Safeguarding the Rights and Wellbeing of Refugees and the Forcibly Displaced

The UNHCR estimates that there are at least 79.5 million forcibly displaced persons in the world, many of whom suffer from human rights abuses and are forced to live under unsafe and unsanitary conditions. With recent news of Denmark stripping Syrian refugees of their asylum status, the UK’s new immigration bill, and Bangladesh’s call for Myanmar to reclaim the Rohingyan refugees, the plight of refugees has never been more apparent. How is the global response to forced displacement lacking, and what else could be done to provide for their rights and wellbeing?

Introducing our panellists:
Allan Rock is President Emeritus and a Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa. He was elected to the Canadian Parliament in 1993 and re-elected in 1997 and 2000. He was Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of Canada (1993-1997), Minister of Health (1997-2002) and Minister of Industry and Infrastructure (2002-2003). He was appointed in 2003 as Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations in New York during a period that involved responding to several complex regional conflicts. He led the successful Canadian effort in New York to secure, unanimous adoption by UN member states of The Responsibility to Protect populations from genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and war crimes. In 2008, Allan Rock became the 29th President and Vice Chancellor of the University of Ottawa. In 2017, he was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School, associated with the Program on International Law and Armed Conflict. The following year, he took up his teaching duties at uOttawa’s Faculty of Law, where he has taught, among other subjects, Public and Constitutional Law and Armed Conflict and International Law.

Gulwali Passarlay is the author of best-selling book The Lightless Sky, an award winning activist and campaigner and the Co-Founder of My Bright Kite and member of Speakers Collective. He is a dedicated advocate, humanitarian and spokesperson for refugees and asylum seekers across the U.K. Since arriving in the UK in 2007 after being forced to leave Afghanistan as a 12 year old boy, Gulwali has achieved beyond all odds to become a well-respected and sought after public speaker, influencer and political campaigner for refugee’s rights, social justice and education. The experience of his journey to the UK shaped his future and inspired an insatiable determination and commitment to raise awareness and make a difference for other refugees. Gulwali graduated with a Politics degree from The University of Manchester in 2016 and he has read his MPA at Coventry university in 2018.

Matthew Saltmarsh is the London-based Senior External Relations Officer at UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. He previously worked for the Agency in Geneva, covering the Middle East, including the Syria and Iraq situations. Prior to that he was based in Lebanon with UNHCR. Before joining the UN, he worked independently as a consultant on external relations. Matthew has also worked as a journalist, and spent eight years, latterly as a Staff Correspondent, at the International Herald Tribune/NYT in Paris.

Nadia Hardman is a researcher in the Refugee and Migrants Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, monitoring and documenting human rights abuses against asylum seekers, refugees, and migrant populations. Prior to Human Rights Watch she led the International Rescue Committee’s protection program for Syrian refugees in Lebanon and was based in Mosul, Iraq with the Norwegian Refugee Council working with internally displaced persons (IDPs) between 2017 and 2018. Nadia has worked with refugee and IDP populations in Myanmar, Thailand and Palestine and was a Program Lawyer for the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute working on rule of law issues in Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Egypt and Tajikistan from 2013 to 2015. She is a qualified UK lawyer with a Masters in Human Rights from University College London. Nadia speaks fluent French and Italian.