BY PROFESSOR SARA DE JONG AND BETSY L. FISHER
Overseas military and humanitarian missions are often heavily reliant on the support of locally employed civilians or Local Staff, who place their personal safety at great risk. However, Local Staff have significantly fewer protections than international staff and cannot rely on the country they served to relocate them, once the mission has ended. Following their recent report, ‘Falling Between the Cracks of the Law: Legal Protection and Advocacy for Local Staff’, Sara de Jong, Professor in Politics at the University of York, and Betsy Fisher, US Immigration Attorney and Advocate and Lecturer at the University of Michigan Law School, consider the plight of former Local Staff, including Afghan interpreters who worked alongside British Armed Forces, and propose guidelines to establish the status, rights, and avenues for the protection of Local Staff.
In April, the media reported that two Afghans, who have been approved for UK relocation, are currently challenging the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in court over the delays to their evacuation under the Afghan Resettlement Programme. In a hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice, Tim Owen KC, Barrister for an Afghan claimant seeking relocation to the UK based on their association with the British mission in Afghanistan, told the judge that “on the face of it, it appears there is a freeze on relocations from Afghanistan”. A week later, his premonition was confirmed when Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard MP told Parliament in a written statement that the Government had decided to “end in country assistance for movements out of Afghanistan”. As a result, Afghans who have been promised relocation under the Afghan Resettlement Programme based on their assistance to the UK mission in Afghanistan now need to make their own way to a Third Country and attend an appointment with UK visa application centre within 12 months of receiving their offer. How Afghans fearing Taliban revenge should do that without jeopardising their safety in the context of cross-border violence between Afghanistan and Pakistan and with skyrocketing visa fees for Tajikistan, is unclear.
Last month’s court challenge is the latest in a series of court challenges and rights infringements of Afghans who worked for Western forces and institutions during the 2001-2021 international mission. In 2023, the UK High Court heard a judicial review brought by two Afghan families also challenging delays to their relocation. They had received offers of protection from the UK Government under its Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (“ARAP”) scheme, but had been left in hotels in Pakistan awaiting transfer to the UK for nearly a year. Afghans with relocation offers from Germany waiting in Pakistan for the final leg of their journey were told last year that the offer was withdrawn and they were encouraged to return to Afghanistan with a cash payment. As of March 2026, the number of legal challenges against decisions by the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) has climbed to 501, with nearly 90 now pending in appellate courts. Similarly, Afghans who worked for the United States have been abandoned in a third country, Qatar, with the likelihood of them ever reaching the US declining. Afghans who were relocated to Camp As-Sayliyah, a US-controlled military base, must now also contend with the potential implications of the current Iran War, having already been impacted by Iranian airstrikes last summer. Living in political limbo in Qatar, unable to leave the base without an escort, there are now fears that the Trump Administration is considering sending them to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Afghans who served alongside American forces and government staff and have made it to the US, have faced deportation, with the Trump Administration suspending the application process for 180,000 people. In response, a US Federal Court ruled in February 2026 that the US Government must process visa applications of Afghan allies.
These Afghan interpreters, embassy guards, drivers, and aid workers are examples of “Local Staff,” or civilians employed by foreign governments and organisations. In contexts such as Iraq and Afghanistan, they face threats, targeted killings, and social ostracism. But as local employees of foreign entities, they often lack avenues for protection or to seek redress for the harms they face because of their work.
No legal home
Local Staff, supported by legal advocates, have turned to the courts when governments failed to guarantee their rights and offer protection. Legal professionals have done incredible work, often pro-bono, to assist Local Staff with claiming rights and protection. But only some cases end with a win, and it often takes years to get justice. In our recent report, we documented more than 60 legal challenges brought on behalf of Local Staff across nine countries, including 13 from the UK. We found that Local Staff are forced to resort to courts in the countries of their employers, seeking recourse through legal frameworks governing employment, immigration, or data privacy.
For Local Staff, it is often advantageous to seek redress under the legal framework of the employer’s country. This is for several reasons:
- the same harms or threats that Local Staff face may also make it dangerous to pursue relief
under the host country’s legal system. For instance, Afghan interpreters who worked for
Western forces are considered traitors in the eyes of the Taliban Government. - the host country’s legal system may also be rapidly changing or face challenges to
effective implementation due to foreign military occupation.
However, courts have reached contradictory conclusions about whether their law can protect Local Staff. In the UK this principle was tested as early as 2015, when a High Court case brought by law firm Leigh Day on behalf of Afghan interpreters with the British Army was lost when Lord Justice Burnett and Mr Justice Irwin ruled that the “territorial reach” of the 2010 Equality Act “is not such as to include the claimants’ circumstances”, despite the fact that Afghan interpreters were directly employed by the UK Ministry of Defence. In one Dutch case, a lower court ruled that requiring Afghan embassy guards to seek protection under Afghan law would leave them without remedy, so Dutch law should apply. A higher court reversed: Afghan law governed, and the Dutch court had no jurisdiction. This 2025 ruling leaves these former staff entrusted with the safety of Dutch embassy staff without an avenue to seek safety themselves.
