About the GDP

Aims

The Global Detention Project (GDP) is a non-profit organisation based in Geneva that promotes the human rights of people who have been detained for reasons related to their non-citizen status. Our mission is:

• To promote the human rights of detained migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers
• To ensure transparency in the treatment of immigration detainees
• To reinforce advocacy aimed at reforming detention systems
• To nurture policy-relevant scholarship on the causes and consequences of migration control policies

The GDP’s activities include: (1) providing policy-makers, civil society actors, and human rights institutions with a source of accurate information and analysis about detention and other immigration control regimes, with a particular focus on the impact these policies have on the health, human rights, and well being of undocumented migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees; (2) developing and maintaining a measurable and regularly updated database that can be used to assess the evolution of detention practices, provide an evidentiary base for advocating reforms, and serve as a framework for comparative analysis; (3) working with academics and practitioners to develop policy relevant scholarship about detention systems; and (4) collaborating with advocacy organisations to document policies and practices through the launching of a interactive online database, the Global Immigration Detention Observatory.

Origins

The Global Detention Project was launched in 2005 as part of a student-led research initiative at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, which was aimed at creating a tool for improving transparency of immigration detention regimes by systematically documenting where and in what conditions migrants and asylum seekers are detained.

The project received an initial grant from the Geneva International Academic Network (RUIG-GIAN) to collaborate with the Graduate Institute’s Political Science Department on completing a comprehensive assessment of the international scope of migrant detention practices. Since then, the GDP has received support from a host of other financial partners, including the Human Security Division of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, the Oak Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the State of Geneva, Loterie Romande, Zennström Philanthropies, and the Swiss Network for International Studies.

During 2009-2014, the GDP was housed at the Graduate Institute’s Programme for the Study of Global Migration. During this period, the project grew from a small academic research project into an important source of information and analysis on detention regimes across the globe.

In May 2014, the GDP was launched as an independent nonprofit research centre.