This page will assist you with your research into Canadian refugee and asylum seeker law. For more detailed information on researching Canadian law in general, see our Canadian Legal Research Guide.
'The human rights bases of refugee protection in canada' in Human Rights and the Refugee Definition by 
Let Me Be a Refugee: administrative justice and the politics of asylum in the United States, Canada, and Australia by
Articles on Canadian law do not only appear in Canadian journals. Use also the following databases, which index hundreds of law journals.
The Interpretation of Convention Refugee and Person in Need of Protection in the Case Law, published by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada in 2020 is a comprehensive analysis of judicial consideration of the Convention refugee and person in need definition.
The online encyclopaedias below are arranged alphabetically by topic. They include authoritative commentary, and link to the full text of legislation, treaties and significant cases.
Canadian Encylopaedic Digest (CED) on Westlaw Next Canada. You can browse to your topic, and also search across the whole CED, or within specific subjects.
To get to the refugee and asylum topics in CED:
Halsbury's Laws of Canada on Lexis + Australia. To get to the human rights topics in Halsbury's, scroll through the alphabetical list of topics to Immigration and Citizenship and use the + signs to open to more detailed topics - for example the topics under Chapter V - Convention Refugees and Persons in Need of Protection.
The latest edition of the Annotated Immigration and Refugee Protection Act of Canada (Carswell) contains the up to date Immigration and Refugee Protection Act together with accompanying regulations and rules, the Quebec Immigration Act SQ 2016 c 3, other relevant statutory enactments, and the latest legislative developments. It also contains case notes on significant decisions that interpret the law and commentary reflecting all recent developments.
The principal legislation dealing with the protection of asylum seekers in Canada is the federal Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (2001). The official Act, including all amendments, is available on the Canadian Department of Justice website (free access). Part 2 (ss95-115) deals with protection of refugees.
Westlaw's Canadian Encylopaedic Digest (database identifier CED) contains a table of all legislation relevant to refugees, with links to the full text of the legislation, and provides commentary and cases on the legislative provisions. Follow the directions in the box above to get to the Immigration and Refugees topic in the Canadian Encylopaedic Digest. The Tables of Statutes and Rules are in the Tables tab.
Tip: after checking relevant legislation on Westlaw, to ensure you use the most up to date official version of the legislation, go to the legislative provisions on the Department of Justice website.
In CANLII (open access) - navigate to the section or sub-section of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, click on the hyperlinked section number and a list of citing cases will appear, with links to the full text of the cases. Alternatively, use the 'noteup' tab at the top of the screen.
In WestlawNext Canada (UniMelb staff & student access) - click on Statutes and Regulations on the home page to navigate to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and then to the provision - for example, s 97 - Person in need of protection. Click on Citing References to see all cases - these can be narrowed by sub-section, jurisdiction, citation frequency, court level, depth of treatment and treatment type.
Selected / Significant Decisions
The latest edition of the Annotated Immigration and Refugee Protection Act of Canada (Carswell) contains casenotes on significant decisions that interpret each provision.
Refugee and asylum cases are heard in the following Canadian courts:
Some refugee cases heard in all Canadian courts and tribunals are available as pdf replicas of the original unreported judgments on the UNHCR's Refworld website (open access).
The Canadian Abridgment on WestlawNext Canada contains over 850,000 case digests or summaries, of issues decided by the Canadian courts and administrative tribunals from the early 1800's to the present, updated daily.
The Canadian Abridgment is arranged by topic - so to find refugee law cases:
The Canadian Immigration Cases and Decisions database on WestlawNext Canada contains Canadian federal and provincial court and tribunal decisions relating to immigration, citizenship, and the status of aliens that are selected from Carswell case law reporters, such as the Immigration Law Reporter. From the home page select Cases and Decisions and then scroll to Immigration under Topic.
