A Practical Approach to Refugee Protection in Southeast Asia

How do we protect the human rights of displaced populations in a region largely operating outside global legal frameworks? What does looking beyond non-refoulement truly mean? How can protection and the re-establishment of lost agency be operationalized? With most Southeast Asian nations missing from the 1951 Refugee Convention, millions of forced migrants navigate volatile and ad-hoc legal environments.
 
Grounded in a rigorous interdisciplinary research approach by combining Grounded Theory and socio-legal methodologies, this book delivers a definitive empirical analysis of how to operationalize and respect human rights on the ground; it bridges the critical gap between high-level policy and field realities, unpacking how academic staff, local NGOs, and international practitioners can collaborate to build actionable protection frameworks.
 
This book also serves as an essential, research-backed reference for understanding human rights and navigating local legal exceptions across the ASEAN region. Most importantly, it emphasizes the need to understand regional context and realpolitik; it is only through a differentiated approach that better systems for migration and for asylum can be developed.