I’m in Budapest for a week attending a conference on international refugee law and working on the Refugee Law Reader, an on line resource for students, academics, advocates, and others interested in the regional and international developments in this evergrowing field of law. The Refugee Law Reader started as an English language resource for law clinics in post-communist eastern Europe. It’s now used by people all over the world. This week we (I’m one of the co-authors) began to implement our plans to add new sections on refugee law in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. And simultaneously we’re adding Spanish, French, and Russian editions. We were joined this week by a renowned refugee law scholar from India and an expert in mass migrations in Latin America, plus specialists from Francophone Canada and Lithuania. With their new perspectives we are reconceptualizing refugee law.
The project is really going global. And it has great potential to be a useful tool in many countries where students cannot buy books or make many photocopies. It’s amazing the numbers of institutions of higher learning that do have some internet access.
We’re planning to launch our new edition in November at a conference in Brussels with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees as the keynote speaker. It’s been quite a week, quite a project (going on 6 years now), and quite an exhilarating experience.
Budapest, where I lived on a sabbatical during 1994-1995, has changed enormously. The amount of reconstruction and renovation is amazing. The air quality is far better. The numbers of brand new glitzy shopping centers and the presence of many new cars on the streets are evidence of both new wealth and new consumer demands. And the price of admission to the multiple hot pools at the Szechenyi Baths (complete with floating chess games) has gone up from $2 to $12. But they’re still worth it.
Hope everyone else doing work overseas is having an exciting and fulfilling summer.
