Karen Musalo

Bio

Karen Musalo is Professor of Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, California. She is lead co-author of Refugee Law and Policy: An International and Comparative approach (5th edition). She has written extensively on refugee law issues, and contributed to the evolving jurisprudence of asylum law not only through her scholarship, but through her litigation of landmark cases. She was lead attorney in Matter of Kasinga (fear of female genital mutilation as a basis for asylum) and amicus in Matter of A-R-C-G-, the first precedent decision affirming the viability of domestic violence asylum claims. Prof. Musalo is currently co-counsel in Matter of A-B-, in which the principle of protection in domestic violence claims is being challenged by Attorney General Sessions.

Prof. Musalo is recognized for her innovative work on refugee issues, being the first attorney to partner with psychologists in the representation of traumatized asylum seekers, and editing the earliest handbook for practitioners on cross-cultural issues and the impact of culture on credibility in the asylum context. She is a frequent media commentator, quoted in outlets such as The New York Times, Washington Post, The Nation, and El Pais. She has been interviewed on Nightline, CNN International, and NPR’s All Things Considered, and was featured in the PBS documentary Breaking Free: A Woman’s Story.

Prof. Musalo’s current work examines the linkage between human rights violations and migration, focusing on violence against women and children in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. She is the founding director of the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, which is internationally known for its research and legal advocacy and for its program of expert consultation to attorneys around the world.

Professor Musalo has received numerous national awards in recognition of her work on behalf of refugees, including the 2010 California Lawyer of the Year Award, the 2009 Daily Journal’s recognition as one of the “Top 100” lawyers in California, and the 2015 Federal Bar Association Immigration Section’s Lawyer of the Year Award. In 2012 she received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Lehman College, the same year she received UC Law SF’ Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching. She is a frequent speaker at conferences throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Latin America.

Education

• Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley
  J.D., Law 1981

• Brooklyn College. City University of New York
  B.A., Comparative Literature 1973

Accomplishments

• Lawyer of the Year Award
  Awarded by the Immigration Law Section of the Federal Bar Association. 2015

• Chair in International Law
  Conferred by the Bank of America Foundation. 2014

• Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters
  Awarded by Lehman College at the City University of New York. 2012

• Rutter Award
  Awarded by for excellence in teaching. 2012

• California Lawyer of the Year (CLAY) Award
  Awarded by the monthly legal magazine, California Lawyer. 2010

• Top 100 Attorneys in California Award
  Awarded by Daily Journal. 2009

• Human Rights Award
  Awarded by the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant. 2004

• Carol King Award
  Awarded by the National Immigration Project. 2003

• Human Rights Award
  Awarded by the American Immigration Lawyers Association. 2002

• Annual Award
  Awarded by the New York Central American Refugee Center. 1998

• Outstanding Achievement Award
  Awarded by the Political Asylum Immigration Representation Project. 1998

• Eighth Annual Phillip Burton Immigration and Civil Rights Award
  Awarded by The Immigrant Legal Resource Center. 1997

• Recognition: The American Lawyer
  Conferred in recognition of the publication " The Public Sector: forty-five young lawyers outside the private sector whose vision andcommitment are changing lives." 1997

Selected Scholarship

• El Salvador: Root Causes and Just Asylum Policy Responses
  18 Hastings Race & Poverty L.J. 178 2021

• The Struggle for Equality: Women’s Rights, Human Rights and Asylum Protection
  48 Sw. U.L. Rev. 531 2019

• El Salvador – A Peace Worse than War: Violence, Gender and a Failed Legal Response
  30 Yale Journal of Law & Feminism 3 2018

• Seeking a Rational Approach to a Regional Refugee Crisis: Lessons from the Summer 2014 "Surge" of Central American Women and Children at the US-Mexico Border
  5 J. of Migration and Hum. Security (No. I) 137 2017

• Immigration Remedies and Procedural Rights of Migrant Children and Adolescents
  Childhood and Migration in Central and North America: Causes, Policies, Practices and Challenges 2015

