Secondary sources

Books:

• Canadian Immigration and Refugee Law : A Practitioner’s Handbook (2017)
• Law of Refugee Status, 2nd ed (2014)
• Non-Citizens in Canada : Status and Rights, 2nd ed (2019)
• Immigration Law, 2nd ed (2015)
• Immigration Law and Practice, 2nd ed (looseleaf)
• Refugee Law, 2nd ed (2017)

E-Books:

• Canadian Immigration and Refugee Law Practice (2021 ed)
• Immigration Law, 2nd ed (2015)
• Immigration Law and Practice, 2nd ed (looseleaf)
• Refugee Law, 2nd ed (2017)

Legal encyclopedias: 

• Halsbury’s Laws of Canada – Immigration and Citizenship 
• CED – Immigration and Refugees
   

Journal articles: 

Search across legal indexes & databases 

Key journals to look out for: 

• International Journal of Refugee Law  
• Georgetown Immigration Law Journal  
• Journal of Refugee Studies   
• Canada’s Immigration & Citizenship Bulletin  

For Non-Legal Journals search Summon or Google Scholar

• Refuge   
• Refugee Survey Quarterly
   

Current awareness: 

Search legal news & blogs for recent or high profile decisions/changes to the law 

• Search Quicklaw for LexisNexis Immigration Law Netletter, The Lawyer’s Daily, and other legal news 
• Search across blog aggregators (Mondaq, Lexology, CanLII Connects)
   

Websites & organizations: 

• Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada website & policy instruments  
  • Jurisprudential guides 
  • IRB legal resources  
  • Chairperson’s guidelines 
  • Country of Origin information  
• Citizenship and Immigration Canada   
• Canadian Council for Refugees   
• Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)  
• United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees 
• International Organization for Migration (IOM) 

Case law research

Helpful resource to get started: Learning How to Read a Court Decision

Case digests: 

Use digests to find topical summaries of decisions 

• Canadian Abridgment Digests (Westlaw) > IMM Immigration and citizenship > IMM.III Refugee protection  
• All Canada Digests (Quicklaw) > Canada Immigration Digest > Refugee Protection

See sections on IFA, gender based violence, membership in particular social groups, particular countries, etc. 

Annotated acts: 

• Annotated Immigration and Refugee Protection Act of Canada KE4454 A32C35  

Searching Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada decisions : 

Note: there are four divisions: Refugee Protection Division, Refugee Appeal Division, Immigration Division and Immigration Appeal Division. 

• Westlaw: Selected coverage of the four divisions commencing in 1968 including all decisions reported or cited in Immigration Law Reporter since 1997 and full coverage of all decisions provided by the board in the previous 2 years. 
• Quicklaw:  Tribunal decisions -> federal -> can select decision for each of the divisions. Coverage: immigration appeal division decisions (January 1989 – current, selected significant decisions from 1980-1988), immigration division decisions (February 2001 – current, selected significant decisions from 1994-2000) , refugee appeal division decisions (Dec 15 2012 – current) and refugee protection division decisions (March 1989 – current) 
• CanLII:  full coverage 2004 – current, partial coverage 1996 – 2003.  
• IRB website: lists persuasive refugee claim decisions, selected noteworthy refugee appeals, and IRB decisions of public interest

Also consider searching federal court decisions for judicial review of IRB decisions.  

• “Jurisprudence update 2020: Judicial reviews of immigration and refugee board decisions” CLEBC Immigration Issues in Depth 2020.  

Q1 – Establishing nexus for claims based on gang violence

Strategies: 

• Search for and review commentary in secondary sources (books, journal articles, legal news and blogs) 
• Review IRB website decisions to see if any of the persuasive or noteworthy cases relate to the question 
• Note up relevant Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, SC 2001, c 27 sections 96 and 97 and add in country and/or other keywords 
• Search/browse Canadian Abridgment Digest and/or All Canada Digests Refugee Protection sections, and add in country and/or other keywords to search. (Note the Abridgment only includes Federal Court decisions, while the Canadian Immigration Digest includes IRB decisions)  
• Keyword search in Westlaw, Quicklaw or CanLII for tribunal decisions 
• For this question it may be helpful to look to US secondary sources and decisions, see section on researching foreign jurisdictions for tips
• For keyword selection: 

• • Consider all the ways risk from gangs might be described (Organized criminality, Member of criminal organization, cartel, etc.) 
  • Pull terminology directly from primary and secondary sources and add in various protected groups (Fear of persecution, imputed political opinion, membership in a particular social group, political opinion, women etc.)
     

