This page contains a list of online databases and resources which highlight national, regional and international case law relevant to refugee protection and human rights.
If you are aware of precedential or influential judgments in your jurisdiction, or on matters relating to our Special Issues, please forward them to us at rightsinexile@asylex.org.
The Case Law Analyser is a multilingual, free-to-access collection of the human rights decisions of African supra-national mechanisms.
It offers the most comprehensive access to African human rights law and case law in English, French and Portuguese. It does not simply list decisions and instruments, but presents them as interacting and interrelated texts to facilitate research friendliness and a better understanding of the web of textual and jurisprudential interaction in the African human rights system.
To access the site, click here.
The African Chapter of the International Association Refugee and Migration Judges, with the support of the Judicial Institute for Africa, developed a database entirely focused on refugee related case law in Africa. It offers case summaries, relevant legislation and international instruments, and links to full-text decisions. The search function allows for selecting specific subjects, countries, issuing courts, and case details.
To access the site, click here.
The Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS) contains information on over 7,000 asylum cases from 1996 onwards, at all levels of adjudication across the United States. Case records include unpublished Immigration Judge or Board of Immigration Appeals decisions and most offer a summary of the decision provided by the applicant’s attorney. Given the absence of official reporting on asylum cases at most stages of adjudication, the information provided by the CGRS database offers a unique source of information for those representing refugees. CGRS offer a tailored library for legal representatives according to the particular case they are working on.
To access the site, click here.
The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) is an educational think tank dedicated to the study of international migration and to public policies that protect the dignity and rights of refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers. CMS publishes several journals, such as the International Migration Review and Journal on Migration and Human Security, which are available on the website. Both journals contain articles on developments in US case law and policies on refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers. CMS also offers a weekly email digest on topics in US and international migration. To access the site, click here.
The Climiglaw Database is a free-to-access global database collating and summarising judicial decisions concerning all forms of internal and cross border climate-related (im)mobility. It is co-created by the Global Strategic Litigation Council, Earth Refuge, the Raoul Wallenberg Institute and the Zolberg Institute for Migration & Mobility. The database is designed to support civil society in their efforts across the world to effectively advocate for the rights of all climate-displaced people.
These two databases are compiled by INTERIGHTS, the International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights, and made freely available on their website. One covers human rights decisions in the courts of Commonwealth countries and the other covers the decisions of international courts and tribunals. The databases can be searched separately or together. There is a summary of each case and some judgments are available in full.
To search the databases, click here.
The site provides case law analysis and a database of decisions from the European Court of Human Rights.
To access the site, click here.
The European Database of Asylum Law (EDAL) is an accessible, open access, online database of case law from EU Member States relevant to the interpretation of European asylum law. EDAL’s primary purpose is to provide summaries of relevant case law in English and the national language of the Member State in which the decision was made. EDAL is searchable in English and the original language of the decision. Cases are searchable by multiple search fields, e.g. case name, date, country of applicant, country of asylum, provisions of EU law, ‘free-text search’, and by selecting keywords. There is also an extensive browse function available so that users can browse decisions according to country and legal provision etc.
To access the site, click here.
This site provides case law analysis and a database of decisions from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
To access the site, click here.
This website provides access to court decisions in Kenya.
To access the site, click here.
This website provides access to European materials on refugees. To access them, go to the search function and type ‘refugee’ in the text field, select ‘Migration’ as the topic than ‘Legal opinion’ to gain access to decisions regarding refugees.
To access the site, click here.
The Louise Trauma Center is dedicated to raising awareness about immigrant women who have suffered from gender-based violence, including female genital mutilation (FGM), rape, domestic violence, gang-based asylum, and forced marriage. This site aims to help these women access international protection and features asylum case law, briefs, reports, and analyses on the law surrounding these issues.
To access the site, click here.
This newsletter is designed for judges who need to keep up to date with European developments in the area of asylum. This newsletter contains European legislation and jurisprudence on four central themes regarding asylum:
- Qualification for protection
- Procedural safeguards
- Responsibility sharing
- Reception conditions of asylum seekers.
To access back copies of the newsletter, click here.
GlobaLex is an electronic legal publication dedicated to international and foreign law research, published by the Hauser Global Law School Program at NYU School of Law. GlobaLex is committed to the dissemination of high-level international, foreign, and comparative law research tools in order to accommodate the needs of an increasingly global educational and practicing legal world.
To access the site, click here.
This site is maintained by UNHCR (to access it, click here). It contains over 7,000 judicial decisions from a large number of jurisdictions. Most of the cases are from higher courts and are therefore likely to be more persuasive to future courts and decision-makers. It has a search function that allows filtering by the country of origin of the refugee claimant as well as the country of the decision.
The Statelessness Case Law Database contains summaries of national and regional case law covering Europe, as well as international jurisprudence. The case summaries included in the database either directly concern the rights of stateless people or address other connected human rights issues that impact people without a nationality. The database is managed by the European Network on Statelessness.
This site provides a database of decisions from all nine United Nations Human Rights treaty bodies. It includes : the Human Rights Committee (CCPR), the Committee against Torture (CAT), the Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) , the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Committee on Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (CMW), the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
To access the site, click here
Repository for cases about refugees and refugee-related law for academic and litigation purposes. The Refugee Rights Unit Case Law Reader acts as a repository for cases about refugees and refugee-related law for academic and litigation purposes.
To access the site, click here.
This website combines legal resources from 123 jurisdictions. It has a searchable database of case law as well as legislation. At the time of writing, it had resources, including case law, from Australia, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Canada, Denmark, East Timor, Japan, Moldova, Mongolia, New Zealand, Norway, Palestinian Autonomous Territories, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States of America and Venezuela. This site is the best site for searching Australian refugee case law.
To access the site, click here.
We are always looking to expand the resources on our platform. If you know about relevant resources, or you are aware of organisations and individuals to include in our directories, please get in touch.
