This book presents a multidimensional case study of international human rights in the immediate post-Second World War period, and the way in which complex refugee problems created by the war were often in direct competition with strategic interests and national sovereignty. The case study is the clandestine immigration of Jewish refugees from Italy to Palestine in 1945–1948, which was part of a British–Zionist conflict over Palestine, involving strategic and humanitarian attitudes. The result was a clear subjection of human rights considerations to strategic and political interests.
This important book focuses on North Korean refugee human rights issues--a topic largely ignored in favor of addressing North Korea's domestic politics and deterrence of Pyongyang's nuclear threat. The first book of its kind, Securitization of Human Rights: North Korean Refugees in East Asia examines the complex problem of "what to do with North Korea"--specifically, regarding human rights issues and treatment of North Korean refugees. The book spotlights four key countries--China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States--with regard to their policy stance towards North Korean human rights issues, analyzing the dynamic tension between realpolitik and moral principle by looking at the regional governments' responses. Rather than focusing only on politics and foreign policy, this book is about the people involved, describing the plight of North Korean refugees, the perspective of South Korean citizens, and the quandary facing power elites in the regional governments.
The international refugee regime is fundamentally broken. Designed in the wake of World War II to provide protection and assistance, the system is unable to address the record numbers of persons displaced by conflict and violence today. States have put up fences and adopted policies to deny, deter, and detain asylum seekers. People recognized as refugees are routinely denied rights guaranteed by international law. The results are dismal for the millions of refugees around the world who are left with slender prospects to rebuild their lives or contribute to host communities. T. Alexander Aleinikoff and Leah Zamore lay bare the underlying global crisis of responsibility. The Arc of Protection adopts a revisionist and critical perspective that examines the original premises of the international refugee regime. Aleinikoff and Zamore identify compromises at the founding of the system that attempted to balance humanitarian ideals and sovereign control of their borders by states. This book offers a way out of the current international morass through refocusing on responsibility-sharing, seeing the humanitarian-development divide in a new light, and putting refugee rights front and center.
This book discusses the current reality and the future of ethnic Rohingyas in Myanmar. It presents Myanmar’s history, policy, politics and, most importantly, while focusing on Rohingya ethnic conflict, presents a resolution by looking at the global and regional policies and politics of South Asia and South-East Asia. The recent coup unfolded in Myanmar and the detention of the democratic leaders has surprised the world with its subsequent emergency declaration in 2021, thus making this book relevant and well-timed. Eventually, the book offers an account of a previously little known, yet much-discussed role of media, international actors, human trafficking, and humanitarian-based resolution for Rohingya refugee crisis. It shows a new perspective in the post-Rohingya influx era of Bangladesh and the neighbouring countries.
One woman’s national, political, ethnic, social, and personal identities impart an extraordinary perspective on the histories of Europe, Polish Jews, Communism, activism, and survival during the twentieth century. Tonia Lechtman was a Jew, a loving mother and wife, a Polish patriot, a committed Communist, and a Holocaust survivor. Throughout her life these identities brought her to multiple countries—Poland, Palestine, Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Israel—during some of the most pivotal and cataclysmic decades of the twentieth century. In most of those places, she lived on the margins of society while working to promote Communism and trying to create a safe space for her small children. Born in Łódź in 1918, Lechtman became fascinated with Communism in her early youth. In 1935, to avoid the consequences of her political activism during an increasingly antisemitic and hostile political environment, the family moved to Palestine, where Tonia met her future husband, Sioma. In 1937, the couple traveled to Spain to participate in the Spanish Civil War. After discovering she was pregnant, Lechtman relocated to France while Sioma joined the International Brigades. She spent the Second World War in Europe, traveling with two small children between France, Germany, and Switzerland, at times only miraculously avoiding arrest and being transported east to Nazi camps. After the war, she returned to Poland, where she planned to (re)build Communist Poland. However, soon after her arrival she was imprisoned for six years. In 1971, under pressure from her children, Lechtman emigrated from Poland to Israel, where she died in 1996. In writing Lechtman’s biography, Anna Müller has consulted a rich collection of primary source material, including archival documentation, private documents and photographs, interviews from different periods of Lechtman’s life, and personal correspondence. Despite this intimacy, Müller also acknowledges key historiographical questions arising from the lacunae of lost materials, the selective preservation of others, and her own interpretive work translating a life into a life story.
This special issue focusses on refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe in British colonies, dominions and overseas territories. It deals with aspects like internment, identity and cultural representation in not well-known destinations of forced migration like India, New Zealand, Canada or Kenya.
This book presents the first comprehensive analysis of the human rights of refugees as set by the UN Refugee Convention. In an era where States are increasingly challenging the logic of simply assimilating refugees to their own citizens, questions are now being raised about whether refugees should be allowed to enjoy freedom of movement, to work, to access public welfare programs, or to be reunited with family members. Doubts have been expressed about the propriety of exempting refugees from visa and other immigration rules, and whether there is a duty to admit refugees at all. Hathaway links the standards of the UN Refugee Convention to key norms of international human rights law, and applies his analysis to the world's most difficult protection challenges. This is a critical resource for advocates, judges, and policymakers. It will also be a pioneering scholarly work for graduate students of international and human rights law.
The orthodox definition of international security put human displacement and refugees at the periphery. In contrast, this book demonstrates that human displacement can be both a cause and a consequence of conflict within and among societies. As such, the management of refugee movements and the protection of displaced people should be a part of security policy.
Rather than serving as civilian and humanitarian safe havens, refugee camps are notorious for their insecurity. Due to the host state’s inability or unwillingness to provide protection, camps are often administered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and its implementing partners. When a violation occurs in these situations, to which actors shall responsibility be allocated? Through an analysis of the International Law Commission’s work on international responsibility, Maja Janmyr argues that the ‘primary’ responsibility of states does not exclude the responsibilities of other actors. Using the example of Uganda, Janmyr questions the general assumption that ‘unable and unwilling’ is the same as ‘unable or unwilling’, and argues for the necessity of distinguishing between these two scenarios. Doing so leads to different conclusions in terms of responsibility for the state, and therefore for UNHCR and its implementing partners.
