This chapter examines the relationship between international refugee law and international human rights law. It first explains the purpose and scope of international refugee law. It then identifies the five fundamental elements of the Refugee Convention, and discusses other important parameters of international refugee law more broadly. The chapter then explores the relationship at the macro level. It analyses specific aspects of refugee law—namely, the definition of a refugee, the prohibition of refoulement, refugee rights, and the ending of refugee status and solutions—and how international human rights law informs them. Through this approach the chapter tackles several modern challenges such as rescue at sea, climate-related refoulement, and border closures of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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27. International Refugee Law
Alice Edwards
Chapter
25. Immigration and asylum
Steve Peers
This chapter explores EU law on immigration and asylum. It first describes the basic legal framework for the adoption of EU rules on immigration and asylum, as amended by the Treaty of Lisbon. It then discusses the rules for visas and border control, irregular migration, legal migration, and asylum. The main themes of the chapter are the gradual move towards greater EU involvement in this field of law—including the increasing role of the CJEU—and an ongoing tension between concerns about security and control of migration on the one hand, and the protection of migrants’ rights on the other.
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25. Immigration and asylum
Steve Peers
This chapter explores EU law on immigration and asylum. It first describes the basic legal framework for the adoption of EU rules on immigration and asylum. It then discusses the rules for visas and border control; irregular migration; legal migration; and asylum legislation.
Chapter
9. International human rights law
This chapter discusses the system of human rights protection that has emerged since the end of the Second World War. It begins in Section 9.2 with the primary sources of human rights law before Section 9.3 discusses the different categories of human rights. Section 9.4 discusses the obligation on states to offer protection from acts of private actors. Section 9.5 provides an overview of the enforcement mechanisms in the UN and Section 9.6 focuses on the regional protection of human rights. Section 9.7 discusses the territorial scope of human rights treaties and Section 9.8 concerns the application of human rights in times of public emergency. Section 9.8 provides an overview of the international legal protection of refugees.
Chapter
8. Family life
Gina Clayton, Georgina Firth, Caroline Sawyer, and Rowena Moffatt
This chapter focuses on non-European Economic Area (EEA) nationals who wish to live permanently with family members who are settled in or are nationals of the UK. The first part of the chapter covers human rights, particularly Article 8 and its impact on family life. The second part of the chapter considers the immigration rules. The family members of those coming to work or study and of refugees are also briefly considered. It examines marriage-related applications, that is, applications to join a spouse, fiancé(e), civil, or long-term partner. It considers the rules relating to adult family members and children, the family life of those with limited leave, and refugees and asylum seekers.
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12. Claims for international protection
Gina Clayton, Georgina Firth, Caroline Sawyer, and Rowena Moffatt
This chapter examines the requirements for refugee status, according to Article 1A of the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees 1951 and the Refugee Qualification Directive EC 2004/83, referred to as the Qualification Directive. This includes case law on the main concepts in refugee law: well-founded fear, persecution, Convention reason, causal link, and internal relocation. There is a focus on the particular problems in gender-based claims. The chapter considers protection for victims of trafficking, who may go through a parallel process to the asylum system. The chapter begins with the legal context of refugee claims in the UK, and then follows the structure of Article 1A of the Refugee Convention.
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13. Exclusion from asylum
Gina Clayton, Georgina Firth, Caroline Sawyer, and Rowena Moffatt
This chapter considers the provisions whereby an individual can be excluded from refugee status because of their conduct. These are as laid down in the Refugee Convention and the EC Qualification Directive. These powers were little used in the twentieth century, but now are used increasingly often in the context of the escalation in international action against terrorism. Their interpretation and application are affected by domestic legislation, in the UK, the Nationality Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, the Immigration Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, and the Terrorism Acts of 2000 and 2006, and draw on international criminal law. The chapter discusses up-to-date case law on exclusion from refugee status based on crimes against humanity, serious non-political crimes, and acts against the purpose and principles of the United Nations. It deals with the issue of complicity and the relationship with the UK’s anti-terrorism legislation. It also deals with the situations in which refugees can be removed from the host country.
Chapter
9. International human rights law
This chapter discusses the system of human rights protection that has emerged since the end of the Second World War. It begins in Section 9.2 with the primary sources of human rights law before Section 9.3 discusses the different categories of human rights. Section 9.4 discusses the obligation on states to offer protection from acts of private actors. Section 9.5 provides an overview of the enforcement mechanisms in the UN and Section 9.6 focuses on the regional protection of human rights. Section 9.7 discusses the territorial scope of human rights treaties and Section 9.8 concerns the application of human rights in times of public emergency. Section 9.8 provides an overview of the international legal protection of refugees.
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12. Rights for specific vulnerable persons
Following on from the previous chapter on equality and non-discrimination, this chapter examines the additional systems of human rights protection in place for specific groups of people who are often disadvantaged and marginalized in societies. Six specific groups are considered: women, children, elderly, internally displaced persons, stateless persons, and refugees. It first explains why group rights evolved in a system of human rights that, from the outset, was supposed to be universal, and then discusses the particular needs of these groups, the evolving international and regional human rights framework, and the extent to which the legal framework addresses the needs of the group in question.