In the US, a patchwork of immigration programmes including the SIV program, refugee resettlement, humanitarian parole, and temporary protected status, have offered protection to many Afghans at risk because of their work for the US Government or defence contractors. These programs have always had significant limitations. But since returning to office, President Trump has attempted to close or suspend each of these pathways, leaving Afghan Local Staff waiting for relocation in limbo once again.
While Local Staff may need to seek assistance under their employers’ legal framework, each of those countries has its own legal framework for compensation and relocation of Local Staff. These frameworks are often developed on an ad hoc basis, only after Local Staff face serious risks – sometimes only once the foreign employers are withdrawing.
In France, Afghan employees of the French Army successfully invoked “functional protection” – a principle of French public employment law holding that the state must protect employees who face risks because of their work. A French court extended this principle to locally hired Afghan civilians, ordering the government to grant them visas to relocate to France.
In Sweden, a court found that Sweden had an ongoing responsibility to protect its Local Staff even after handing security responsibility to Afghan authorities. This meant that Afghan interpreters could continue seeking protection under Swedish law.
A major UK Government data breach in 2022 disclosed personal details of more than 18,000 Local Staff and other at-risk Afghans. The UK relocated more than 4,000 affected individuals under a secret scheme before the data breach became public knowledge. However, this is only a fraction of those affected by the data breach, and the UK Government has since closed all remaining resettlement routes for new applications.
These outcomes are patchwork solutions with significant gaps. They do not add up to a coherent system to protect Local Staff. They also lack the force and urgency required to address crisis situations, such as the one currently faced by the residents of Camp As Sayliyah in Doha, Qatar.
What needs to change
The international community has recognised that journalists covering armed conflict and humanitarian workers deserve protected status. Local Staff, who often face equivalent dangers, also deserve protection and recognition of their rights.
As highlighted in the newly published Guidelines for the Protection of Local Staff in International Missions by the NGO Local Staff International, steps to protect Local Staff and safeguard their rights should start before they are hired. There will be situations where Local Staff need to be recruited as a matter of urgency, and contexts of conflict, humanitarian disaster or political instability make their formal contracting particularly challenging on a practical level. It is therefore essential that governments learn from their past omissions and put safeguards in place in advance rather than trying to respond reactively in complex, fast-moving situations.
The Guidelines set out the guiding principles (core commitments and ethical foundations that underpin responsible engagement with local staff) and minimum standards (which translate each principle into concrete, actionable requirements) for the four key phases in the engagement and protection of local staff:
- pre-mission engagement
- engagement
- aftercare – transition, post-transition and reintegration
- crisis response, evacuation, and continuity of duty of care.
Every Local Staff member should receive a written contract in their own language. Contracts should address compensation for injury, safety measures, and conditions for terminating employment. These seem like basic employment standards, but many Local Staff do not have such safeguards.
In addition, contracts should clearly specify Local Staff’s rights to seek remedies under the employing country’s legal system if accessing local courts is impossible or would endanger them. And when those safeguards fail, employing countries should relocate Local Staff, in ways that are accessible, transparent, and reflective of the urgency and danger that Local Staff face.
The human stakes
Behind the legal frameworks are interpreters, embassy staff, and aid workers who trusted promises of protection. Hannah Arendt famously wrote about people who found themselves “without a right to have rights,” without a community whose laws would protect them. Local Staff, caught between the legal systems of their home countries and their employers, and in some cases stuck in third countries, risk precisely this fate. Governments have never built a coherent framework for Local Staff who fall between the cracks of legal protections, but it is not too late to start.
Sara de Jong is a Professor of Politics at the University of York and Co-Chair of Local Staff International. She is also the Co-founder and Chair of Trustees of Sulha Alliance which campaigns for and supports former Afghan interpreters and civilians who worked with the British Armed Forces.
Betsy L. Fisher is a US immigration lawyer and policy expert and a lecturer at the University of Michigan Law School.
ILPA invites members and other leading experts to contribute articles to its monthly blog. The views expressed in all blog posts are the authors’ own and are not necessarily those of ILPA.
Related reading
- ‘Falling Between the Cracks of the Law: Legal Protection and Advocacy for Local Staff’ by Sara de Jong and Betsy Fisher.Please note, Betsy Fisher’s contribution to this report was part of a secondment to Local Staff International with funding from the University of York.
- The Rights and Protection of Local Staff in International Missions
- ILPA Advocacy on Safe Routes for Afghans and Afghan Resettlement
- Document Date
- Wednesday May 27, 2026