Subcontinental Defiance to the Global Refugee Regime: Global Leadership or Regional Exceptionalism

Jay Ramasubramanyam is an Assistant Professor (Teaching) in the Law & Society Program at York University, Toronto. Professor Ramasubramanyam obtained his B.A. in Criminology from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand (2009). He received a Postgraduate Diploma and LL.M. in International Human Rights from Birmingham City University, United Kingdom (2011) and his Ph.D. from the Department of Law and Legal Studies and the Institute of Political Economy, at Carleton University (2021).

He is a global south migration researcher. His research expertise includes forced migration, international refugee law, statelessness, third world approaches to international law, human rights, race and racialization, postcolonial theory, and South Asian studies. His research explores the asymmetries of power, knowledge production and the ostensible legitimacy of norms in the field of refugee studies and refugee law.

He recently published an article in the Asian Yearbook of International Law on refugee law in the Indian subcontinent, and two book chapters in The Oxford Handbook of International Refugee Law. He formerly taught in Carleton University in the areas of social justice and human rights, refugee rights, international law, and race and racialization. In recognition of his teaching excellence, he won the Contract Instructor Teaching Award.

He was formerly a visiting scholar in the American Bar Association in Washington D.C., and a visiting researcher at the Andrew and Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law in Sydney, Australia.

Prior to his entry into academia, he was employed by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as a Refugee Status Determination Associate and in the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as a Protection Field Officer.