The Role of the African Human Rights System with Reference to Asylum Seekers

2016 ◽  
pp. 45-65
Author(s):  
Gino J. Naldi ◽  
Cristiano d’Orsi
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Asylum Seekers

Impact of Covid-19 on the mental health needs of asylum seekers in Australia

2021 ◽  
pp. 103985622110054
Author(s):  
Sarah Mares ◽  
Kym Jenkins ◽  
Susan Lutton ◽  
Louise Newman AM
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Isolation ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Health Needs ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Mental Health Needs

Objective: This paper highlights the significant mental health vulnerabilities of people who have sought asylum in Australia and their additional adversities as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Conclusions: Australia’s policies in relation to asylum seekers result in multiple human rights violations and add significantly to mental health vulnerabilities. Despite a majority being identified as refugees, people spend years in personal and administrative limbo and are denied resettlement in Australia. Social isolation and other restrictions associated with Covid-19 and recent reductions in welfare and housing support compound their difficulties. The clinical challenges in working with people impacted by these circumstances and the role of psychiatrists and the RANZCP in advocacy are identified.

Re-Conceptualizing the Right to Seek and Obtain Asylum in International Law

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-332
Author(s):  
Salvatore Fabio Nicolosi
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
The Past ◽  
European Court ◽  
Triggering Factor ◽  
The Right ◽  
Human Rights Standards

Over the past few years the issue of asylum has progressively become interrelated with human rights. Asylum-related stresses, including refugee flows and mass displacements, have mitigated the traditional idea of asylum as an absolute state right, in so far as international human rights standards of protection require that states may have the responsibility to provide asylum seekers with protection. Following this premise, the article argues that the triggering factor of such overturning is significantly represented by the judicial approach to the institution of asylum by regional human rights courts. After setting the background on the interrelation of asylum with human rights, this article conceptualises the right to asylum as derived from the principle of non-refoulement and to this extent it delves into the role of the two regional human rights courts, notably the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), in order to explore whether an emerging judicial cross-fertilisation may contribute to re-conceptualisation of the right to asylum from a human rights perspective.

scholarly journals The mental health of asylum seekers in Australia and the role of psychiatrists

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 65-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derrick Silove ◽  
Sarah Mares
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Clinical Observations ◽  
The World ◽  
Displaced People ◽  
Australian Experience ◽  
The Impact

There are more displaced people around the world than ever before, and over half are children. Australia and other wealthy nations have implemented increasingly harsh policies, justified as ‘humane deterrence’, and aimed at preventing asylum seekers (persons without preestablished resettlement visas) from entering their borders and gaining protection. Australian psychiatrists and other health professionals have documented the impact of these harsh policies since their inception. Their experience in identifying and challenging the effects of these policies on the mental health of asylum seekers may prove instructive to others facing similar issues. In outlining the Australian experience, we draw selectively on personal experience, research, witness account issues, reports by human rights organisations, clinical observations and commentaries. Australia’s harsh response to asylum seekers, including indefinite mandatory detention and denial of permanent protection for those found to be refugees, starkly demonstrates the ineluctable intersection of mental health, human rights, ethics and social policy, a complexity that the profession is uniquely positioned to understand and hence reflect back to government and the wider society.

Cul-de-sac to the West: Human Rights and Hypocrisy between Turkey and Europe in the 1980s

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 177-192
Author(s):  
Bennett G. Sherry
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
The West ◽  
Amnesty International ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
Human Rights Movement ◽  
International Human

Abstract In the 1980s, over a million Iranian asylum seekers transited through Turkey on their way west, most moving through irregular migration channels. While much has been made of Turkey’s evolving role in more recent refugee crises, this literature neglects the importance of the 1980s Iranian refugee migrations in shaping the global refugee system. By connecting the story of the international human rights movement to the Ankara office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), this paper emphasizes the role of non-state actors. Based on research in the archives of the UNHCR, this paper argues that the UNHCR and Amnesty International used human rights as a tool to pressure Turkey to open its doors to Iranian refugees in the early 1980s, and that this tactic backfired when the West closed its own doors on refugees later in the decade. The result was the increased forcible return of refugees by Turkish authorities to Iran and newly restrictive asylum policies, which would shape refugee migrations through Turkey for decades. For millions of refugees, Turkey has served as transit hub on their journey west; in the 1980s, human rights hypocrisy made it a cul-de-sac.

The Criminalization of Migration in Canada and Its Unintended Policy Consequences

2018 ◽  
pp. 466-484
Author(s):  
Idil Atak
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Foreign National ◽  
Conservative Government

This chapter examines the criminalization of asylum seekers arriving irregularly into Canada and the human rights implications of this process, in particular the Designated Foreign National (DFN) policy established in 2012 and the increased role of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) in the refugee system. These changes exemplify the crisis-led management by the previous Conservative government as a reaction to the 2009 and 2010 boat arrivals of nearly 600 Tamil asylum seekers from Sri Lanka. The specific objectives of the policy amendments are scrutinized to determine whether their stated goals are being achieved. The chapter draws on interviews conducted between October 2015 and May 2017 in three major provinces (Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia) that host the majority of asylum seekers in Canada.

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights under the 2010 Constitutional Dispensation

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-226
Author(s):  
Bonolo Ramadi Dinokopila ◽  
Rhoda Igweta Murangiri
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
National Commission ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Institutional Perspective ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
National Human ◽  
The Status ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights

This article examines the transformation of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) and discusses the implications of such transformation on the promotion and protection of human rights in Kenya. The article is an exposition of the powers of the Commission and their importance to the realisation of the Bill of Rights under the 2010 Kenyan Constitution. This is done from a normative and institutional perspective with particular emphasis on the extent to which the UN Principles Relating to the Status of National Institutions for the promotion and protection of human rights (the Paris Principles, 1993) have been complied with. The article highlights the role of national human rights commissions in transformative and/or transitional justice in post-conflict Kenya. It also explores the possible complementary relationship(s) between the KNCHR and other Article 59 Commissions for the better enforcement of the bill of rights.

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