Talking about refugee law

This is a welcome development which needs to be nurtured. The aim of the paper is to encourage participants engaged in this critical debate to reflect on the normative commitments which underpin their empirical approaches and be more explicit about them in future. In addition, participants must accept the varied nature of law's community in this context and that the perspectives accorded priority often influence the substantive positions advanced.

At the core of this debate remains, however, disputes about the foundations, purpose and function of refugee law today. The conceptual underpinning of this has yet to emerge fully in the field of refugee law. Much of this still revolves around old and familiar questions on, for example, the continuing relevance of the 'statist paradigm'.

We must ask ourselves which voices dominate refugee law discourse and why. The paper does not avoid substantive commitments and it includes tentative suggestions as to possible ways forward.