James Hathaway

James Hathaway (born 1956) is a Canadian-American scholar of international refugee law and related aspects of human rights and public international law. His work has been frequently cited by the most senior courts of the common law world, and has played a pivotal role in the evolution of refugee studies scholarship. Hathaway pioneered the understanding of refugee status as surrogate or substitute protection of human rights, authored the world's first comprehensive analysis of the human rights of refugees, merging doctrinal study of refugee and human rights law with empirical analysis of the state of refugee protection around the world and directed a groundbreaking multidisciplinary and global team of scholars and officials in an initiative to reconceive the structures of refugee protection more fairly to share burdens and responsibilities. Hathaway also convened the Michigan Colloquium on Challenges in International Refugee Law, which met eight times between 1999 and 2017 to formulate guidelines to resolve cutting-edge concerns on both refugee status and refugee rights under international law. An archive of Hathaway’s scholarly working papers has been established at the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library. Hathaway is the Founding Editor of Cambridge Asylum and Migration Studies, and served as Senior Advisor to Asylum Access, a non-profit organization committed to delivering innovative legal aid to refugees in the Global South (2013-2022) and Counsel on International Protection to the United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (2008-2022). Education Hathaway earned an LL.B. (Honors) at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, and an LL.M. and a J.S.D. at Columbia University. He was called to the bars of the Canadian provinces of Ontario and New Brunswick. He presently resides in San Francisco and Vancouver. Career Hathaway is the Degan Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Michigan Law School (USA) where he served as the founding Director of the Program in Refugee and Asylum Law (1998-2022).