Shadows in paradise - Exploring non-refoulement as an open concept

International Journal of Refugee Law

Volumn 19, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 639-660

  Pirjola, Jari ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

HUMAN RIGHTS; INTERNATIONAL LAW; INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION; REFUGEE;

EID: 44449160907     PISSN: 09538186     EISSN: 14643715     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/eem069     Document Type: Article

References (78)

1. H. L. A. Hart introduced the idea of 'open texture' to discussions of jurisprudence in The Concept of Law (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1977).
2. Terms like 'cruelty' or 'courage' are what philosophers call 'open textured'. Two people, who both know what they mean can reasonably disagree about whether these terms apply in a particular case. International normative language is full of expressions which are indeterminate. The element of indeterminacy is especially embedded in evaluative terminology like 'inhuman and degrading treatment'. For a discussion of indeterminacy in international legal language, see, Martti Koskenniemi, From Apology to Utopia. The Structure of International Legal Argument (Cambridge University Press 2000) 36-70.
3. See art. 33 of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, adopted on 28 July by the United Nations Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Status of Refugees and Stateless Persons convened under General Assembly resolution 429 (V) of 14 Dec. 1950. In Human, Rights: A Compilation of International Instruments, Vol. 1, (Geneva, United Nations Publications, 2002) 629-46.
4. Sir Elihu Lauterpacht and Daniel Bethlehem, 'The scope and content of the principle of non-refoulement: Opinion' in Erika Feller, Volker Turk and Frances Nicholson (eds.), Refugee Protection in International Law: UNHCR's Global Consultations on International Protection (Cambridge University Press, 2003) 87-177.
5. Art. 3 of European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, signed in Rome, 4 Nov. 1950.
6. It is often stated in Article 3 decisions that 'the court recalls at the outset that Contracting States have the right as a matter subject to their treaty obligations including the Convention to control the entry, residence and expulsion of aliens'. See, e.g., Case of Bensaid v. United Kingdom (2001), application no.44599/98.
7. Jens Vested-Hansen has observed that 'the preferred solution for an increasing number of states is to prevent refugees and asylum seekers from ever arriving at their borders, thus keeping asylum seekers from the procedural door'. See, Jens Vested-Hansen, 'Non-admission policies and the right to protection: Refugees' choice versus states', in Frances Nicholson and Patrick Twomey (eds.), Refugee Rights and Realities. Evolving International Concepts and Regimes (Cambridge University Press 1999) 269.
8. However, in the Court's view, having regard to the very long period of time spent on death row in such extreme conditions, with the ever present and mounting anguish of awaiting execution of the death penalty, and to the personal circumstances of the applicant, especially his age and mental state at the time of the offence, the applicant's extradition to the United States would expose him to a real risk of treatment going beyond the threshold set by Article 3'. See, Soering case (7.7. 1989, A 161), section 111.
9. See, 'Implementation of Article 3 of the Convention in the context of article 22', CAT General Comment No. 1, A/53/44 annex IX, and J. Herman Burgers & Hans Danelius, The United Nations Convention Against Torture: A Handbook on the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Penalty (Dordrecht, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1988) 124-8.
10. Art. 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Adopted by General Assembly Resolution 2200 A (XXI) of 16 Dec. 1966.
11. Human Rights Committee, General Comment 20, art. 9 (Forty Fourth Session, 1992) UN Doc. HRI/Gen//Rev. 1, 30, (1992). Non-refoulement is included in many other international instruments that are not covered in this article, see, e.g., 1967 Declaration on Territorial Asylum, UNGA Resolution 2132 (XXII), 14 Dec. 1967; 1969 OAU Refugee Convention, 1001 UNTS 3; 1969 American Convention of Human Rights, 9 ILM 673.
12. Generally, see also, Gunnel Stenberg, Non-Expulsion and Non-Refoulement: The Prohibition against Removal of Refugees with Special Reference to Articles 32 and 33 of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (Uppsala, lustus Förlag, 1988).
13. On the scope of protection afforded under selected human rights conventions, see, e.g., Helene Lambert, 'Protection Against Refoulement from Europe: Human rights law comes to the rescue' (1999) 48 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 515-44.
