The Drafting of the 1969 Convention

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Sharpe
Keyword(s):  
Historical Record ◽  
African Unity ◽  
Refugee Law ◽  
The Status ◽  
Organization Of African Unity ◽  
History Of ◽  
International Refugee Law ◽  
Refugee Issues

Chapter 2 begins with overviews of the Organization of African Unity and its 1969 Convention. The majority of the chapter is then devoted to sketching a drafting history of the 1969 Convention, which makes an important contribution to the historical record since the 1969 Convention has no official travaux préparatoires. The drafting history reveals that the initial impetus for a regional refugee instrument was to render international refugee law applicable in Africa and to address the issue of subversion. When the former was achieved in 1967 with the entry into force of the Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, addressing refugee issues particular to Africa became the focus of the drafting initiative.

The Supervision (or Not) of the 1969 OAU Refugee Convention

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 261-289
Author(s):  
Marina Sharpe
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
African Unity ◽  
Refugee Status ◽  
Refugee Law ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The Status ◽  
Organization Of African Unity ◽  
International Refugee Law ◽  
Principal Elements ◽  
African Commission

Abstract This article covers the supervision of the 1969 Organization of African Unity Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa (1969 Convention). It begins by defining treaty supervision and describing key understandings of it in the international refugee law literature. These are then harnessed to create a model of supervision (the Supervisory Model) to frame the ensuing discussion. How the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees is supervised is presented within this Supervisory Model, by way of background. The article then moves on to its principal focus, beginning with an overview of the calls for, and claims regarding, supervision of the 1969 Convention. The need for supervision is then established based on two principal elements. First, the 1969 Convention’s incomplete implementation in States parties to the treaty, in both refugee status determination and in relation to rights guaranteed by the instrument. Secondly, existing bodies with quasi-supervisory or supervisory mandates – the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees – are not effectively redressing such implementation deficiencies. With the need for supervision established, a new supervisory mechanism is proposed and the procedural options to create it are outlined.

The Regional Law of Refugee Protection in Africa

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Sharpe
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
African Unity ◽  
Refugee Protection ◽  
Original Analysis ◽  
The Status ◽  
Organization Of African Unity ◽  
African Charter ◽  
African Refugee ◽  
Institutional Architecture

This book analyses the legal framework for refugee protection in Africa, including both refugee and human rights law as well as treaty and institutional elements. The regime is addressed in two parts. Part I analyses the relevant treaties: the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1969 Organization of African Unity Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, and the 1981 African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The latter two regional instruments are examined in depth. This includes the first fulsome account of the African Refugee Convention’s drafting, an interpretation of its unique refugee definition, and original analysis of the relationships between the three treaties. Significant attention is devoted to the systemic relationship between the international and the regional refugee treaties and to the discrete relationships of conflict and relationships of interpretation between the two refugee instruments, as well as to the relationships of conflict and of interpretation between the African Refugee Convention and African Charter. Part II focuses on the institutional architecture supporting the treaty framework. The Organization of African Unity is addressed in a historical sense, and the contemporary roles of the African Union, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the current and contemplated African human rights courts are examined. This book is the first devoted to the legal framework for refugee protection in Africa.

Canadian Exclusion Jurisprudence post-Febles

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Molly Joeck
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Refugee Status ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Refugee Protection ◽  
Refugee Law ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Status ◽  
International Refugee Law

Abstract This article examines the state of Canadian refugee law since the decision of the Supreme Court in Febles v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) [2014] 3 SCR 431. Drawing upon an analysis of a set of decisions of the Immigration and Refugee Board, the administrative tribunal tasked with refugee status determination in Canada, the article seeks to determine whether administrative decision makers are heeding the guidance of Febles when excluding asylum seekers from refugee protection on the basis of serious criminality pursuant to article 1F(b) of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. In doing so, it examines the controversy around article 1F(b) since its inception across various jurisdictions and amongst academic commentators, situating Febles within that controversy in order to demonstrate that the Supreme Court’s reluctance to clearly set out the purpose underlying article 1F(b) is in step with a longstanding tendency to understand the provision as serving a gatekeeping function, that prevents criminalized non-citizens from obtaining membership in our society. It argues that by omitting to set out a clear and principled standard by which asylum seekers can be excluded from refugee protection pursuant to article 1F(b), the Supreme Court failed to live up to a thick understanding of the rule of law. It concludes by calling for a reassertion of the rule of law into exclusion decision making, both nationally and internationally, in order to ensure that the legitimacy of the international refugee law regime is maintained.

The Chickens Coming Home to Roost

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ira Dworkin
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
South African ◽  
Black Nationalism ◽  
Circumstantial Evidence ◽  
Malcolm X ◽  
African Unity ◽  
Organization Of African Unity ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Che Guevara

This chapter presents Malcolm X’s travels in Africa during the months leading up to the Stanleyville (Kisangani) crisis of November 1964. Speeches, diaries, correspondence, FBI surveillance reports, and circumstantial evidence indicate that, during the final months of his life, Malcolm X may have been involved in recruiting African American volunteers through the OAAU (Organization of Afro-American Unity) and the OAU (Organization of African Unity) to serve in the Congo as mercenaries in opposition to white South African forces, a project that may have been a model for a similar effort soon undertaken by Che Guevara. In the wake of the 1964 U.S. airlift of Belgian paratroopers into Stanleyville to rescue white hostages, Malcolm spoke of the history of hand-severing, a reference which links him to Sheppard. Malcolm’s frequent commentary on the subject, in many of his most important forums during the final year of his life, locates the trajectory of African American involvement in the Congo at the center of his political vision and organizational praxis, and, by extension, at the heart of modern Black nationalism.

