Helping humanitarian workers with their legal rights and obligations

An OU academic has received a British Academy/Leverhulme Grant to help humanitarian workers to understand complicated legal environments.

Dr Neil Graffin, OU Senior Lecturer in Law, has received a £10,000 research grant to provide a greater understanding for humanitarian workers who are undertaking the search and rescue of refugees in complicated legal and bureaucratic environments. The project will focus on search and rescue workers’ comprehension of their own rights and obligations under the law, as well as their knowledge of the rights of those who they are seeking to rescue.

Dr Graffin said:

“The project will also explore how humanitarian workers in the field balance the humanitarian imperatives of providing search and rescue with the laws of the states they are seeking to take refugees to shore.”

Resources for humanitarian workers will be developed as part of this the two-year project to help them understand their legal rights and obligations.

Read more about OU research in law