• The Evolving Refugee Definition: How Shifting Elements of Eligibility Affect the Nature and Focus of Expert Testimony in Asylum Proceedings
  African Asylum at a Crossroads: Activism, Expert Testimony, and Refugee Rights 2015

• A Tale of Two Women: The Claims for Asylum of Fauziya Kassinda, Who Fled FGC, and Rody Alvarado, a Survivor of Partner (Domestic) Abuse
  Gender in Refugee Law: From the Margins to the Centre 2014

• Personal Violence, Public Matter: Evolving Standards in Gender-Based Asylum Law
  Harvard International Review 2014

• Crimes Without Punishment: An Update on Violence Against Women and Impunity in Guatemala
  Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal 2013

• A Short History of Gender Asylum in the United States: Resistance and Ambivalence May Very Slowly be Inching Towards Recognition of Women’s Claims
  Refugee Survey Quarterly 2010

• The Role of Mental Health Professionals in Political Asylum Processing
  Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 2010

• Crimes Without Punishment: Violence Against Women in Guatemala
  Hastings Women's Law Journal 2010

• The Implementation of the One-Year Bar to Asylum
  Hastings International and Comparative Law Review 2008

• Conscientious Objection as a Basis for Refugee Status: Protection for the Fundamental Right of Freedom of Thought, Conscience and Religion
  Refugee Survey Quarterly 2007

• Protecting Victims of Gendered Persecution: Fear of Floodgates or Call to (Principled) Action?
  Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law 2007

• La Convencíon de 1951 sobre el Estatuto de la Persona Refugiada y la protección de las mujeres frente a las violaciones de sus derechos fundamentales,
  Revista de derecho migratorio y extranjería 2005

• Revisiting Social Group and Nexus in Gender Asylum Claims: A Unifying Rationale for Evolving Jurisprudence
  DePaul Law Review 2003

• Claims for Protection Based on Religion or Belief: Analysis and Proposed Conclusions
  United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Legal and Protection Policy Research Series 2002

• Steps Forward and Steps Back: Uneven Progress in the Law of Social Group and Gender-Based Claims in the United States
  International Journal of Refugee Law 2001

• The Expedited Removal Study: Evaluation of the General Accounting Offices Second Report on Expedited Removal
  Center for Human Rights and International Justice, UC Law SF College of the Law 2000

• The Expedited Removal Study: Report on the First Three Years of Implementation of Expedited Removal
  Center for Human Rights and International Justice, UC Law SF College of the Law 2000

• Matter of R-A-: An Analysis of the Decision and Its Implications
  Interpreter Releases 1999

• The Expedited Removal Study: Report on the Second Year of Implementation of Expedited Removal
  Center for Human Rights and International Justice, UC Law SF College of the Law 01/1999

• Ruminations on In Re Kasinga: The Decision' s Legacy
  Southern California Review of Law & Women's Studies 1998

• The Expedited Removal Study: Report on the First Year of Implementation of Expedited Removal
  International Human Rights and Migration Project, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University 1998

• In Re Kasinga: A Big Step Forward for Gender-Based Asylum Claims,
  Interpreter Releases 1996

• Women Refugees: Does the United States Provide Adequate Protection?
  Inter Alia, University of Durham, England 1996

• Irreconcilable Differences? Divorcing Refugee Protections from Human Rights Norms
  Michigan Journal of International Law 1994

• No Justice, No Peace: Accountability for Rape and Gender-Based Violence in the Former Yugoslavia
  Hastings Women's Law Journal 1994

• Chiapas: The Rebellion of the Excluded
  Ecumenical Program on Central America & the Caribbean 1994

• Beating a hasty retreat
  Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice 1993

• Swords into Ploughshares: Why the United States Should Provide Refuge to Young Men Who Refuse to Bear Arms for Reasons of Conscience
  San Diego Law Review 1989