugees in the Global South (2013-2022) and Counsel on International Protection to th
United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants
(2008-2022).

Education

Hathaway earned an LL.B. (Honors) at

Osgoode Hall Law School Osgoode Hall Law School, commonly shortened to Osgoode, is the law school of York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The law school is home to the Law Commission of Ontario, the Journal of Law and Social Policy, and the '' Osgoode Hall L ...

York University York University (french: Université York), also known as YorkU or simply YU, is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's fourth-largest university, and it has approximately 55,700 students, 7,0 ...

, and an LL.M. and a J.S.D. at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. He was called to the bars of the Canadian provinces of Ontario and New Brunswick. He presently resides in San Francisco and Vancouver.

Career

Hathaway is the Degan Professor of Law Emeritus at the

University of Michigan Law School The University of Michigan Law School (Michigan Law) is the law school of the University of Michigan, a public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Founded in 1859, the school offers Master of Laws (LLM), Master of Comparative Law (MCL ...

(USA) where he served as the founding Director of the Program in Refugee and Asylum Law (1998-2022). He has been appointed a visiting professor at the American University in Cairo, and at the Universities of

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

Macerata Macerata () is a city and ''comune'' in central Italy, the county seat of the province of Macerata in the Marche region. It has a population of about 41,564. History The historical city centre is on a hill between the Chienti and Potenza ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, Stanford,

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

, and

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

. Hathaway was also the Distinguished Visiting Professor of International Refugee Law at the University of Amsterdam from 2010-2022. Prior to joining the Michigan faculty, Hathaway served as founding faculty member of the Ecole de droit de l'Université de Moncton (Canada)(1981-1984), the world's first French-language common law program of study, and Professor of Law and Associate Dean of York University's

(1984-1998). From 2008 until 2010, Hathaway was on leave from Michigan Law School to serve as the Dean and William Hearn Chair of Law at the Melbourne Law School in Australia. At Melbourne he led the Law School's transition to become Australia's first, all-graduate (JD) program. Hathaway's main focus was to establish Melbourne as Australia's leading law school, including by joining other law schools from around the world to establish the London-based

Centre for Transnational Legal Studies The Center for Transnational Legal Studies (CTLS) is a global educational center for the study of transnational law. The Center was founded in London in October 2008 as an initiative by Georgetown University Law Center, providing educational serv ...

, and launching joint degree programs linking Melbourne with leading law schools on three continents, including the Chinese University of Hong Kong (JD/LLM), New York University (JD/JD and JD/LLM) and Oxford University (JD/BCL).

Scholarship

Hathaway's scholarly work focuses on international human rights and refugees. Among his publications are a treatise on the refugee definition, ''The Law of Refugee Status: 2nd Edition (with M. Foster)'' (2014); and an analysis of the nature of the legal duty to protect refugees, ''The Rights of Refugees under International Law: 2nd Edition'' (2021); and an interdisciplinary study of refugee law reform, ''Reconceiving International Refugee Law'' (1997).Reconceiving International Refugee Law
1997 He has also published more than 100 journal articles, book chapters, and commentaries on refugee law and related questions.

Awards

* Honorary doctorate from the University of Amsterdam (2017) * Honorary doctorate from the Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium (2009) * American Society of International Law Certificate of Merit (2007)