Selected Resources: 

Selected articles: 

• Fleeing cartels and maras: international protection considerations and profiles from the northern triangle 
• Canada Violated ICCPR in denying Salvadorian asylum on gang-related claim 
• IRB issue paper: Part 1: Gangs in El Salvador and the situation of witnesses of crime and corruption  

UN Resources:  

• UNHCR Guidance note on refugee claims relating to victims of organized gangs (2010)
• UNDOC Report on Transnational organized crime in Central America and the Caribbean
• Guatemala Background Paper (2013)
• El Salvador Eligibility Guidelines (2016)
• Honduras Eligibility Guidelines (2016)
• Refworld (UNHCR online database): Gang-related violence (Can narrow results by publisher to “Canada: Federal Court” and “Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board”) 
• Refworld (UNHCR online database): Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the International Protection Needs of asylum-seekers from Guatemala

Q2 – IFAs in the modern digital world

Strategies: 

• Search for and review commentary in secondary sources (books, journal articles, legal news and blogs) 
• Review primary and secondary sources in other jurisdictions (see the Researching Foreign Law section)
• Review IRB website decisions to see if any of the persuasive or noteworthy cases relate to the question 
• Search/browse Canadian Abridgment Digest and/or All Canada Digests Refugee Protection sections on IFA (Note the Abridgment only includes Federal Court decisions, while the Canadian Immigration Digest includes IRB decisions) 
• Keyword search IRB decisions and federal court for decisions discussing social media and IFA 
• For keyword selection consider alternative ways of describing “social media” — facebook or twitter, etc.  
  • keyword selection: internal flight alternative or internal relocation alternative or internal protection alternative

Selected resources:

• Interpretation of the Convention Refugee Definition in the Case Law: Including case law up to March 31, 2019 (Prepared by: IRB Legal Services) — Chapter 8 – Internal Flight Alternative 
• Refworld (UNHCR database): Adjudication of asylum claims / Internal flight alternative 
• UNHCR Guidelines on international protection: “internal flight or relocation alternative” within the Context of Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention and/or 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees
• Australian case where internal flight alternative and social media are considered: MIBP v AHL15 [2017] FCA 1178 
• Digital 2021 Global Overview Report
• Digital Reportal Complete Report Library – has reports on social media usage by country
• Statista information on internet usage (by region and selected countries)

Q3 – Gender based persecution

Strategies: 

• Search for and review commentary in secondary sources (books, journal articles, legal news and blogs) 
• Search in the key legal treatises for gender, could also be under “membership in a particular social group” 
• Review IRB website decisions to see if any of the persuasive or noteworthy cases relate to the question 
• Note up relevant Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, SC 2001, c 27 ss96 and 97, keyword searching for gender, specifically looking at “membership in a particular social group”  
• Keyword search in Westlaw, Quicklaw or CanLII for tribunal decisions  
• Search/Browse Canada Abridgment Digest and Canadian Immigration Digest (Note the Abridgment only includes Federal Court decisions, while Canadian Immigration Digest includes IRB decisions) 
• Look at Refworld (UNHCR database): gender-based persecution or gender discrimination 
  • Results can be narrowed by publisher to “Canada: Federal Court” and “Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board” 
  • For narrowing by topic within country reports consider topics related to gender (gender-based persecution, gender discrimination, forced marriage, honour killing, domestic violence, female genital mutilation, forced abortion etc.

Selected Resources: 

IRB Guidelines:

• IRB Chairperson guidelines 4: Women refugee claimants fearing gender-related persecution (1993) (currently under review) 
• IRB Chairperson’s Guideline 9: Proceedings before the IRB involving sexual orientation and gender identity and expression (2017) 

IRB current work:  

• IRB Gender related task force 
• IRB Gender based analysis plus  

Books:

• Gendering the international asylum and refugee debate 

• • Chapter 3: Gender-related persecutions: why do women flee? 
  • Chapter 4: Gender and Asylum in International Law – The Geneva Convention Revisited 

• Gender in Refugee Law 

• • Chapter 12: Evaluating Canada’s approach to gender-related persecution: revisiting and re-embracing ‘refugee women and the imperative of categories’  

Selected journal articles:  

