Rethinking Asylum

'Lucidly written and powerfully argued, Rethinking Asylum is an important contribution to the academic and policy debates over asylum law. Price's approach - to understand a grant of asylum as expressive of political values - both returns to foundational justifications for asylum and provides a basis for cogent analysis of current issues.' T. Alexander Aleinikoff, Georgetown University Law Center 'A lucid and subtle defense of the traditional view that we should reserve asylum for protection of refugees from political persecution. Whether one accepts Price's conclusions or not, everyone interested in refugee policy should engage with this thoughtful and fair-minded book.' Joseph H. Carens, University of Toronto 'The best way to save asylum, argues Matthew Price in Rethinking Asylum, is to roll back the judicial liberalization of recent years. If asylum were open only to those specifically victimized by official agents of rogue states, governments would again offer the deeper remedy of permanent integration and abandon the deterrent measures now undermining access to protection. Price eloquently challenges us to accept that refugee law has gone too far. Even those of us who hold a contrary view will learn from his incisive analysis.' James C. Hathaway, Melbourne Law School 'Rethinking Asylum offers a fresh, powerful and crisply written perspective on the key challenges of providing asylum. Effortlessly integrating legal scholarship and political theory, Price questions some of the central assumptions behind recent refugee policies. This is a standout work.' Matthew J. Gibney, University of Oxford 'With its bracing tour of historical and contemporary practices, Rethinking Asylum argues that asylum should be justified, and then crafted, as a political act, not as a humanitarian gesture. Unblinking in the acknowledgment that this conception would foreclose asylum grants sought out of economic desperation, this important analysis also persuasively reopens doors to asylum currently closed by nations fearful of floodgates. Price's political approach could save lives; it surely will generate a better debate over how nations should guard against fraudulent asylum applications while fortifying global repudiations of state-sponsored oppression.' Martha Minow, Harvard Law School and author of Breaking the Cycles of Hatred: Memory, Law and Repair (2003) '... the beauty of Price's approach is in its firm logic. ... His good style and strong argumentation are convincing ...' Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights