Edited by Sylvie Da Lomba

This Special Issue on “Migrants and Human Rights Protections” delves into human rights law’s enduring struggles to extend protections to migrants. The contributions engage with this subject-matter from a wide range of perspectives that bring to the fore both the universal and particular in migrants’ experiences of human rights protection regimes across countries and continents. This Special Issue also reminds of the value of developments in the Global South.

Edited By Anja Johansen, Genevieve Lennon, Hartmut Aden, Christian
Mouhanna, Marc Alain, Tobias Singelnstein

This book provides a detailed comparative analysis of Independent Police Complaints Bodies (IPCBs) in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the UK. It explores the distinctive political, cultural, and institutional contexts shaping police accountability arrangements within each country, as well as the transnational dynamics behind the remarkable proliferation of IPCBs over the past three decades, assessing the prospects for future convergence around international standards. Drawing on findings from the international project ‘Police Accountability: Towards International Standards’, the book examines the inherent dilemmas and challenges in the everyday functioning and dynamics of IPCBs.

By The American Immigration Council


In the spring and summer of 2018, the first Trump administration sought to deter migrants from coming to the United States through the cruel practice of separating children from their parents. To do this, they implemented the zero-tolerance policy, which aimed to prosecute all adults who crossed the southern border without inspection. If a family was apprehended, the parents were taken into custody by the Department of Homeland Security, while their children were taken into custody by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In many cases, these kids were sent to shelters thousands of miles away from their parents, without a way to contact them. Later, the government struggled to reunite families, in part because there was no centralized database of where the children had been sent or who their parents were. Years later, some of the nearly 3,000 children taken by the government during the zero-tolerance period had still not been reunited with their parents.

The American Immigration Council and partners filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act for records to better understand how the government implemented these separations. After the Council sued to obtain these records, the government began producing them on a monthly basis. In 2020, the Council published a tranche of documents highlighting the harms and trauma to children caused by the separations. After years of continuing litigation, the Council received tens of thousands of additional pages from government documents about this policy.

This site showcases a new subset of the records obtained. It reveals how journalists, attorneys and members of Congress fought to expose this horrific policy and hold the government accountable for the pain and havoc it created. Visitors to this site can review never-before-published government records, read analysis by the Council, and hear celebrated actors read first-person accounts by the journalists, attorneys and Congressmen who fought family separations on the front lines.

By Ariel G. Ruiz Soto

The Trump administration has entered into third-country deportation agreements with 27 countries to date—from Eswatini and Palau to Uzbekistan—sending people to nations where they have no ties, no
language, and in some cases, little to no legal recourse. Yet despite the high foreign policy priority placed by the U.S. government on reaching these agreements, only about 15,000 deportations in 2025 involved third countries, the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimates.

So, what is driving this policy?

The primary purpose appears less about achieving deportation at scale, given the administration’s goal to carry out 1 million deportations yearly, and more about the strategic use of fear, a new MPI short read argues. Signaling that deportation could mean relocation to a far-off, unfamiliar country with no legal status or protection could increase pressure on unauthorized immigrants to “self-deport” or deter future arrivals, the short read notes.

The analysis maps the four distinct types of agreements now in use, from safe third country agreements to incarceration deals. It examines critical gaps, including the lack of transparency around the agreements, the limited infrastructure of receiving countries, and the limbo deportees face. Courts in the United States and abroad are already weighing in, with the issue expected to end up before the Supreme Court

By Steven Blaakman

The European Union increasingly relies on cooperation with non-EU countries to tackle irregular migration, an issue of increasing political importance. However, sending irregular migrants back to their countries of origin or to a transit country depends on the other country agreeing to accept the migrant's readmission. In the 2000s, the EU started concluding readmission agreements with non-EU countries. From 2016, it started to focus on informal readmission deals. These non-legally binding agreements were easier to conclude, but did not lead to higher readmission rates. There was also less transparency about how they were negotiated and carried out, leading to human rights concerns. The European Parliament called for more transparency and scrutiny on several occasions. In 2025, the European Commission proposed a return regulation in a bid to boost migrant returns. Following the 2015 migration crisis, the EU also pursued non-binding agreements with third countries to prevent irregular migrants from arriving in the EU. This involved the EU offering incentives such as funding and visa liberalisation in exchange for non-EU countries doing more to stop migrants from travelling to the EU. As these are not legally binding, there is a lack of transparency and no clear role for the Parliament to check how these are being implemented. This has also led to concerns over human rights.The EU is updating rules on safe countries of origin and safe third countries to facilitate asylum application processing and setting up return hubs in non-EU countries.The Commission has made cooperation with non-EU countries an important part of its strategy for migration management to 2031 and is proposing extra funding to make this possible in the EU's budget for 2028-2034.

By Carrie F. Cordero, Heidi Li Feldman, Chimène I. Keitner

This Article offers the first comprehensive assessment of how domestic and international law limits the U.S. government’s ability to separate foreign children from the adults accompanying them when they seek to
enter the United States. As early as March 6, 2017, then Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he was considering separating families at the border as a deterrent to illegal immigration as part of a “zero tolerance” policy whereby the Trump administration intended the strictest enforcement of immigration law against those migrants coming to the U.S. southern border. Kelly did not say upon what legal basis the administration could lawfully separate families at the border as a component of its immigration policies. Whatever the merits of maximal prosecution of adults unlawfully crossing the border, adopting this policy did not convert family separation into a lawful byproduct of the arrest of an adult. To the contrary, domestic and international law militates strongly against the lawfulness of family separation as a tool for immigration deterrence, yielding liability for the state and for individuals who implement family separation in this setting. Both litigation and Congressional action can and should play a role in addressing the Trump administration’s use of family separation and ensuring that it is halted now and not used again, by Trump or any other U.S. President. In the Article, we start with a factual chronology of the Trump Administration’s family separation policy. We then argue for our positions regarding the illegality of the policy and its implementation.

In Part II, we describe the federal government’s recognized authority to enforce immigration laws and ensure border security, on the one hand, and the domestic constitutional framework for protecting the basic rights of migrant parents and children, on the other. In Part III we examine the reach of domestic law, including the common law of torts, for dealing with wrongful family separation in the immigration setting. Part IV reviews international law that protects against this harm. In the Conclusion we propose a range of steps that the U.S. Congress could take to repair at least some of the harm caused by the family separation policy, and to ensure that no future administration contemplates similar action.

Editor: Dennis Rodgers

Through biographical investigations of gang members' life histories, this open access book illustrates the range of causes, motivations, and consequences associated with being a gang member.

Gangs are one of a small number of truly global social phenomena, present across time and space all over the world. Partly as a result of this ubiquity, gangs are inherently revealing social institutions, and can be connected to a range of fundamental human activities, such as the exercise of power, capital accumulation, socialization, identity formation, territorialization, or the articulation of gender relations, amongst others.

At the same time, however, gangs are also frequently associated with an almost pathological form of violence, generally represented as engaging in senseless forms of brutality, and gangsters are popular
global scapegoats. Such representations make it all the more urgent to understand what it is that truly motivates individuals to become gang members, why they undergo particular trajectories, and what the
long-term consequences of gang membership might be.

Through a comparison of thirteen life histories of gang members from twelve different countries around the world, this book offers a nuanced and sensitive overview of the global gang experience. Life histories are ideal lenses through which to explore these issues due to their ability to simultaneously reflect both the uniqueness and the embedded complexity of gang lives, but also their capacity to offer fundamentally relatable portraits that elicit empathy and humanize individuals.

By Simon Egbert, Matthias Leese

This book explores how predictive policing transforms police work. Police departments around the world have started to use data-driven applications to produce crime forecasts and intervene into the future through targeted prevention measures. Based on three years of field research in Germany and Switzerland, this book provides a theoretically sophisticated and empirically detailed account of how the police produce and act upon criminal futures as part of their everyday work practices.

The authors argue that predictive policing must not be analyzed as an isolated technological artifact, but as part of a larger sociotechnical system that is embedded in organizational structures and occupational cultures. The book highlights how, for crime prediction software to come to matter and play a role in more
efficient and targeted police work, several translation processes are needed to align human and nonhuman actors across different divisions of police work.

Police work is a key function for the production and maintenance of public order, but it can also discriminate, exclude, and violate civil liberties and human rights. When criminal futures come into being in the form of algorithmically produced risk estimates, this can have wide-ranging consequences. Building on empirical findings, the book presents a number of practical recommendations for the prudent use of algorithmic analysis tools in police work that will speak to the protection of civil liberties and human rights as much as they will speak to the professional needs of police organizations.

An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to students and scholars of criminology, sociology, and cultural studies as well as to police practitioners and civil liberties advocates, in addition to all those who are interested in how to implement reasonable forms of data-driven policing

By Carolyn McKay

This open access book examines the impact of digitalisation processes on fair, accessible and inclusive criminal justice for vulnerable individuals. Based on original empirical data from an Australian Research Council funded national study, the book evaluates digitalised criminal justice, specifically, the increasing use of remote hearings and virtual courts, and the interrelationship with vulnerability. It asks: in what ways do remote communication technologies, such as videolinks, videoconferencing, and pre-recorded evidence, assist or disadvantage vulnerable witnesses, complainants, victims and defendants in the criminal justice system? By interviewing and surveying 175 Australian judicial officers, prosecutors, defence lawyers and affiliated professionals, the book examines the impact of digitalised criminal justice on all vulnerable individuals. Themes include the benefits and challenges to human connection, communication, comprehension and confidentiality, as well as court authority, cross-examination, and emotional expression. While there are certain universal and non-contentious experiences of videolinks, the key practical findings are sharply delineated between vulnerable witnesses versus vulnerable defendants. Theoretically, the book merges digital criminology with vulnerability theories to contribute understandings of ‘digital vulnerability’, that is, the interplay between digital technologies and vulnerable individuals in criminal justice. Digital Vulnerability in Criminal Justice provides critical and contemporary insights, and forward-looking recommendations for ensuring fair digitalised criminal justice into the future.

By Helena Machado and Rafaela Granja

Genetic Surveillance and Crime Control presents a new empirical and conceptual framework for understanding trends of genetic surveillance in different countries in Europe and in other jurisdictions around the world. The use of DNA or genome for state-level surveillance for crime governance is becoming the norm in democratic societies. In the post-DNA, contemporary modes of criminal identification are gradually changing through the increasing expansion of transnational sharing of DNA data, along with the development of highly controversial genetic technologies that pose acute challenges to privacy and generate fears of discrimination, racism and stigmatization. Some questions that guide this book are: How is genetic surveillance in the governance of crime intertwined with society, ethics, culture, and politics? What are the views and expectations of diverse stakeholders –scientists, police agencies, and non-governmental organizations? How can social sciences research about genetic surveillance accommodate socio-cultural and historical differences, and be sensitive to specificities of post-authoritarian societies in Europe?　 Taking an interdisciplinary approach focused on challenges to genetic privacy, human rights and citizenship in contemporary societies , this book will be of interest to students and scholars of social studies of science and technology, sociology, criminology, law and policing, international relations and forensic sciences.

By Samantha Bricknell and Amy McDonald

The Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery National Minimum Dataset is anational data collection on modern slavery events. This study describes modern slavery reports received between July 2024 and June 2025, the characteristics of victim-survivors and perpetrators, the nature of Australia Government-funded support provided to victim-survivors and the outcomes of modern slavery prosecutions.

By Queensland Parliament. Education, Arts and Communities Committee

Responses to elder abuse, and opportunities to improve responses to elder abuse within the government, broader community, non-government and private sectors. The report provides 16 recommendations.

Key findings
Elder abuse often occurs in private settings, frequently within families, and remains underreported due to victims’ reluctance or lack of awareness. Evidence indicates that elder abuse stems from a complex and evolving environment, marked by ambiguous definitions and diverse causes. Contributing factors include family stress, social isolation and financial pressures. The committee noted pervasive ageism, whereby older people are at once undervalued yet expected to share their assets with younger generations. Data collection by government and funded services was found to be inadequate, inconsistent and poorly integrated across agencies. In addition to recommending that the Legislative Assembly note the report, the committee made 15 recommendations around the following key themes, to: improve data collection, management and reporting strengthen Queensland’s elder abuse prevention and response frameworks collaborate at a national level to ensure consistent reform.