• Report: Gendering Canada’s Refugee Process  (2006) 
• Gendered Perspectives on Refugee Determination in Canada (2014) 
• “Wherever we would go, we would be together” the challenges for queer refugee couples claiming joint asylum in Canada (2019) 
• Denying refugee protection to LGBTQ and marginalized persons: a retrospective look at state protection in Canadian refugee law (2017) 
• Sexual orientation, gender identity and the refugee determination process in Canada (2014) 
• Taking it personally: deliminating gender-based refugee claims using the complementary protection provision in Canada 

UN Resources:

• Guidelines on International Protection No. 9: Claims to Refugee Status based on Sexual Orientation and/or Gender Identity within the context of Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention and/or its 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, 23 October 2012

Country specific information:

Mexico

• Refworld – country report –can narrow down by topic
  
• IRB – national documentation package 
• Responses to information requests – select Mexico 

Nigeria 

• Refworld – country report – can narrow down by topic
  
• IRB – national documentation package 
• Responses to information requests – select Nigeria 
• IRB issue paper: The Situation of Sexual and Gender Minorities in Nigeria (February 2019) 

Iran 

• Refworld – country report – can narrow down by topic
• IRB – national documentation package – select Iran 

India 

• Refworld – country report – can narrow down by topic
• IRB- national documentation package  
• Responses to information requests – select India 

Researching Foreign Jurisdictions

For some topics we may not be able to find decisions from Canada. It can be helpful to search other jurisdictions (US, UK, & Australia) to find examples that the Immigration and Refugee Legal Clinic might be able to use as supporting evidence.  

Start with UNHCR RefWorld

• RefWorld contains a vast collection of reports relating to situations in countries of origin, policy documents and positions, and documents relating to international and national legal frameworks – notably the jurisprudence collection, covers more than 40 national jurisdictions, and a vast amount of international judgments and decisions from the United Nations, the European Court of Human Rights and other international and regional courts. 
• You can perform a keyword search in the case law or browse by country and topic. 

Australia:

Search the library catalogue for secondary sources, try the following subject headings: 

• Emigration and immigration law–Australia.  
• Political refugees–Legal status, laws, etc.–Australia.  
• Asylum, Right of–Australia. 

Case law tips: 

• Look at Refugee Review Tribunal (pre-2015) and Administrative Appeals Tribunal (post-2015), Federal Courts and higher courts.  
• Australia case law available in: 
  • AustLII: see databases for courts/tribunals 
  • Quicklaw: see topical area for Australia Immigration Law: Browse > Topics > Australia > Immigration Law 
  • Westlaw: Browse by International materials > Australia  

Australia focused research guides

• Murdoch University Refugee Law Guide
• Guide to Refugee Law in Australia
• Australian National University International Refugee Law guide

United Kingdom:

Search the library catalogue for secondary sources, try the following subject headings: 

• Asylum, Right of–Great Britain.  
• Refugees–Legal status, laws, etc.–Great Britain. 
• Refugees–Government policy–Great Britain.
• See also: Halsbury’s Laws of England – Immigration & Asylum (in Quicklaw) 

Case law tips:  

• Look for: Asylum and Immigration Tribunal, Upper Tribunal, Appeal Court, Administrative Court, and High Court.  
• UK case law available in: BAILII, JUSTIS, ICLR, and Westlaw (International materials > United Kingdom)
  

UK focused research guides

• University of Oxford People on the move: laws and HR responses guide

United States:

Search the library catalogue for secondary sources, try the following subject headings: 

• Refugees–Legal status, laws, etc.–United States.  
• Asylum, Right of–United States.  
• Refugees–Government policy–United States.
  

Case law tips: 

• Look for: United States Board of Immigration Appeals and Appeal courts from all circuits. 
• US case law in available in: Westlaw: International materials > Westlaw US Homepage > Practice Areas > Immigration > Immigration Administrative Decisions & Guidance

US focused research guides:

• Cornell Asylum Law and Convention Against Torture Guide
• Cornell Immigration Law Guide
• Georgetown Law CALS Asylum Case research guide (has a specific section on gangs)
• UCLA Immigration Law research guide

Global sources & research guides:

• The Oxford handbook of international refugee law / edited by Cathryn Costello, Michelle Foster and Jane McAdam. 
• Search the library catalogue for secondary sources, try the following subject headings: 
  • Asylum, Right of.  
  • Refugees–Legal status, laws, etc. 
• Global Lex: Researching the Legal Aspects of Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and the European Union  
• University of Melbourne: Refugee & Asylum Seeker Law Research Guide (covers Australia, UK, Canada, and US)