South-South Migrations and the Law from Below: Case Studies on China and Nigeria

CERC Migration hosted the launch of South-South Migrations and the Law from Below: Case Studies on China and Nigeria, by CERC Migration Research Fellow Oreva Olakpe and published by Hart Publishing, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing.

As part of her doctoral work, Oreva Olakpe examined two seemingly disparate communities of undocumented and displaced migrants – one based in China and the other in West Africa – to show the strength of their resilience. Through months of travel and observation, Oreva found these two communities organized “solutions from below” in the face of the injustices of the formal legal systems in which their communities were situated. Drawing on "Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL)" and intersectionality, Oreva provides a fresh understanding of how communities of the Third World experience the law and forge paths to justice for themselves. 

Oreva argues, “Once you understand the contributions these communities make to address the inadequacies of institutions and norms, and how they strive to live with dignity, you realize more needs to be done to support them.”

With discussant: Uchechukwu Ngwaba, Assistant Professor, Lincoln Alexander School of Law