Efrat Arbel is Assistant Professor at the Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia. She is an executive member of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers. A list of Dr. Arbel’s recent publications can be found here. During this podcast we talk about three areas that Dr. Arbel has recently focused her research on. These include the distinction between physical borders and legal borders in the refugee context, how interdiction works, and the Safe Third Country Agreement. The Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the United States requires that persons seeking refugee protection must make a claim in the first country they arrive in unless they qualify for an exception to the Agreement. In other words, an asylum seeker who wishes to seek refugee status in Canada will typically be denied the ability to do so if they attempt to enter Canada by land from the United States. This episode was recorded before President Trump’s recent Executive Order imposed a moratorium on asylum claims in the United States. President Trump’s decision has only intensified and magnified many of the issues that Dr. Arbel discusses in this podcast. 1:43 – Dr. Arbel explains different concepts of what … Read More