Parallel High-Level Event on Access to Protection: Asylum Systems, Legal Assistance, and Human Rights

Join us for an event at the Global Refugee Forum to showcase the power and impact of collective action to strengthen asylum systems, provide legal assistance, and uphold human rights. The session will bring together a variety of stakeholders in a concrete demonstration of the whole-of-society and multi-stakeholder approach and offer an opportunity for States and other stakeholders to make pledges and contributions, showcase progress, exchange good practices, and assess the challenges and opportunities in ensuring that access to protection remains at the core of the GCR implementation.

The event will spotlight four pivotal multistakeholder pledges:

The Asylum Capacity – Asylum Capacity Support Group (ACSG) Pledge 

The Legal Community Pledge

New in 2023, the National Human Rights Institutions Pledge

The newly formed Platform of Independent Experts on Refugee Rights (PIERR)

Other highlighted pledges include those from the Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, especially in women and children; International Association of Refugee and Migration Judges (IARMJ)

Speakers

Moderator: 

• Ms. Awmaima Amrayaf, Senior Impact Adviser, DLA Piper

Speakers: 

• Ms. Gillian Triggs, Assistant High Commissioner-Protection, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
• Mr. Ibrahim Abou Senna, Director, Refugee Legal Aid Program, St. Andrew’s Refugee Services, Egypt
• Mr. Julien Boucher, Director General, Office Français de Protection des Réfugiés et Apatrides (OPFRA), Government of France
• Mr. Dennis Arvin L. Chan, Chief State Counsel, Department of Justice-Refugees and Stateless Persons Protection Unit, Government of the Philippines
• Ms. Soyoung Park, Assistant Deputy Minister, Asylum and Refugee Resettlement Sector, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), Government of Canada
• Hon. Justice Dustan Mlambo, President of the Africa Chapter, International Association of Refugee and Migration Judges (IARMJ Africa Chapter)
• Mr. Danijel Malbasa, Refugee Advisor to the Australian Delegation to the GRF
• Ms. Julia Mayerhofer, Co-Executive Director, PILnet
• Mr. David Manne, Executive Director, Refugee Legal
• Ms. Lynette Lam, Executive Director, Justice Centre Hong Kong
• Ms. Lara Nassif, Pro Bono Counsel, Herbert Smith Freehills
• Ms. Amina Bouayach, Secretary of Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions and President of the National Human Rights Council of Morocco
• Ms. Priya Gopalan, Chair-Rapporteur of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and Member of the Platform of Independent Experts on Refugee Rights
• Ms. Siobhán Mullally, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons