Written by Gaiane Nuridzhanian, PhD candidate, UCL Laws

On 24 February 2016 Professor Guy Goodwin-Gill, Emeritus Professor of International Refugee Law at the University of Oxford, spoke at UCL about the current migrant crisis and the new approaches to employing the existing framework of international protection of refugees and asylum seekers to overcome it.

According to Professor Goodwin-Gill, one of the gaps of the current international legal system for refugee and asylum seekers protection lies in the failure to establish a framework based on co-operation and reciprocity. Indeed, such basic instruments as the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees do not contain provisions, which identify a specific state responsible for assisting a refugee or asylum seeker or a third state that should extend its co-operation to the refugee receiving state.

The system can be improved by refining the existing institutions rather than by revising the treaty base. For instance, revising the UNHCR statute to expressly include stateless and internally displaced persons within its mandate, providing proper funding for the UNHCR, enhancing UN inter-agency co-operation and devising an early-warning system to be managed by the UN bodies.

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Alexia Svolou (Biochemistry 1992), Health Editor for a Greek national newspaper, reports on an alumni reception held at the British Embassy in Athens.

It is an undeniable fact that Greece, my home country, has lived through better days, but despite our society’s gloomy mood – due to the continuing recession – the UCL alumni reception in Athens, last week, was a great success.

Hundreds of Greek alumni put aside their problems and anxiety about the future, and came in the best of their spirits to the “hottest event in town”, as our Provost, Professor Malcolm Grant, so smartly said.

On 25 April, for one night, the talk of the town was not the recession, but our beloved British university and the memories that we cherish from our student years.

All the Greek UCL alumni that attended the reception at the British Embassy felt proud to be part of the history of UCL. The first University to accept women as students, the first University that put religion aside – UCL is part of our personal history.

The legacy of UCL runs in our veins and reminds us nowadays that although our country is on the verge of default, there is always a solution and that science and technology can always find a way, even in the gloomiest situations.

Our Provost, Professor Malcolm Grant, opened the UCL alumni reception with a friendly and spirited speech that reminded us once again how lucky we are to be a living part of UCL.

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