Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles) ISSN (Print) 0953-8186 - ISSN (Online) 1464-3715 Published by Oxford University Press[406 journals]
Authors:Lilly D. Pages: 444 - 473 Abstract: Palestinian refugees represent the largest protracted displacement situation in the world. It has been suggested that they experience a ‘protection gap’ because of the limited applicability of international refugee law and the lack of a UN entity with an explicit mandate for their protection. Such claims, however, have overly focused on the status of Palestinian refugees under the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the lack of a UN agency with responsibility for promoting durable solutions for them. This article argues that there are many aspects of international law other than the Refugee Convention, that are relevant to the protection of Palestinian refugees, and that the protection mandate of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has also evolved significantly in recent years and now addresses many of the protection challenges they face. As such, the suggestion that they face a ‘protection gap’ is significantly exaggerated. While Palestinian refugees continue to be confronted by serious protection challenges, the protection that UNRWA is able to provide them is not too dissimilar to that provided by other humanitarian organizations, including the protection UNHCR provides for other refugees globally. In this sense, the legal and institutional impediments to the protection of Palestinian refugees have narrowed. PubDate: Sat, 05 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eey055 Issue No:Vol. 30, No. 3 (2019)
Authors:Barsky R. Pages: 560 - 563 Abstract: LesterEve, Making Migration Law: The Foreigner, Sovereignty, and the Case of Australia (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge2018) xiii + 373 pp, ISBN 978-1-107-17327-9 (hbk) PubDate: Wed, 13 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eey040 Issue No:Vol. 30, No. 3 (2019)
Authors:Trzeciak M. Pages: 565 - 567 Abstract: Gilbert H Gornig and Hans-Detlef Horn (eds), Migration, Asyl, Flüchtlinge und Fremdenrecht: Deutschland und seine Nachbarn in Europa vor neuen Herausforderungen (‘Migration, Asylum, Refugees and Aliens Law: Germany and Its Neighbours in Europe in the Face of New Challenges’) (Duncker & Humblot, Berlin2017) 221 pp, ISBN 978-3-428-14938-4 (pbk) PubDate: Wed, 13 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eey045 Issue No:Vol. 30, No. 3 (2019)
Authors:Iannelli O. Pages: 567 - 570 Abstract: Moreno-LaxVioleta, Accessing Asylum in Europe: Extraterritorial Border Controls and Refugee Rights under EU Law (Oxford University Press, Oxford2017) lxvii + 550 pp, ISBN 978-0-19-870100-2 (hbk) PubDate: Wed, 13 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eey043 Issue No:Vol. 30, No. 3 (2019)
Authors:Akram S. Pages: 407 - 443 Abstract: Most Arab countries have not ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention/1967 Protocol or the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons, and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness has no ratifications in the Middle East. While regional conventions dealing with refugees in the Arab world have been developed, they have been honoured primarily in the breach. Further, many Arab countries do not have domestic laws governing the status of refugees or stateless persons per se, but have applied ad hoc policies to the waves of refugees that have entered and stayed – some for decades – in their territories. The Palestinian refugee/statelessness problem has been both the main driver and the main obstacle to the policies governing refugees in the region, so understanding how the Middle East deals with refugees who are also stateless requires a knowledge of the history and legal trajectory of Palestinian refugees in their host territories. The Middle East States that host the majority of Palestinian refugees are persistent objectors to the Refugee and Statelessness Convention norms for historical reasons; yet certain regional norms have developed that are consistent with these and they could provide more robust frameworks for providing protection to the significant populations of stateless refugees. This article examines the two main protracted cases, the Palestinians and the Syrian Kurds, to illustrate the problem and possibilities of the double jeopardy in which stateless refugee populations find themselves: neither recognized as stateless nor as refugees, with durable solutions and national status remaining out of reach for generation after generation. PubDate: Sun, 02 Dec 2018 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eey044 Issue No:Vol. 30, No. 3 (2018)
Authors:Bar-Tuvia S. Pages: 474 - 511 Abstract: This article examines a new and unprecedented policy that has been recently implemented by Australia and Israel against refugees, namely their permanent transfer to less developed and less stable countries in return for some form of payment to these receiving countries. It argues that these policies should be seen as part of an all-Western ‘externalization’ trend, encompassing various policies that were implemented by Western countries over the past two decades with the goal of reducing the number of asylum seekers on a country’s territory. The Australian and Israeli transfers share not only this goal of previous externalization policies, but also some of their methods. Notwithstanding these similarities, the article explores how the Australian and Israeli transfers differ from the externalization precedents, and particularly from ‘Safe Third Country’ transfers. Two main distinctions are discussed. First, these are not transfers for the purpose of Refugee Status Determination, but rather permanent transfers of people with a clear need for international protection. Secondly, the receiving countries are not ‘transit’ countries through which people have crossed. These two differences mean that the Australian and Israeli policies stretch the already questionable legality and morality of previous externalization policies. It is argued that, legally, even if the transfers do not amount to direct refoulement, they constitute ‘constructive’ refoulement, clearly putting Israel in violation of article 32 of the 1951 Refugee Convention (prohibition on expulsion), and both countries in violation of article 3 (prohibition on discrimination), and potentially additional articles. It is further argued that the transfers are unconscionable for several important non-legal reasons: they affect the well-being of vulnerable people, they have no justification (apart from deterrence), they are confidential and extremely expensive, and they constitute a new level of arbitrary burden shifting to poorer and less stable countries. As long as they are seen as a continuation of an established all-Western externalization trend, their unconscionability should prompt scrutiny of the trend as a whole. PubDate: Mon, 19 Nov 2018 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eey042 Issue No:Vol. 30, No. 3 (2018)
Authors:Boom C. Pages: 512 - 531 Abstract: It is an open secret that many people commonly referred to as ‘refugees’ in popular discourse are not ‘refugees’ within the meaning of the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees. For a person is only a ‘refugee’ as that term is defined in the Convention and Protocol if, inter alia, he or she flees persecution. In turn, those not fleeing persecution lack a comparably entrenched right under international law not to be forcibly returned to the threats they fled. Given the pressing humanitarian considerations and political tensions created by this aspect of international law, we should question anew whether it is just. The most influential criticism of it has been presented by Andrew Shacknove, who argued that justice demands instead that refugee status be afforded to the broader class of people fleeing serious threats subject to human control. Yet Shacknove’s critics typically argue that his proposal should be resisted because: (1) unlike the persecuted, those facing threats other than persecution can generally be assisted in their own countries; and (2) expanding refugee status would place undue burdens on States, the persecuted, or both. However, this article will demonstrate that neither of these objections justifies refusing to extend refugee status. That is, they do not justify the refusal to extend a comparably entrenched status under international law as is enjoyed by Convention refugees to people fleeing threats other than persecution. Nevertheless, the article further argues that Shacknove’s proposal is itself too limited. Rather than depending on whether the threat one flees is subject to human control, refugee status should depend instead on the severity of the threat one flees and the likelihood that it will materialize if one returns. PubDate: Mon, 24 Dec 2018 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eey048 Issue No:Vol. 30, No. 3 (2018)
Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles)
[406 journals]