By American Civil Liberties Union

This ACLU research report, Agents of Chaos and Cruelty, documents widespread civil rights violations carried out by immigration agents during the first year of President Trump’s second term. The report examines immigration enforcement incidents in eight states – representing a cross-section of the country and reflecting varying degrees of federal law enforcement presence and personnel surges – and found that over 400 of the more than 1,200 immigration enforcement incidents examined involved misconduct by immigration agents. The report ends with detailed recommendations urging policymakers to call for transformative change to our immigration system, in recognition that it is broken and dangerous to human rights.

By Amnesty International
This report presents Amnesty International’s findings from a research trip to southern Florida in September 2025, to document the human rights impacts of federal and state migration and asylum policies on mass detention and deportation, access to due process, and detention conditions since President Trump took office on 20 January 2025. In particular, it focuses on detention conditions at the Krome North Service Processing Center (Krome) and the Everglades Detention Facility, also known as “Alligator Alcatraz”.

By The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP)

This study investigates the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategy of “civilizational struggle” (jihad) in Western society, with a specific focus on the United States. By analyzing primary documents, including the “Explanatory Memorandum” (1991) and “The Project” (1982), along with comparative historical analysis, it traces the development of the Brotherhood’s doctrine of tamkeen (institutional entrenchment) from its theoretical roots in early twentieth-century Egypt to its more advanced practical application in the United States. The study identifies and thoroughly analyzes four strategic domains of influence: policy impact through government entryism and coalition-building; manipulation of the legal framework via lawfare and the redefinition of core concepts; institutional infiltration across educational and civil society organizations; and the establishment of narrative control through media influence and discourse shaping. Multiple detailed case studies within each domain show how Brotherhoodaligned groups have executed these strategies across different countries and historical periods. The analysis in this study, supported by extensive documentary evidence and organizational network assessments, demonstrates that the Muslim Brotherhood’s long-term strategy is a deliberate, multigenerational effort that closely aligns with its founders’ vision of gradually transforming Western society from within, primarily through nonviolent means. Ideologically speaking, it is also fundamentally opposed to Western democratic values and governance systems. This study offers an important assessment of the key strategic objectives of Islamist extremism and ideological entryism within democratic systems by the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as the intersection of Islamist extremism with religious identity politics that exploit democratic principles, multicultural respect for diversity, and transnational movements in an era of globalization and information warfare. The study concludes with an assessment of the challenges faced by policymakers, security professionals, and civil society leaders who aim to protect democratic values while respecting religious freedoms. In a nutshell, it states that effective responses need to balance security concerns with civil liberties, differentiate between genuine religious practice and ideological extremism, and create more sophisticated frameworks for understanding and addressing radical Islamism.

By Matthew Clair

Abstract: This paper reviews cultural sociological approaches to the study of law and how they may be applied to future research on law-related social crises. As the world faces myriad social crises, such as rising authoritarianism and police violence, the study of culture and the law has become an even more urgent intellectual and practical endeavor. Over the last decade, five concepts have dominated the cultural study of law: rules, norms, frames, cultural capital, and legal consciousness. While past research has provided generative insight, future research would benefit from more precise considerations of rules and norms in this unsettled moment. Moreover, future research could leverage the five cultural concepts to sharpen understandings of inequality and social control in understudied legal organizations, along understudied axes of social stratification, and with respect to the infusion of new technologies into the legal system.

