Part 1 Refugees, 3 Determination of Refugee Status: Analysis and Application

Author(s):  
Goodwin-Gill Guy S ◽  
McAdam Jane ◽  
Dunlop Emma

This chapter discusses the determination of refugee status. The legal consequences that flow from the formal definition of refugee status are necessarily predicated upon determination by some or other authority that the individual or group in question satisfies the relevant legal criteria. In principle, a person becomes a refugee at the moment when he or she satisfies the definition, so that determination of status is declaratory, rather than constitutive. However, while the question of whether an individual is a refugee may be a matter of fact, whether or not he or she is a refugee within the 1951 Convention, and benefits from refugee status, is a matter of law. Problems arise where States decline to determine refugee status, or where States and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reach different determinations.

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Betts ◽  
Naohiko Omata ◽  
Olivier Sterck

Abstract In 2016, refugees in the Kakuma camps in Kenya were offered the opportunity to relocate to the new Kalobeyei settlement, which ostensibly offered a better set of opportunities. While it was portrayed by the international community as objectively better for refugees’ autonomy and socio-economic prospects, most refugees in Kakuma viewed the opportunity differently. Less than 16 per cent of refugees who heard about Kalobeyei were willing to be resettled there if land were provided. For refugees, the main justifications for the reluctance to move were linked to the likely disruption to existing social networks. This example of ‘relocation for self-reliance’ has wider implications for how we conceptualize self-reliance. Although the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)’s definition of refugee self-reliance recognizes that it applies to the community level as well as the individual level, self-reliance programmes that exclusively target individuals risk rejection by communities unless they also take into account the importance of social networks.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lili Song

<p>This thesis systematically considers the law and policy on refugee status in the People’s Republic of China. It considers relevant Chinese legal provisions, applicable bilateral and multinational treaties, as well as China’s refugee policy and practice. It also presents and analyses first-hand information collected through interviews with refugees and aid workers.  China is an emerging destination of refugees and other displaced foreigners. Although China is a party to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, Chinese law contains no provisions governing the definition of a refugee or the determination of refugee status. Further, there is a gap between the criteria for asylum in the 1982 Chinese Constitution and the criteria for refugee status in the 1951 Convention.  In practice, although the Chinese government has generally allowed the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to process individual applications for refugee status, the Chinese government has practically performed the function of refugee status determination in large-scale influx situations through policy decisions. In these situations, the security, political, and strategic interests of China have often overshadowed China’s commitment under the 1951 Convention.  China has been cautious about recognising refugees on its territory. However, the Chinese government has clearly demonstrated a growing interest in addressing the issue of refugee recognition within a more formalised framework.  In conclusion, this thesis recommends that China adopt a legal refugee definition in line with the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and develop a predictable and fair national RSD mechanism.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lili Song

<p>This thesis systematically considers the law and policy on refugee status in the People’s Republic of China. It considers relevant Chinese legal provisions, applicable bilateral and multinational treaties, as well as China’s refugee policy and practice. It also presents and analyses first-hand information collected through interviews with refugees and aid workers.  China is an emerging destination of refugees and other displaced foreigners. Although China is a party to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, Chinese law contains no provisions governing the definition of a refugee or the determination of refugee status. Further, there is a gap between the criteria for asylum in the 1982 Chinese Constitution and the criteria for refugee status in the 1951 Convention.  In practice, although the Chinese government has generally allowed the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to process individual applications for refugee status, the Chinese government has practically performed the function of refugee status determination in large-scale influx situations through policy decisions. In these situations, the security, political, and strategic interests of China have often overshadowed China’s commitment under the 1951 Convention.  China has been cautious about recognising refugees on its territory. However, the Chinese government has clearly demonstrated a growing interest in addressing the issue of refugee recognition within a more formalised framework.  In conclusion, this thesis recommends that China adopt a legal refugee definition in line with the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and develop a predictable and fair national RSD mechanism.</p>


Author(s):  
Guy S. Goodwin-Gill

Refugees, stateless persons, and those without protection were among the first international problems faced by the League of Nations, almost from the moment of its creation. Building on the practice of the League’s High Commissioner for Refugees, Fridtjof Nansen, in securing agreement on issues such as identity and travel documents for those without or denied the nationality or protection of their country of origin, the United Nations took steps from its opening session onward to ensure protection and facilitate solutions. It established its own organizations and promoted a series of treaties on refugees, stateless persons, and statelessness, which to this day remains the basic international legal framework. States, in turn, have recognized that refugees (and now migration) are an international issue, and that no state should be expected to shoulder alone the responsibilities of admission, protection, and solutions. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly, is mandated to provide international protection, to assist governments in finding solutions, to promote treaties and agreements, and to supervise their application. UNHCR’s direct engagement with states and its worldwide operational activities contribute significantly to the consolidation of protection principles, such as non-refoulement and asylum, to the expansion of humanitarian relief for the displaced, and to the progressive development of customary international law. Recent displacement crises, protracted refugee situations, greater mobility, and a highly globalized and securitized environment will bring fresh challenges to an international protection regime with nearly one hundred years of law and organization behind it.


