Customary International Law and the Shifting Patterns of Refugee Migration

This article will assess whether the changes in asylum-seeker movement over the most recent ten years to more significantly involve new states, such as the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, may be bringing about changes in how we assess customary international law on refugee law. The recent conflict in Syria has transformed in short time a state which once hosted more than fifteen percent of all of the asylum-seekers in the world to one of the most largest source countries for people fleeing danger. States such as Turkey and Lebanon, which were once not major refugee host states have also quickly changed to now care for millions. These changes mean that large percentages of the world’s asylum-seekers are now being protected by differing domestic legal regimes compared to ten years ago. The developing conflict in Ukraine also has the potential to create new refugee movements and new states hosting increasing numbers of people. In addition, customary international law has received renewed attention and its methodology continues to be adjusted and refined, including issues such as the role of international organizations and specially interested states. This article will consider whether, applying recent scholarship on customary international law, this shift in asylum-seeker migration patterns and the resulting change in specially interested states, forces us to change our approach to customary international law on refugee status