Improving the Rights of Detained Asylum Seekers in South Korea

In the two decades after South Korea acceded to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, South Korea has faced a growing number of asylum seekers. A minority of asylum seekers has been found in detention holding facilities for undocumented migrants. This article asks whether treatment of detained asylum seekers in South Korea complies with international legal norms and the domestic constitutional requirements of due process. Specifically, what is the legal framework governing detention of asylum-seekers in Korea? How are international and constitutional due process standards being applied? How can the rights of detained asylum seekers be improved through legal and practical means? And, what is the legal community doing toward this end? The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, it seeks to expose the challenges facing migrant detainees in general and asylum seekers as a particular subset in South Korea. Second, it maps the international and domestic legal frameworks governing detention of asylum seekers and argues that the due process rights of detained asylum seekers must be protected by employing both international human rights norms and domestic constitutional standards.