Author(s):  
Yuriy Pudovochkin

A significant problem of modern criminal law science is the definition of its fundamental categories to which the “criminal and legal consequences” category belongs. The theme of criminal and legal consequences of committing a crime is still weakly developed. Nevertheless, the content of almost all theoretical constructions associated with criminal and legal measures, criminal punishment and criminal liability depends on its solution. The author suggests his idea of the system of criminal and legal consequences based on the system interpretation of law and formal and logical analysis of criminal law norms. The system comprises: a) consequences of commission of a crime such as discharges and implementation of criminal liability; consequences of commission of other criminal and related acts and appearing of criminal and relevant events that influence correction of the legal status of the individual having committed a crime. The starting point in the development of the system appeared to be understanding of the terms «crime» and «consequence» in the context of criminal and legal relations theory and legal factors of criminal law. It is also noted that the system of criminal and legal consequences of crime commission can be viewed as a part of the consequence crime commission system which includes both actually legal and extra-legal consequences.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-92
Author(s):  
Paola Pelletier Quiñones

This article considers the situation of those who apply for a determination of their status as a stateless person but could, nonetheless, be nationals of the state in which they apply. Cases of in situ statelessness provide the most opportunity for the identification of these situations. After having identified 23 formal Statelessness Determination Procedures (‘SDP’) adopted as of 2020 from 23 countries, it is conclusive that these norms presume the applicant is foreign. However, eight countries have been mapped with safeguards in their SDP norms recognising the possibility that there could be identified applicants who may be nationals and what to do in cases of doubt. These safeguards are adopted by four countries in the Americas (Costa Rica, Panama, Paraguay and Argentina) and four countries in Europe (Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine and Turkey). These constitute good practices that should be taken into consideration by further SDP norms adopted in the future, modifications of current SDP norms and statistics. This issue constitutes a ‘red flag’ for raising awareness of discriminatory state policies that assume stateless applicants are foreign and should receive second-class citizenship (naturalization), rather than refer the case to the corresponding national civil registry authorities and facilitate the access to nationality. The objective of this article has not yet been analysed by doctrine or the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.


Author(s):  
Gerison Lansdown ◽  
Ziba Vaghri

AbstractWhile all international human rights treaties apply to children, only the Convention explicitly elaborates who is defined as a child. Article 1 defines the child as a human being who is below the age of 18 years. Majority is set at age 18 unless, under domestic law, it is attained earlier. During the negotiations of the text of the Convention, there was significant debate regarding definitions of both the commencement and the ending of childhood. The initial text, proposed by the Polish Government, drawing on Principle 1 of the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child, 1959, provided no definition of childhood at all (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Rädda barnen (Society: Sweden), 2007, p. 301). However, government delegates on the Working Group immediately highlighted the need for clarification. The first revision of the text therefore proposed that a child is a human being from birth to the age of 18 years unless majority is attained earlier. However, with regard to the beginning of childhood, the Working Group were unable to come to a consensus. An unresolvable division persisted on whether childhood, in respect of the Convention, commenced from the point of conception, or from birth (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Rädda barnen (Society: Sweden), 2007, pp. 301–313). The conflict was ultimately resolved by removing any reference to the start of childhood.


Author(s):  
Goodwin-Gill Guy S ◽  
McAdam Jane ◽  
Dunlop Emma

This chapter examines the loss and denial of refugee status and its benefits. Most international instruments not only define refugees, but also provide for the termination or denial of refugee status and the withdrawal of protection. The International Refugee Organization (IRO) Constitution, for example, described the circumstances in which refugees and the displaced would ‘cease to be the concern’ of the organization, and excluded various others, including ‘war criminals, quislings and traitors’, and ‘ordinary criminals extraditable by treaty’. Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights prohibits invocation of the right to seek asylum ‘in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations’. These categories have been expanded in other instruments and in State practice so that, in general, refugee status may be lost or denied because of voluntary acts of the individual; a change of circumstances; where protection is accorded by other States or international agencies; and in the case of criminals or other ‘undeserving’ cases.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 401-406
Author(s):  
M. O. Zhuravleva

The paper considers contradictions which arise after entering amendments in 2014 into article 242 of the Criminal Procedural Code of Ukraine, in which an obligatory appointment of psychological examination for the determination of moral harm amount in criminal trial is allocated. The thought on inexpediency of appointment of the person moral sufferings examination within the limits of criminal proceedings on the basis ofsuch positions is subtatiated: 1) before pronouncement of a court sentence on criminal proceedings a person’s guilt is not proved, in this case forensic psychological examination will be based on not proved premise - possibility of guilt which conflicts to an innocence presumption according to the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The expert conclusion is one of procedural sources ofproofs. Carrying out forensic psychological examination of moral harm within criminal proceedings, the expert, being based on the inadmissible assumption of guilty, creates the proof; 2) if the question of moral sufferings presence is considered within criminal proceedings, the fact of absence of the claimantfault has to be established by the court along with definition of the respondent fault degree; 3) pronouncement of a court sentence with definition of the parties guilty degree is an important point for definitive qualitative and quantitative formalizing moral sufferings. At the stage «before a sentence» the psychological trauma has not been yet led to the fullforming ofmoral sufferings, therefore during carrying out psychological research on the materials of criminal proceedings the amount of compensation should be defined only as "a preliminary"; 4) for the determination of the depth and heaviness of the person’s sufferings a psychologist needs to conduct a research only in 1 yearfrom the moment of injuring events (the person should go through stages of distress after losing close relative, to be treated and feel consequences at health damage).


2016 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 221-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Tkadlečková ◽  
L. Válek ◽  
L. Socha ◽  
M. Saternus ◽  
J. Pieprzyca ◽  
...  

The paper is dedicated to the verification of solidification of continuously cast round steel billets using numerical modelling based on the finite element method. The aim of numerical modelling is to optimize the production of continuously cast steel billets of round format. The paper describes the pre-processing, processing and post-processing phases of numerical modelling. Also, the problems with determination of the thermodynamic properties of materials and the heat transfer between the individual parts of the casting system, including the definition of the heat losses along the casting strand in the primary and secondary cooling, were discussed. The first results of numerical simulation show the so-called thermal steady state of continuous casting. The temperature field, the metallurgical length and the thickness of the shell at the end of the mould were predicted. The further research will be concentrated on the prediction the risk of the cracks and the porosity based on the different boundary conditions.


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