14. See, Oldrich Andrysek, 'Gaps in the international protection and potential for redress through individual complaints procedure' 9, IJRL 392-414 (1997).
15. By this I mean the kind of formulations appearing in the decisions of national asylum authorities, such as a decision concerning asylum by a Finnish administrative court, in which the following was stated concerning a Congolese asylum seeker: 'Based on the matters emerging in the case it is not likely that the appellant has justified reason to fear persecution in his homeland as referred to in section 30, paragraph 1, of the Aliens Act. Moreover, no such matters have emerged in the case based on which a justified reason would exist to assume he is in danger of becoming subjected to serious violations of rights or inhuman or degrading treatment as referred to in section 31 of the Aliens Act'. Administrative Court of Helsinki, case 05/0406/1, 19 Apr. 2005 (unofficial translation).
16. See Ramzy v. the Netherlands (application no. 25424/05 in the European Court of Human Rights) and the intervention of some European governments to overturn established case law (Chahal v. United Kingdom) prohibiting a balancing of the interest of the individual not to be subject to torture or ill-treatment against the interest of national security.
17. See, e.g., 'Amnesty International Report 2005, the State of World's Human Rights' (Amnesty International Publications 2005), 1-14.
18. On rights language, see, Martti Koskenniemi, 'The Effect of Rights on Political Culture', in Philip Alston (ed.), The EU and Human Rights (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999), 99-116.
19. Quaere whether any other article of the European Convention on Human Rights, other than 3, could be engaged in relation to the removal of an individual from the United Kingdom. See, for example, R v. Special Adjudicator - Do v. Secretary of State for the Home Department, reprinted in 16 IJRL 411-45 (2004).
20. 'The travaux préparatoires do not explain the different wording chosen for the formulations respectively of refugee status and non-refoulement; but neither do they give any indication that a different standard of proof was intended to be applied in one case, rather than in other (...) at the international level, no distinction is recognised between refugee status and entitlement to non-refoulement' see, Guy S. Goodwin-Gill, The Refugee in International Law (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996) 137-8
21. Atle Grahl-Madsen, The Status of Refugee in International Law, Vol. 11, (Leiden - A. W. Sijthoww 1972) 94
22. and Gunnel Stenberg, Non Expulsion and Non-Refoulement, above n. 9.
23. Erika Feller, Volker Türk and Frances Nicholson (eds.), Refugee Protection in International Law. UNHCR's Global Consultations on International Protection (Cambridge University Press 2003), 123.
24. 'It is generally acknowledged that the drafters of the Convention intentionally left the meaning "persecution" undefined because they realized the impossibility of enumerating in advance all the forms of maltreatment which might legitimately entitle persons to benefit from the protection of a foreign state', see, James Hathaway, The Law of Refugee Status (Toronto, Butterworths 1991), 102.
25. See also, Grahl-Madsen, above n. 17, 193. He writes, 'It seems that the drafters have wanted to introduce a flexible concept which might be applied to circumstances as they might arise; or in other words, that they capitulated before the inventiveness of humanity to think up new ways of persecuting fellow men'.
26. UNHCR, 'Handbook on procedures and criteria for determining refugee status under the 1951 convention and 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees' (UNHCR 1979), 65.
27. Ibid., 14.
28. Ibid., 15.
29. See John Dugard and Christine Van den Wyngaert, 'Reconciling Extradition with Human Rights' (1998) 92 The American Journal of International Law, 202.
30. Goodwin-Gill, above n. 17, 67, '... a comprehensive analysis requires the general notion of persecution to be related to developments within the broader field of human rights'.
31. Hathaway, above n. 19, 112.
32. Goodwin-Gill, above n. 17, 62.
33. See, Chris Ingelse, The UN Committee Against Torture. An Assessment (The Hague, Kluwer Law International 2001), 208.
34. Reported in the Amnesty International magazine of Finland 3/2005, 10-11.
35. Communication No. 83/1997, 15.5.1998, 6.5.
36. Communication No. 218/2002, 23 Nov. 2004, 4.5.
37. Communication No. 120/1988, 25 May 1999, 6.5.
38. Brian Gorlick has observed, regarding Elmi v. Australia (Communication No.: 10 1/1997), that 'The Elmi decision is a significant development in the CAT's jurisprudence, for it shows the Committee's willingness to adopt a flexible and broader protection-based approach in interpreting the Convention'.