Select Publications

* Hathaway, J. 2023. “Claiming Queer Liberty.” Berkeley Journal of International Law 41(1). * Hathaway, J. 2021.
The Architecture of the UN Refugee Convention and Protocol
" In Oxford Handbook of International Refugee Law, edited by Cathryn Costello, Michelle Foster, and Jane McAdam. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Also available a
University of Michigan Law School repository
* Hathaway, J. 2019.
Assigning Protection: Can Refugee Rights and State Preferences be Reconciled?
Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 175, no. 1: 33-45. Also available a
University of Michigan Law School repository
* Hathaway, J. 2018.
The Global Cop-Out on Refugees
" International Journal of Refugee Law 30, no. 4: 591-604. Also available a
University of Michigan Law School repository
* Hathaway, J, and T. Gammeltoft-Hansen. 2015.
''Non-Refoulement'' in a World of Cooperative Deterrence
. Colum. J. Transnat'l L 235-284. * Hathaway, J, A. North, and J. Pobjoy. 2013.
Supervising the Refugee Convention
. Journal of Refugee Studies 323-330. * Hathaway, J. and Pobjoy, J. 2011.
Queer Cases Make Bad Law
. NYU Journal of International Law and Politics 315-388. * Hathaway, J. 2010
Leveraging Asylum
Texas International Law Journal 45(3): 503–45. * Hathaway, J. 2008
The human rights quagmire of "human trafficking"'
Virginia Journal of International Law 49: 1–59, republished in M. Segrave ed. "Human Trafficking", 2013. * Hathaway, J. 2007
'Forced Michigan Studies: Could we Agree Just to 'Date'?'
Journal of Refugee Studies 20: 349–369; 385–390. * Hathaway, J. 2007
'Why Refugee Law Still Matters'
The Melbourne Journal of International Law 8: 89–103. * Hathaway, J. 2004.
The Right of States to Repatriate Former Refugees
. Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution 175-216; reprinted in 26 Immigration and Nationality Law Review, 2006. * Hathaway, J. and W. Hicks, 2004
'Is there a 'subjective element' in the refugee convention's requirement of 'well-founded fear'
Michigan Journal of International Law 26: 505–562. * Hathaway, J. 2003
'What's in a Label?'
European Journal of Migration and Law 5: 1–21. * Hathaway, J. and Foster, M. 2003.
Internal Protection/Relocation/Flight Alternative as an Aspect of Refugee Status Determination
. E. Feller et al. eds. "Refugee Protection in International Law" 353-420. * Hathaway J. and C. Harvey, 2001
'Framing Refugee Protection in the New World Disorder'
Cornell International Law Journal 34 257–320. * Hathaway, J. and A. Cusick. 2000.
Refugee Rights Are Not Negotiable
. 14(2) Georgetown Immigration Law Journal 481-539. * Hathaway, J. 2000.
America, Defender of Democratic Legitimacy?
11(1) European Journal of International Law 121-134. * Hathaway, J. and R. Alexander Neve. 1997. "Making International Refugee Law Relevant Again: A Proposal for Collectivized and Solution-Oriented Protection." Harvard Human Rights Journal 10: 115-211. Also available a
University of Michigan Law School repository
* Hathaway, J. 1997. Reconceiving International Refugee Law. Nijhoff Law Specials 30. The Hague, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. * Hathaway, J. 1996.
Fundamental Justice and the Deflection of Refugees From Canada
" Osgoode Hall Law Journal 34, no. 2: 213-270. Also available a
University of Michigan Law School repository
* Hathaway, J. 1995.
New Directions to Avoid Hard Problems: The Distortion of the Palliative Role of Refugee Protection
" Journal of Refugee Studies 8, no. 3: 288-294. * Hathaway, J. 1993.
Labelling the 'Boat People': The Failure of the Human Rights Mandate of the Comprehensive Plan of Action for Indochinese Refugees
" Human Rights Quarterly 15, no. 4: 686-702. * Hathaway, J. 1992.
The Emerging Politics of Non-Entree
" Refugees, no. 91: 40-41. * Hathaway, J. 1992.
The Conundrum of Refugee Protection in Canada: From Control to Compliance to Collective Deterrence
" Journal of Policy History 4, no. 1: 71-92. Also available a
University of Michigan Law School repository
* Hathaway, J. 1990.
A Reconsideration of the Underlying Premise of Refugee Law
" Harvard International Law Journal 31, no. 1: 129-183. Also available a
University of Michigan Law School repository
* Hathaway, J. 1988.
Selective Concern: An Overview of Refugee Law in Canada
" McGill Law Journal 33, no. 4: 676-715. Also available a
University of Michigan Law School repository
* Hathaway, J. 1984.
The Evolution of Refugee Status in International Law: 1920-1950
" International and Comparative Law Quarterly 33, no. 2: 348-380. Also available a
University of Michigan Law School repository

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hathaway, James C. American lawyers Canadian lawyers Columbia Law School alumni Living people Right of asylum 1956 births University of Michigan Law School faculty