By Lia Collins,Calli Tzani,Maria Ioannou,Thomas James Vaughan Wiliams,David Lester,Lucas Rogers

While researchers have previously been interested in investigating and understanding psychopathy, much of this research has focussed on criminal psychopaths, and the area of non-criminal psychopathy has remained largely under-researched, particularly surrounding romantic relationships. The present study explored how the traits of psychopathy impact romantic relationships between a psychopathic individual and a non-psychopathic partner and also explored the links between psychopathic traits and stalking victimization in the context of romantic relationships. A sample of 78 participants completed questionnaire with questions about both themselves and their partners, including the Risk Identification Checklist for Stalking Cases (VS-DASH-2009) scales that they filled out with their partners. Analyses revealed that participants who scored higher on Machiavellianism tended to rate their partners as exhibiting more psychopathic traits, although the direction of this relationship remains unclear. Additionally, there are no significant differences between gender and VS-DASH scores.

By Hsiang-Chin Hsu & Tzu-Ching Sung 

This study investigates the impact of a service-learning activity on the personal and professional development of 28 international medical students at I-Shou University, focusing on their participation in a service-learning project at a juvenile correctional school in Taiwan. Through the collection and thematic analysis of written reflections, four key themes were identified: cultural competence, empathy development, medical professionalism, and personal and professional growth. The service-learning experience significantly enhanced students’ cultural competence by exposing them to cross-cultural challenges, deepening their understanding of the social determinants of health, and reinforcing the importance of communication skills in overcoming language and cultural barriers. This is particularly relevant in diverse healthcare settings where effective communication is essential for patient-centered care. A notable outcome of the activity was the development of empathy, as students reflected on the emotional needs of the juveniles they encountered, highlighting the critical role of non-judgmental, compassionate care in healthcare practice. Furthermore, the experience fostered medical professionalism by confronting students with ethical dilemmas, such as equitable access to healthcare for marginalized populations, thus emphasizing the responsibility of future physicians to advocate for social justice and address healthcare disparities. Personal and professional growth emerged as another significant outcome, with students reporting increased self-awareness and emotional intelligence. The service-learning activity challenged their preconceived notions about marginalized populations, enabling them to recognize and mitigate personal biases, ultimately contributing to more compassionate and ethical patient care. Overall, the study underscores the transformative role of service-learning in medical education, fostering cultural competence, empathy, ethical awareness, and social responsibility—qualities essential for preparing socially responsible physicians to navigate healthcare. These findings collectively bridge theory and practice, illustrating how transformative learning and professional identity formation manifest through experiential service-learning. Accordingly, this study emphasizes integrating service-learning into medical education curricula to bridge theory and practice and equip students for ethical, cultural, and professional challenges. Future research should explore its long-term impact on professional development and broader curricular integration.

By D. Michael Applegarth, JoAnn S. Lee

This study examines changes in risk and protective factors among youth on probation (N=6,997) and how services received relate to these changes and subsequent recidivism. Using standardized risk assessments at intake and exit, logistic regression models assessed changes in risk and protective subscales, the relationship between specific services and observed changes, and associations with rearrest and reconviction. Overall, youth showed reduced risk and increased protective scores during probation. Increases in treatment, restitution, and assessments were linked to risk reductions, while treatment, assessments, and skill-building services were associated with gains in protective factors. Notably, more treatment services corresponded with increased risk in the school domain. Youth of color were less likely to experience a decrease in risk and an increase in protective scores. Increases in protective school scores and treatment services were linked to lower odds of rearrest and reconviction. In comparison, more monitoring services and increased legal history were associated with higher odds of recidivism. Findings highlight the potential of rehabilitative services to support youth success and suggest compliance based approaches, such as increased monitoring, may undermine outcomes. The study underscores the need for equitable, developmentally appropriate, and supportive interventions in juvenile probation.

By Marilyn FREEMAN

Cross-border parental child abductions in the EU are governed by The 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction and (except for Denmark) the Brussels II-ter Regulation. Countries outside of the EU may or may not be Contracting States to ‘the Convention’, but will not be bound by Brussels II-ter. Research has found that the often negative, long-lasting impact of abduction may continue throughout the lifecycle of those who have been abducted. It may also affect future generations of society. This means that every effort to deter abduction should be made. Where that is not possible, the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention should be nurtured to support its application in contemporary society. Specialist mediation should be encouraged in relation to international child abduction generally, and specifically in relation to Third Countries which are not Contracting States to ‘the Convention’. This study was commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the JURI Committee.