T. Alexander Aleinikoff

Rethinking the International Refugee Regime

Watch the video of Alexander Aleinikoff's lecture.

Yale Law School was pleased to welcome T. Alexander Aleinikoff ’77 as the Gruber Distinguished Lecturer in Global Justice. From 2010 to 2015, Aleinikoff served as the Deputy High Commissioner in the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, Switzerland. T. Alexander Aleinikoff is a leading scholar in immigration and refugee law and is currently a Visiting Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and a Huo Global Policy Initiative Research Fellow at Columbia's Global Policy Initiative.

T. Alexander Aleinikoff delivered the Gruber Lecture on February 8, 2016, at 4:30 pm. The lecture was entitled “Rethinking the International Refugee Regime.” Aleinikoff’s lecture was thought provoking and insightful, highlighting the complexities of the current refugee crisis in Syria. Aleinikoff also discussed the broader state of refugee politics globally, urging nations to pursue new significant innovations that could enhance civil society’s role in alleviating the refugee crisis including private investment in job and infrastructure development in refugee hosting areas and privately sponsored resettlement of refugees. Watch the lecture in its entirely here.

On the following day a panel discussion in conjunction with the Gruber Distinguished Lecture for Global Justice featured T. Alexander Aleinikoff in conversation with Eleanor Acer (Senior Director, Refugee Protection, Human Rights First), Conchita Cruz ('16, 2016-2017 Gruber Fellow), Bill Frelick (Director, Refugee Program, Human Rights Watch), and Rebecca M. Heller ('10, 2012 -2013 Gruber Fellow and Director, International Refugee Assistance Project). The Panel was moderated by Harold. H. Koh, Sterling Professor of International Law .

The Gruber Distinguished Lecture in Global Justice is a signature lecture open to the entire Yale community and sponsored by the Gruber Program for Global Justice and Women’s Rights at Yale Law School which was  established in 2011 by philanthropists Peter and Patricia Gruber as part of the Gruber Foundation. The Gruber Program at Yale Law School also supports The Gruber Distinguished Lecture in Women’s Rights, the Gruber Fellowships in Global Justice and Women's Rights, and the annual Global Constitutionalism Seminar.