Decoding Justice: Data-driven insights into how refugee cases are decided in Australia

Decoding Justice: Data-driven insights into how refugee cases are decided in Australia

October 19, 2023 4:00pm – 5:30pmET (via zoom)

The Kaldor Centre Data Lab was established in 2022 and publishes regularly updated data on Australia’s refugee status determination procedures. The core aim of the lab is to provide insights into the decision-making patterns of individual tribunal members and judges, as well as into the way the system is operating as whole. One year on, we reflect on our efforts to draw on data to influence reforms aimed at increasing the consistency and timeliness of decision-making, taking stock of both the successes, as well as the push-back and criticism we have received from various quarters, and what lessons these experiences hold for future data-driven advocacy aimed at improving refugee status determination procedures.

Associate Professor Daniel Ghezelbash: Daniel is Associate Professor and the Deputy Director of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW Sydney, and an Australian Research Council (ARC) DECRA Fellow. He is an internationally recognised scholar of international and comparative refugee and migration law. His research transcends traditional disciplinary barriers, drawing on everything from law, computing, political science, behavioural psychology and data science. His ARC DECRA project examines fast-track asylum policies, and whether it is possible to design procedures which are both fair and efficient. He has also published widely on the way restrictive asylum policies have spread around the world. This is the topic of his book, Refuge Lost: Asylum Law in an Interdependent World(Cambridge University Press, 2018). Daniel is a practicing refugee lawyer. He is Special Counsel at the National Justice Project, and sits on the boards of a number of not-for-profit legal centres, including Refugee Advice and Casework Services and Wallumatta Legal.

Keyvan Dorostkar: Keyvan is a lawyer and PhD candidate at the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW Sydney. His PhD examines how data on judicial decision-making of refugee cases can be used to improve administrative justice in Australia’s asylum procedures. Keyvan’s research applies computational and statistical methods, gathering data tracing the life-cycle of refugee applications through the whole system, to better understand how it currently operates and how it can be reformed in the future.

Register via zoom.