Common wisdom suggests that the 9/11 terrorist attacks changed everything about the character of refugee law in the United States and in neighbouring Canada. But did they? If so, how do the responses of the two countries compare in terms of their negative impacts on refugee rights? Refugee Law after 9/11 undertakes a systematic examination of available legal, policy, and empirical evidence to reveal a great irony: refugee rights were already so whittled down in both countries before 9/11 that there was relatively little room for negative change after the attacks. It also shows that the Canadian refugee law regime reacted to 9/11 in much the same way as its US counterpart, and these similar reactions raise significant questions about security relativism and the cogency of Canadian and US national self-image.

Obiora Chinedu Okafor is York Research Chair in International and Transnational Legal Studies (Tier 1) and a professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto. He is the United Nations Independent Expert on Human Rights and International Solidarity and a former chair of the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee. He is also the author of The African Human Rights System, Activist Forces and International Institutions; Legitimizing Human Rights NGOs: Lessons from Nigeria; Re-defining Legitimate Statehood: International Law and State Fragmentation in Africa; and dozens of other scholarly works.

Catherine Dauvergne, Dean of Law, University of British Columbia:
Okafor’s intricate empirical work forces readers to come to terms with the security apparatus that surrounds refugee law. The unique US – Canada comparative setting compels Canadians to grapple with an uncomfortable truth about themselves and their immigration mythology.

Jaya Ramji-Nogales, I. Herman Stern Research Professor, Temple University, Beasley School of Law:
In Refugee Law after 9/11, Obi Okafor provides a meticulously detailed examination of the often-presented but rarely questioned assumption that the Canadian refugee regime is more generous than that of the United States. Highlighting continuities and disjunctures in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, his comparative investigation of key questions enables a thoughtful, measured, and illuminating analysis of these neighbouring legal frameworks and their compliance with international human rights law.

Audrey Macklin, Director of the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, Professor and Chair in Human Rights, University of Toronto:
Professor Obiora Okafor’s book sparkles with comparative insights into the securitization of refugee law across time and borders. He tackles his comparison between Canada and the US with deep research, lucid analysis, and provocative argument.

Makau Mutua, SUNY Distinguished Professor and Floyd H. and Hilda L. Hurst Scholar, SUNY Buffalo Law School:
Professor Okafor's remarkable comparative study of the transformative impact of the September 11 attacks on American and Canadian refugee law regimes provides a pungent and startling window into the fragility of the democratic experiment. It lays bare the quick descent into the normalization of abominable policies in the face of a single, albeit historic, event and explains how and why the rights of refugees were jettisoned for security.