• news-banner

    Expert Insights

World Refugee Day 2023

World Refugee Day takes place each year on 20 June, and we at Charles Russell Speechlys are looking forward to marking the occasion again this year. World Refugee Day was first established in 2001, to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention and it provides a day of celebration for the important contributions that refugees make and encourages all of us to reflect on their strength and courage.

This day provides a further opportunity for firms like ours to reflect on our contribution to improving the legal rights and status of refugees.

We are honoured to be one of the six London law firms in the Greece Pro Bono Collaborative, which sends legal secondees to European Lawyers in Lesvos (ELIL). ELIL is a charity which provides free, independent legal assistance to refugees and asylum seekers in Greece and, more recently, Poland. Asylum seeker applicants get only one chance to explain why their asylum status is well-founded, and their answers determine whether or not they will be given asylum status in that country. The charity prepares applicants for their interview with the government asylum service.

It was estimated that in 2019 almost 75,000 people, many of them unaccompanied minors, sought international protection in Greece after making the dangerous journey in search of safety. Since 2016, ELIL has assisted over 17,000 asylum seekers. Without any assistance, an applicant has a 31% chance of being granted asylum. In comparison, an astonishing 70.3% of those assisted by ELIL have been granted asylum. The alternative is bleak, with refugees being faced with return to an unsafe country or living in a legal limbo, without the correct status to enable them to access employment, education or healthcare.

A refugee is defined as someone who has been forced to flee their country of origin because of persecution, war or violence.  However, having had a unique insight into the experience of a refugee, it is the view of our secondees that a refugee cannot be understood by this definition alone. The powerful and moving experiences of three of our secondees can be found here: Sarah Higgins, Kayleigh McKee, Mary Barrett. Sarah Higgins, Partner in our Family team, reflects: “I heard the stories of asylum seekers, particularly women and children, who had suffered unimaginable horrors and who were not given the legal and police protection or medical care we can take for granted because they were born somewhere where human rights are not honoured. It takes enormous courage for a refugee – some of whom were unaccompanied minors – to undertake a perilous journey to an unfamiliar country”.

At the end of 2022, more than 100 million people were forcibly displaced globally – a record number propelled by the war in Ukraine and other conflicts around the world and an increase of 10.7 million people from the previous year according to the UN Refugee Agency.

The massive increase in demand for ELIL’s help over the past couple of years demonstrates the sobering reality that the displacement crisis remains one of the biggest human rights issues facing Europe and the world today. We are proud to be involved with ELIL and to recognise, acknowledge and celebrate World Refugee Day, by paying tribute to the strength and courage of people who have been forced to flee their home country. With our support, together with the other firms that make up the Greece Pro Bono Collaborative (Dentons, White & Case LLP, Allen & Overy, Ashurst and Orrick, and Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP), ELIL can reach more asylum seekers and enable more people to receive protection. We encourage everyone, colleagues, clients and others to take the opportunity on this day to understand the plight of others and recognise their resilience in rebuilding their lives.

Our thinking

  • "AI Battlefields" Conference - Some Highlights

    Nick White

    Quick Reads

  • Panglossian or Painful: Tax after the US and UK elections

    Jeffrey Lee

    Events

  • Julia Cox, Harriet Betteridge and Alexandra Clarke write for Tax Journal on who might be considered the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ from an IHT perspective following the UK Autumn Budget

    Julia Cox

    In the Press

  • Law.com International interviews Robert Reymond on the growth of our Latin America desk

    Robert Reymond

    In the Press

  • Internationally competitive? The post-April 2025 tax rules for non-doms

    Dominic Lawrance

    Insights

  • Autumn Budget 2024: Share incentives

    Tessa Newman

    Quick Reads

  • Navigating the Lion City: A guide to Singapore's business etiquette and superstitions

    Shamma Ahmed

    Quick Reads

  • Under my umbr-ETA, ESTA, eh eh… FAO: international visitors to UK from 8 January 2025 – avoid rain and flight anxiety

    Paul McCarthy

    Quick Reads

  • The abolition of perpetuity periods: Time to sound a note of caution?

    Robert Avis

    Insights

  • Family Court Reporting Week - supporting journalists to report family court cases

    Dhara Shah

    Quick Reads

  • Passing on family wealth – the Family Law impact of the new inheritance tax changes

    Sarah Jane Boon

    Insights

  • Potential parental disputes about school fees now VAT is to be added

    Sarah Jane Boon

    Insights

  • The Halloween Budget – will wealth creators be spooked?

    Dominic Lawrance

    Insights

  • Budget puts the squeeze on additional property purchases

    William Marriott

    Quick Reads

  • Transatlantic shockwaves herald sea change in UK tax treatment of US-connected individuals

    Sangna Chauhan

    Insights

  • Budget 2024 - IHT winners and losers

    Julia Cox

    Quick Reads

  • Succession and tax strategy for farmers and business owners post-Budget

    Sarah Wray

    Quick Reads

  • Sophie Dworetzsky writes for Tax Journal on the proposed new foreign income and gains (FIG) regime announced in the UK budget

    Sophie Dworetzsky

    In the Press

  • The Financial Times and Bloomberg quote Dominic Lawrance on the implications of the changes to the non-dom regime announced in the UK Budget

    Dominic Lawrance

    In the Press

  • Consequences of the abolition of the non-dom regime and 30 October 2024 Budget: what are the family law issues for wealthy clients leaving the UK?

    Miranda Fisher

    Quick Reads

Back to top