Refugee Repatriation: Justice, Responsibility and Redress by Megan Bradley

Abstract

In October last year, whilst flipping hats from my PhD research to working on publishing articles of personal interest on refugee issues, I happened upon Megan’s book. You see, once an internally displaced person and a refugee for 11 years of my relatively young life, affinity to researching refugees plight is not just an academic exercise for the purpose of populating my curriculum vitae. It is an actively lived experience where past trauma of pain and suffering, interestingly becomes the driving force for steering social change. In 2012, I embarked on a research journey to investigate the United Nation High Commission for Refugees’ resolve to evoke its 1951 Convention Cessation Clause to conduct the closure of the Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana. The aim of the study was to assess the phrase “voluntary repatriation” as it pertains human rights concerns for Liberian refugees who had inhabited the Camp for well over 21 years, when in fact returning at the moment appeared to be grim in spite of Liberia’s fragile peace and post-war recovery. It is this interest that led me to a request for a desk review copy of Refugee Repatriation from Columbia University Press, who thankfully, mailed a copy just hours before I embarked on a 7-month fieldwork data collection period to Liberia.