This paper reviews the possibility of expansion of refugee concept. A narrow textual reading of the refugee definition in the 1951 Refugee Convention may lead to the conclusion that many or most asylum-seekers in large-scale displacement crises are not Convention or political refugees. However, they still need international protection, so universally, regionally, and domestically, there have been many efforts to protect and assist them, one of which is to adopt more expanded concept of refugee. The concept of ‘humanitarian or de facto refugees’ has evolved over the last few decades in various ways. To tackle primarily group refugee situations resulting from man-made disasters, UNHCR, regional organisations and other international bodies produced some meaningful developments in this area. In the legal sense, however, the enhanced activities of UNHCR and the relevant international documents have their respective limitations. On the other hand, at the States level, there were also some significant developments such as humanitarian protection or other similar subsidiary status. Among them, some practices are based only on humanitarian grounds or discretionary power, so they cannot be evidence of international customary law. The other parts of the humanitarian protection are based on legal obligations, but they are basically drawn from human rights obligations and therefore this humanitarian protection practice, in principle, has no direct linkage with the expansion of the refugee concept. This does not mean that there is no link or interaction between refugee law and human rights law, or that these protection developments did not influence in any way the expansion of the refugee concept. Rather, this means that the latter part of the humanitarian protection is, in spite of the expression ‘humanitarian’ in its name, not based on just humanitarian considerations, but on legal obligations under international law; and that the grounds of the legal obligations are to be found in international human rights law - a neighbouring area of international refugee law.
This paper reviews the possibility of expansion of refugee concept. A narrow textual reading of the refugee definition in the 1951 Refugee Convention may lead to the conclusion that many or most asylum-seekers in large-scale displacement crises are not Convention or political refugees. However, they still need international protection, so universally, regionally, and domestically, there have been many efforts to protect and assist them, one of which is to adopt more expanded concept of refugee. The concept of ‘humanitarian or de facto refugees’ has evolved over the last few decades in various ways. To tackle primarily group refugee situations resulting from man-made disasters, UNHCR, regional organisations and other international bodies produced some meaningful developments in this area. In the legal sense, however, the enhanced activities of UNHCR and the relevant international documents have their respective limitations. On the other hand, at the States level, there were also some significant developments such as humanitarian protection or other similar subsidiary status. Among them, some practices are based only on humanitarian grounds or discretionary power, so they cannot be evidence of international customary law. The other parts of the humanitarian protection are based on legal obligations, but they are basically drawn from human rights obligations and therefore this humanitarian protection practice, in principle, has no direct linkage with the expansion of the refugee concept. This does not mean that there is no link or interaction between refugee law and human rights law, or that these protection developments did not influence in any way the expansion of the refugee concept. Rather, this means that the latter part of the humanitarian protection is, in spite of the expression ‘humanitarian’ in its name, not based on just humanitarian considerations, but on legal obligations under international law; and that the grounds of the legal obligations are to be found in international human rights law - a neighbouring area of international refugee law.
(0)
(0)