Prashant Ajmera of Ajmera Law Group made a presentation to law students of Gujarat law Society ( GLS)

1. Migration – Immigration
Refugee – Asylum Law
Prashant Ajmera, Advocate

2. Introduction
What is …
• Immigration
• Migration
• Refugee and
• Asylum

3. Who is a migrant?
• The UN Migration Agency (IOM) defines a
migrant as any person who is moving or has
moved across an international border or within a
State away from his/her habitual place of
residence, regardless of -
(1) the person’s legal status;
(2) whether the movement is voluntary or
involuntary;
(3) what the causes for the movement are; or
(4) what the length of the stay is.

4. Why Migrate?
• Voluntarily
• Economic benefit
• Quality of life
• Good education
• Expansion of Business
• NRI Status
• Involuntarily
• War
• Civil War
• Dictatorship
• Natural Calamity
• Political Reason

5. Migration Law in India
• Why?
• Migration Act 1983
• Migration Act 2019

6. • “A record shortage of labor seen within a decade” – The office of the
Superintendent of Financial Institute (www.osfi-bsif.gc.ca)
• “The work force must expand and invest in skills or future
economic growth is threatened” – Organization of Economic Cooperation
and Development, 17th September 2003
• “Aging population and the work force – challenges for employers” -
C.D. Howe Institute. ”
• “Immigrants (foreign workers) could count for virtually all labor
force growth by 2011” – Statistic Canada (www.statcan.ca)
• “The shortage of skilled trade needs special attention, attitudes and
system needs to change” – Conference Board of Canada, October 2002
(www.conferenceboard.ca)
• “Immigration is the New Year’s wish for growing Canada’s labour
force” – Canadian Labour and Business Development Center, 30th December 2003
(www.clbc.ca)
Why immigration ?

7. Permanent Immigration Temporary Visa
Family
Class
Economic
Class
Refugee
Class
Marriage
Parents
Children
Siblings
- Skilled
- Investors
- Entrepreneur
- Self employed
Refugee
Asylum
Work
permits
NOT
required
WP
required,
HRDC not
required
WP
&
HRDC
required
Visitor Student Work-Permit
Immigration Law Framework

8. Why Refugee – Asylum Law ?
• To protect the basic human rights of civilian
and combatants
• Right to movement
• Right to freedom of speech
• Right to religion

9. Who is a Refugee?
• Convention Refugee Definition:
An individual defined in the 1951 UN refugee treaty as having
a well-founded fear that, were he or she to return to their
country of origin, he or she would suffer persecution.
Refugee status or asylum may be granted to people who have
been persecuted or fear they will be persecuted on account of
race,
religion,
nationality, and/or
membership in a particular social group or
political opinion.

10. What is Asylum?
Asylum, in international law, the protection
granted by a state to a foreign citizen against his
own state. The person for whom asylum is
established has no legal right to demand it, and
the sheltering state has no obligation to grant it.

11. International Human Rights &
Human Rights Law
International
Human
Rights
Human
Rights Law
1. No discrimination based on race, color,
sex or religion
2. Right to life
3. No Torture
4. No cruel treatment
5. No humiliating or degrading treatment
6. No slavery
7. On retroactive application of law

12. Human Rights
• French Declaration of the Rights of Man and
of the Citizen of 1789
• American Bill of Rights 1971

13. Principal Instrument of
Human Rights
• 1926 Slavery Convention concerning Forced or
compulsory Labor
• 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• 1948 Convention on the Prevention &
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
• 1950 European Convention for the Protection of
Human Rights & Fundamental freedoms
• 1965 International Convention on the
elimination of All forms of Racial Discrimination

14. Principal Instrument of
Human Rights
• 1966 International Convention on Social
Economic and Cultural Rights
• 1969 American Convention on Human Rights
• 1979 Convention on Elimination of all forms
Discrimination Against Woman
• 1981 African Charter of Human and people’s right
• 1984 Convention Against Torture and Other
Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment of
Punishment
• 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child

15. Human Rights Implementation
• European Court of Human Rights – Judicial
• Inter-American Court of Human Rights –
Judicial
• United Nations Human Rights committees –
Quasi-Judicial
• African Commission on Human Rights &
Peoples Rights -Quasi-Judicial
• UN Commission on Human Rights – Reporting

16. International
Humanitarian Law
By Treaty or custom – Restriction on use of
violence in armed conflict in order to:-
• To set limits on methods and means of
warfare
• Protecting civilians
• Balance between military necessity and
Human Rights

17. Principal Instrument
of IHL
1868 Deceleration of St. Petersburg
1899 & 1907 Hague Convections
1949 Geneva Convention
1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural property
1977 Additional Protocol of Geneva Convention
1980 Convention on certain Conventional weapons
1993 Convention on Chemical Weapons
1995 Protocol on Chemical Weapons
1977 Convention on Anti-Personal Mines
1998 Statue of the International Criminal Court
2000 Optional Protocol – Right of children in Armed Conflict
2005 Additional Protocol III to the Geneva Convection
2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions

18. Thank you
Q & A