The Oxford Handbook of International Refugee Law

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Academic Research ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Refugee Protection ◽  
Refugee Law ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Status ◽  
State Of Research ◽  
International Refugee Law

The Oxford Handbook of International Refugee Law is a comprehensive, critical work, which analyses the state of research across the refugee law regime as a whole. Drawing together leading and emerging scholars, the Handbook provides both doctrinal and theoretical analyses of international refugee law and practice. It critiques existing law from a variety of normative positions, with several chapters identifying foundational flaws that open up space for radical rethinking. The Handbook aspires to be global, both legally and geographically. Contributions assess a wide range of international legal instruments relevant to refugee protection, including from international human rights law, international humanitarian law, international migration law, the law of the sea, and international and transnational criminal law. Ultimately, the Handbook provides an account, as well as a critique, of the status quo, and in so doing it sets the agenda for future academic research in international refugee law.

Reconsidering African Refugee Law

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David James Cantor ◽  
Farai Chikwanha
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Local Implementation ◽  
Centre Of Gravity ◽  
Refugee Law ◽  
Organization Of African Unity ◽  
Comprehensive Picture ◽  
International Refugee Law ◽  
African Refugee

Abstract Fifty years have now passed since the 1969 Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa was adopted by the Organization of African Unity (OAU). Within international refugee law, the OAU Refugee Convention (OAU Convention) is often taken to encapsulate the ‘African’ legal approach to refugees. This anniversary represents an opportune moment to review the state of ‘African’ refugee law. This article seeks to contribute to that regional undertaking by providing insights based on a comparative analysis of national refugee laws in African States.  This encompasses consideration of how national law engages with the OAU Convention, as a centre of gravity for refugee law development in the region, but it extends also to exploring whether an ‘African’ approach to refugee law can be discerned in the novel ways in which the national refugee laws of African States (i) implement other refugee and human rights law treaties, and (ii) create new refugee law rules without precedent in treaty law. By building a more comprehensive picture of comparative refugee law in Africa, the study aims to complement existing refugee law studies in Africa that focus mainly on the international law level or on local implementation within only one or two States.

scholarly journals NEW TRENDS IN MIGRATORY AND REFUGEE LAW IN BRAZIL: THE EXPANDED REFUGEE DEFINITION

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 143-169
Author(s):  
Catherine Tinker ◽  
Laura Madrid Sartoretto
Keyword(s):  
Geneva Convention ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
Refugee Law ◽  
The Status ◽  
International Refugee Law ◽  
Legal Frameworks ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Domestic Level

This paper aims to explore new trends in Brazilian refugee and migratory law in the last 20 years. In doing so it addresses the evolution of the definition of “refugee” in Brazil, expanding the eligibility grounds provided by the 1951 Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees (1951 Convention). Reviewing international and regional refugee law, the article analyzes the broader understanding of the notion of “refuge” and its complexity expressed in regional and national legal frameworks, taking account of lawyers, scholars and activists who criticize the narrow scope of the classical refugee definition from 1951 which has become distant from current refugee voices and struggles. At the domestic level, although the 1980 Aliens Statute (Act. n. 6815/80) is still in effect, there have been important changes in refugee law in Brazil since the implementation of the 1997 Refugee Statute (Act n. 9.474/97), influenced by the 1984 Cartagena Declaration (a regional soft law instrument) regarding the definition of “refugee”. Exploring the interconnection of the Refugee Statute and complementary forms of human rights protection which fall outside the scope of international refugee law, the article concludes that in the specific case of Haitians in Brazil, the broader protections of Brazilianrefugee law should be available rather than the complementary systemof humanitarian visas.

scholarly journals NEW TRENDS IN MIGRATORY AND REFUGEE LAW IN BRAZIL: THE EXPANDED REFUGEE DEFINITION

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 143-169
Author(s):  
Catherine Tinker ◽  
Laura Madrid Sartoretto
Keyword(s):  
Geneva Convention ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
Refugee Law ◽  
The Status ◽  
International Refugee Law ◽  
Legal Frameworks ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Domestic Level

This paper aims to explore new trends in Brazilian refugee and migratory law in the last 20 years. In doing so it addresses the evolution of the definition of “refugee” in Brazil, expanding the eligibility grounds provided by the 1951 Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees (1951 Convention). Reviewing international and regional refugee law, the article analyzes the broader understanding of the notion of “refuge” and its complexity expressed in regional and national legal frameworks, taking account of lawyers, scholars and activists who criticize the narrow scope of the classical refugee definition from 1951 which has become distant from current refugee voices and struggles. At the domestic level, although the 1980 Aliens Statute (Act. n. 6815/80) is still in effect, there have been important changes in refugee law in Brazil since the implementation of the 1997 Refugee Statute (Act n. 9.474/97), influenced by the 1984 Cartagena Declaration (a regional soft law instrument) regarding the definition of “refugee”. Exploring the interconnection of the Refugee Statute and complementary forms of human rights protection which fall outside the scope of international refugee law, the article concludes that in the specific case of Haitians in Brazil, the broader protections of Brazilianrefugee law should be available rather than the complementary systemof humanitarian visas.

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