This book contributes to a long-standing but ever topical debate about whether persons fleeing war to seek asylum in another country – ‘war refugees’ – are protected by international law. It seeks to add to this debate by bringing together a detailed set of analyses examining the extent to which the application of international humanitarian law (IHL) may usefully advance the legal protection of such persons. This generates a range of questions about the respective protection frameworks established under international refugee law and IHL and, specifically, the potential for interaction between them. As the first collection to deal with the subject, the eighteen chapters that make up this unique volume supply a range of perspectives on how the relationship between these two separate fields of law may be articulated and whether IHL may contribute to providing refuge from the inhumanity of war.

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.

Millions of people today are forced to flee their homes as a result of conflict, systemic discrimination, persecution, and other violations of their human rights. The core instruments on which they must rely to secure international protection are the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, now complemented by international and regional human rights treaties. This book, the leading text in a field where refugee law is now a subject of global importance, examines key challenges to system of international protection, including those arising from within the asylum process, increased controls over the movements of people, and the 'new' concern with security. The situation of refugees is one of the most pressing and urgent problems facing the international community and refugee law has grown in recent years to a subject of global importance. In this long-awaited third edition, each chapter has been thoroughly revised and updated, every issue, old and new, has received fresh analysis, and 'complementary' or human rights-based protection is given special attention. Features include: analysis and assessment of developments in interpreting the refugee definition, with particular reference to 'social group', 'exclusion', procedures, and the impact of European Union harmonization initiatives. In addition, this book reviews the situation of refugee women and children; the plight of Palestinian refugees; the protection of internally displaced persons; the role and responsibilities of the UNHCR, including in the administration of camps and settlements; the current status in general international law of the fundamental principles of non-refoulement, asylum, and the right to seek asylum; and the extent of protection possibilities in human rights treaties, particularly the European Convention on Human Rights.

Alongside a panel of experts, the UNHCR examines the interpretation of the 1951 Refugee Convention.

The only comprehensive analysis of international refugee rights, anchored in the hard facts of refugee life around the world.

This volume examines the ways in which human rights and humanitarian law have influenced the development of the refugee definition as interpreted in the United States and Canada. Analysis focuses on how these two significant jurisdictions have addressed refugee protection in a modern context. The problem areas discussed include: persecution during periods of upheaval, resistance to the State in times of civil war, opposition to coercive family planning programs, and the diverse issues raised by gender-based asylum claims. The view is advanced that the grounds of refugee protection are not fixed but parallel discriminatory social and political attitudes towards defined groups. The study also advocates that human rights and humanitarian law principles should continue to shape the evolution of refugee jurisprudence so as to achieve more effectively the Convention's goals. This work will be of great interest to academics, practitioners, and policy makers in the refugee field, as well as to scholars of international human rights and humanitarian law.