Refugee law has been variously conceptualised. Sometimes, as a humanitarian enterprise. Sometimes, as an extension of foreign policy relations based on national self-interests. But can it be better rationalised as a post-colonial enterprise? Does its treatment of Arabs, Afghans and others from the Middle East and North Africa – who are the major consumers of modern refugee law today – tell us something about refugee law? Does it serve to essentialise refugees as the ‘Others’ of the West? If so, can we conceive of a post-colonial refugee? Is modern refugee law an exercise in ‘post-colonialism’, which can be defined as a cultural critique that is opposed to imperialism and Eurocentrism? This essay explores this question through an analysis of the Dublin II Regulation system. This system limits the number of asylum-seekers entering the countries of the European Union. Recent cases confirm that even powerful evidence of individual risk is of no avail and serves as no bar to an asylum-seeker being removed from one European country to another, from where he or she risks being refouled to his/her own country, where he/she may be subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment. This essay tells that story.
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See S. S. Juss, ‘Refugee Law & the Protection of children fleeing Conflict & Violence in Afghanistan’, JCSL (2013).
T. Hammarberg, ‘The “Dublin Regulation” undermines refugee rights’, Press Release, 22 September 2010, available at <https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1671357&Site=DC>.
El-Nany, supra note 6, p. 14.
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Refugee law has been variously conceptualised. Sometimes, as a humanitarian enterprise. Sometimes, as an extension of foreign policy relations based on national self-interests. But can it be better rationalised as a post-colonial enterprise? Does its treatment of Arabs, Afghans and others from the Middle East and North Africa – who are the major consumers of modern refugee law today – tell us something about refugee law? Does it serve to essentialise refugees as the ‘Others’ of the West? If so, can we conceive of a post-colonial refugee? Is modern refugee law an exercise in ‘post-colonialism’, which can be defined as a cultural critique that is opposed to imperialism and Eurocentrism? This essay explores this question through an analysis of the Dublin II Regulation system. This system limits the number of asylum-seekers entering the countries of the European Union. Recent cases confirm that even powerful evidence of individual risk is of no avail and serves as no bar to an asylum-seeker being removed from one European country to another, from where he or she risks being refouled to his/her own country, where he/she may be subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment. This essay tells that story.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 1357 | 203 | 10 |
Full Text Views | 353 | 28 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 447 | 67 | 0 |