Dr Dallal Stevens, Reader at Warwick Law School, has been invited to present at an international expert meeting on public policies supporting the Right to Education of refugees. The meeting will take place from the 13-14 December in Barcelona.

The event will contribute towards Human Rights Day 2018, which marks the 70th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is organised by UNESCO, the City Council of Barcelona, UNHCR, the Centre for UNESCO of Catalonia and the Generalitat de Catalunya. The aim of the event is to highlight States' core duty to ensure that no one is denied their right to receive quality education, especially those who fled their country because of conflicts or climate change.

The event will bring together country representatives and internationally known experts and will serve as a platform seeking to facilitate and enrich the discussions on conceptual, legal and policy issues in relation with the protection of the right to education of refugees. In particular, the objectives are to identify challenges faced by countries and cities hosting important numbers of refugees, to discuss country good practices and promising policy measures, to identify specific areas for targeting and strengthening support and discuss key policy levers, and elaborate policy recommendations.

Dallal will speak about international refugee law and policy and the right to education for Syrian refugees in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon as examples of the serious issues confronting many refugee children today. Dallal told us, “this is an important opportunity for academic contribution to UN policy-making and I am looking forward to participating at this significant event. The increasing numbers of children unable to go to school and receive an education has enormous implications not only at an individual level but also for post-conflict reconstruction as well as the durability of the refugee regime in the long-term.”