Balancing Immigration Controls And Human Rights

A major full-day conference on immigration law and human rights is being staged in Auckland on 12 September.

"Human rights at the frontier", organised by the Legal Research Foundation, will explore the new legal framework for immigration in the context of New Zealand's international obligations, particularly in human rights.

It will bring together international and New Zealand experts in immigration, refugee and human rights law. They include leading academics in the field along with Roger Haines QC, a specialist in immigration law who is Deputy Chair of the Refugee Status Appeal Authority.

"We are living in an age of unprecedented movement of people across borders," says Treasa Dunworth, senior lecturer in law at the University of Auckland Law School who is helping to organise the conference. "That phenomenon, taken together with heightened concerns about balancing national security with human rights, creates a complex legal framework when it comes to regulating such movements."

Proposed changes to the current immigration legislation, due to be enacted during the current Parliamentary term, will have far-reaching consequences in regulating movement of people to and from New Zealand, notes Ms Dunworth.

She says the conference will appeal to practitioners, policy-makers and academics working in the area of human rights and immigration law.

ENDS

© Scoop Media