Kate Jastram

Syrian refugee family adapts to life in Oakland

Kate Jastram interviewed by KQED News, Dec. 21, 2015

The U.S. government screens Syrian refugees more thoroughly than almost anyone else applying to come into this country, and that process that can take years. That’s one reason that fears of Syrian refugees are misplaced. … “It’s not very likely that the enterprising terrorist is going to want to take that route to get to the U.S.,” says Jastram.

What makes someone a refugee?

Kate Jastram quoted in The Altantic, July 29, 2014

For most people, the colloquial sense “refugee” carries a greater moral weight than “immigrant.” “Particularly because refugee law grew out of the Second World War and what happened—and didn’t happen—for people who were trying to flee for their lives, there is a tremendous moral connotation to the word ‘refugee,’” Jastram said.

In waging cyber war, battlefield becomes blurred

Kate Jastram quoted in San Francisco Chronicle, Dot.Commentary, June 10, 2012

Kate Jastram, a lecturer in residence at UC Berkeley Law School, doesn’t think the U.S. action qualifies as an armed attack. But she does think Stuxnet and similar efforts demand a re-evaluation of questions surrounding the traditional rules of war, such as: What level of damage from a cyber attack constitutes a use of force or armed attack? What’s a proportional response, and how sure should we be of the source of an attack before we can respond?

Kate Jastram Discusses Australian Refugee Law

The Australian Financial Review, September 24, 2010 by James Eyers
http://bit.ly/au7zj1 (Link no longer active. Go to G:\Law School in the News\News Clips for article)

A professor of law at the University of California in Berkeley, Kate Jastram, said governments had been unwilling to distinguish between forced migrants and those moving voluntarily. “There is a conflation of asylum seekers, terrorists, and a whole category of other persons, which is not helpful and doesn’t lead to good policy choices,” she said.