39. See, Brian Gorlick, 'The Convention and the Committee Against Torture: A Complementary Protection Regime for Refugees' 11 IFRL 3 (1999).
40. See, 'General Comment No. 1: Implementation of Article 3 of the Convention in the context of article 22', A 53/44, annex IX.
41. Reported in the magazine of the Finnish section of the Amnesty International Mar. 2005, 10-11.
42. On the process of outsourcing torture to foreign countries by rendition, see, Naomi Klein, 'Torture's Dirty Secret: It Works', The Nation, 12 May 2005.
43. Communication No.: 196/2002, 14 May 2004.
44. Ireland v. United Kingdom, Ser. A 25, 66.
45. Greece v. the United Kingdom (1969), Yearbook of the European Commission of Human Rights XII, 186.
46. Ireland v. the United Kingdom, above n. 36.
47. Selmouni v. France, European Court of Human Rights, Judgment, 28 July 1999.
48. On the definitions of torture in human rights law and international criminal law, see, Nigel S. Rodley, 'The Definition(s) of Torture in International Law', in M. D. A. Freeman (ed.), Current Legal Problems Vol. 55 (Oxford University Press, 2002) 467-93.
49. Opinion of the Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr Alvaro Gil-Robles, Strasbourg, 17 Oct. 2003, CommDH (2003) 13, 3.
50. P. van Dijk and G.J. H. van Hoof, Theory and Practice of the European Convention on Human Rights (The Hague, Kluwer Law International, 1998), 323.
51. See, Greece v. the United Kingdom, above n. 37.
52. Above n. 42, 311.
53. Matti Pellonpädsa, Euroopan ihmisoikeussopimus (European Convention on Human Rights) (Jyväskylä, Kauppakaari 2005) 214.
54. Ireland v. United Kingdom, above n. 36.
55. Above n. 42, 314.
56. D. v. United Kingdom (1977), application no. 30240/96.
57. See also, Tanko v. Finland (1994) application no. 23634/94.
58. See, Bensaid v. United Kingdom, above n. 5.
59. On concepts of culture and human rights, see, Jari Pirjola 'Culture, Western Origin and the Universality of Human Rights' Nordisk Tiddskrift for Menneskerettigheter (Nordic Journal of Human Rights 2005) Vol. 23, No. 1 (2005), 1-15.
60. Jabari v. Turkey, (2000), paras. 34, 35 and 42.
61. Walter Kälin, Grundrechte im Kulturkonflikt: Freiheit und Gleichheit in der Einwanderungsgesellschaft (NZZ Verlag, 2000), 214.
62. Ahmed v. Austria (1996), Reports and Judgements and Decisions, 1998-VI, 220.
63. No human rights convention outlaws the death penalty, although protocols to the ICCPR, European Convention on Human Rights and the American Convention of Human Rights do so. See, Dugard and Van den Wyyngaert, above n. 23.
64. P. van Dijk and G.J. H. van Hoof, above n. 42, 325.
65. Ibid., 326.
66. See, Raija Hanski and Martin Scheinin (eds.), Leading Cases of the Human Rights Committee (Jjyväskylä, Gummerus, 1993), 93.
67. Chitat Ng v. Canada, Communication No. 469/1991, UN Doc. CCPR/C/49/D/469/1991 (1994), para. 16.2.
68. Ibid., individual opinion by A. Mavrommatis and W Sadi (dissenting).
69. Hanski and Scheinin, above n. 57, 60.
70. Päivi Leino-Sandberg, Particularity as Universality: The Politics of Human Rights in the European Union (The Erik Castren Institute Research Reports 15/2005) 52.
71. I thank professor Martti Koskenniemi, Director of the Erik Castren Institute of International Law and Human Rights, University of Helsinki, for his comments regarding emergence of alternative interpretations.
72. See Uppdrag granskning. Last visited 1 Nov. 2005.
73. Cf., David Beatty has observed 'the great majestic phrases characteristic of all constitutional texts provide little practical guidance on such controversial questions as whether women have a right to abort a foetus or whether gays and lesbians have the right to marry. Whether religious communities have a right to establish and seek state support for separate schools and whether those schools can refuse to admit and/or employ people whose morals and/or religion are different than their own (...)', David M. Beatty, The Ultimate Rule of Law (Oxford University Press, 2004) 4.
74. See, Council Directive 2004/83/EC of 29 Apr. 2004, art. 15.
75. See, David Kennedy, 'The International Human Rights Movement: Part of the Problem' (2001) 3 European Human Rights Law Journal 245-60.
76. 'The priority of the right over the good proves an impossible demand and insisting upon it will leave political discretion unchecked', Koskenniemi, above n. 15, 99.
77. See, Ryszard Cholewinski, 'Borders and Discrimination in the European Union' (Immigration Law Practitioners' Association (ILPA) and Migration Policy Group, 2002).
78. 'The idea of human rights emerges from the rejection of pain and humiliation, caused by the state or by an overwhelming social power, as an injustice', see, Klaus Gunther 'The Legacies of Injustice and Fear: A European Approach to Human Rights and their Effects on Political Culture', in Philip Alston (ed.), The EU and Human Rights (Oxford, Oxford University Press 1999), 117-44.