How to assess and deal with the claims of millions of displaced people to find refuge and asylum in safe and prosperous countries is one of the most pressing issues of modern political philosophy. In this timely volume, fresh insights are offered into the political and moral implications of refugee crises and the treatment of asylum seekers. The contributions illustrate the widening of the debate over what is owed to refugees, and why it is assumed that national state actors and the international community owe special consideration and protection. Among the specific issues discussed are refugees' rights and duties, refugee selection, whether repatriation can be encouraged or required, and the ethics of sanctuary policies.
In Exclusion from Protection as a Refugee, Yao Li analyses Article 1F of the 1951 Refugee Convention. She argues that the exclusion clause is a quasi-punitive provision and must therefore be interpreted with due regard to (International) Criminal Law. Having developed an interpretation approach to consider external legal notions, Li provides a solution for all the relevant issues in the context of Article 1F, based on a “harmonizing interpretation”. The study therefore not only comprehensively examines the exclusion clause at the intersection of International Refugee Law and International Criminal Law, but also contributes to anti-fragmentation efforts in International Law.
Terrorism and Asylum, edited by James C. Simeon, thoroughly analyses terrorism’s use in forced displacement, to limit access to asylum, and to exclude persons from refugee protection, while offering practical alternative solutions for advancing human rights and dignity for everyone.
Human Rights Series, 3 (Library of Human Rights, 3) After the Second World War human rights law became entrenched in legal discourse as witnessed by a proliferation of human rights treaties. While the right of asylum was recognized as an fundamental right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it has never been an absolute right but always restricted in various ways, the most important ones being that asylum should not be conferred on criminals and that refugees with a criminal background could be removed from the country of refuge. This book examines the extensive jurisprudence at the international and domestic level, which has attempted to balance the right of asylum for an individual versus the right of the state of refuge to restrict this right in situations of criminality. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: History Chapter 3: Exclusion Chapter 4: Refoulement Chapter 5: Alternatives to Refoulement Chapter 6: Conclusion Appendix: Geographical Listing of Court/Tribunal Decisions regarding Nefarious Organizations Jurisprudence Literature and Official Documents Index ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joseph Rikhof has received a BCL from the University of Nijmegen in The Netherlands; a LL.B degree from McGill University in Canada; a Diploma in Air and Space Law, also from McGill University and a PhD from the Irish Center for Human Rights. He teaches the course International Criminal Law at the University of Ottawa. He is Senior Counsel, Manager of the Law with the Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Section of the Department of Justice, Canada. He was a visiting professional with the International Criminal Court in 2005 while also serving as Special Counsel and Policy Advisor to the Modern War Crimes Section of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration between 1998 and 2002. His area of expertise lies with the law related to organized crime, terrorism, genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, especially in the context of immigration and refugee law. He has written over 30 articles as well his PhD thesis exploring these research interests and has lectured on the same topics in North and South America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand.
The essays selected and reproduced in this volume explore how international refugee law is dynamic and constantly evolving. From an instrument designed to protect mostly those civilians fleeing the worse excesses of World War II, the 1951 Refugee Convention has developed into a set of principles, customary rules, and values that are now firmly embedded in the human rights framework, and are applicable to a far broader range of refugees. In addition, international refugee law has been affected by international humanitarian law and international criminal law (and vice versa). Thus, there is a reinforcing dynamic in the development of these complementary areas of law. At the same time, in recent decades states have shown a renewed interest in managing migration, thereby raising issues of how to reconcile such interests with refugee protection principles. In addition, the emergence of concepts of participation and responsibility to protect promise to have an impact on international refugee law.
The book is designed to provide an overview of the development, meaning, and nature of international refugee law. The jurisprudence on the status of refugees, loss and denial of the refugees status, non-refoulement, asylum, problems and challenges of refugee protection, the law of return and the right of return, critical refugees and immigration law, and the role of international organizations in protection of refugees are revisited in the context of contemporary realities. The relationship between armed conflict, climate change, and human right violations induced refugees and the existing international refugee regime emerging will be succinctly highlighted and analysed in the book. This lucidly written and timely book will be immensely helpful to anyone grappling with the demonstrated inadequacies of international refugee law in real life situations today and desirous of the reorientation of its meaning and scope to cater for the changing needs and shared expectation of the international community in the 21st century.
In 2016, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) became part of the United Nations. With 173 member states and more than 400 field offices, the IOM—the new ‘UN migration agency’—plays a key role in migration governance. The contributors in this volume provide an in-depth and comprehensive insight into the IOM, its transformation, current structure and projects, as well as its capacity, self-understanding and political agenda.
This pioneering book explores the intersections of law and culture at the International Criminal Court (ICC), offering insights into how notions of culture affect the Court’s legal foundations, functioning and legitimacy, both in theory and in practice.
After surviving the Khmer Rouge genocide, followed by years of confinement to international refugee camps, as many as 10,000 Southeast Asian refugees arrived in the Bronx during the 1980s and ‘90s. Unsettled chronicles the unfinished odyssey of Bronx Cambodians, closely following one woman and her family for several years as they survive yet resist their literal insertion into concentrated Bronx poverty. Eric Tang tells the harrowing and inspiring stories of these refugees to make sense of how and why the displaced migrants have been resettled in the “hyperghetto.” He argues that refuge is never found, that rescue discourses mask a more profound urban reality characterized by racialized geographic enclosure, economic displacement and unrelenting poverty, and the criminalization of daily life. Unsettled views the hyperghetto as a site of extreme isolation, punishment, and confinement. The refugees remain captives in late-capitalist urban America. Tang ultimately asks: What does it mean for these Cambodians to resettle into this distinct time and space of slavery’s afterlife?
Exclusion from refugee status for the suspected commission of serious crimes is a topic fraught with political and legal controversy. This is an area which sees the intersection of refugee law with international criminal and humanitarian law and, increasingly, measures taken in the fight against terrorism. In Terrorism and Exclusion from Refugee Status in the UK, Sarah Singer examines whether and how ‘terrorism’ has featured in the UK’s interpretation and application of the Refugee Convention’s ‘exclusion clause’. A number of sources are drawn on including questionnaires and interviews conducted with immigration judges, the Home Office’s exclusion unit and legal practitioners. She therefore provides an unprecedented and thorough analysis of the UK’s approach to asylum seekers suspected of serious criminality.
