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34 Int'l J. Refugee L. 1 (2022)

handle is hein.journals/intjrl34 and id is 1 raw text is: International Journal of Refugee Law, 2022, Vol 34, No 1, 1-30 https://doi.org/10.1093/ijrl/eeac024 Advance Access publication S July 2022 ARTICLES Unaccompanied Children in Limbo: The Causes and Consequences of Uncertain Legal Status Joseph Lelliott* ABSTRACT Unaccompanied children seeking international protection often find themselves with forms of discretionary, time-limited, or otherwise uncertain legal status in countries out- side their own. This may be due to the available options for legal status or to long delays in determination of protection claims, among other factors. While the legal and policy reasons for this vary, of particular concern is the imposition of such uncertainty to dis- courage children from persisting with protection claims, to deter others from arriving, to delay status resolution until adulthood, or to facilitate removal. Children possessing a legal status that is insecure or uncertain may be described as being in 'legal limbo' This article explores this issue and examines the often deleterious consequences of limbo for unaccompanied children. Through an analysis and comparison of Australia and the United Kingdom, it explains 'legal limbo' as a function of States' desire to deter, control, and punish irregular migration. This article argues that an approach based on rights, as op- posed to migration control, must guide the availability of secure legal status to unaccom- panied children. To this end, it articulates the basis of an obligation to provide these children such status, drawing on their rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and on the commentary of treaty bodies. The article concludes by calling for better pathways to permanent stay for unaccompanied children. * Senior Lecturer, TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Email: j.lelliottl@uq.edu.au. The author would like to thank the anonymous referees for their valuable feedback and suggestions, as well as Ms Rory McFadden for her research assistance. The research on which this article is based was presented in 2019 at the Children, Migration, and the Right to Health Conference at the University of Sydney and at the Kaldor Centre Emerging Scholars Workshop at UNSW. Thanks go also to the participants at those conferences for their insightful comments. Any errors remain the author's own. © The Author(s) (2022). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions please email: journals.permissions@oup.com . 1