Refugee Rights Clinic

The Refugee Rights Clinic (Est. 2002) aims to see the implementation of the UN’s 1951 Refugee Convention in the Israeli legal system. The Clinic specializes in the legal rights of refugees and asylum seekers, and provides individuals with pro bono legal representation in various contexts. Issues and procedures include release from detention; applications for legal status based on asylum, humanitarian, or other grounds; and key issues related to access to and protection of civil, economic and social rights.

Alongside representing individual clients, the Clinic’s extensive legal activities include drafting legislation regarding asylum policy in Israel; submitting Supreme Court petitions; and collaborating with other leading NGOs to advance policy and legislation that protect Israel’s vulnerable refugee and asylum seeker community. Participating students are deeply engaged in case work. Their work includes preparing asylum applications and statements of claim; representing clients in interviews and hearings at the Population and Immigration Authority and/or other government agencies; developing legal strategies; and accompanying the Clinic’s lawyers to court.

In 2008, the Refugee Rights Clinic received the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award. The award is given annually to "an individual or NGO that has made a unique contribution to the advancement of human rights in Israel".

Clinical Staff 

Dr. Yuval Livnat – Academic Supervisor	Anat Ben-Dor, Adv. – Clinical Instructor	Michal Rubinstein, Adv. – Clinical Instructor

Additional Reading

Download the clinic's 2003 Report and Position Paper: "Israel – A Safe Haven? Problems in the Treatment Offered by the State of Israel to Refugees and Asylum Seekers".

Download the Clinic's 2008 Report "Nowhere to Run: Gay Palestinian Asylum-Seekers in Israel" written by Michael Kagan & Anat Ben-Dor, published by Tel Aviv University’s Public Interest Law Program (PILP). 

Download the 2011 publication: "No Shelter: Protection Gaps in Israel Facing Refugees Fleeing Gender-Based Persecution". A collaborative work of the Clinic and the Organization for Refugee, Asylum and Migration (ORAM).