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V.1 Protection challenges in Asia

Main Debates

  • Why are most Asian states not parties to the 1951 Convention?
  • Does the Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA) offer a model for dealing with mass influx of refugees in Asia?

Main Points

  • Asian exceptionalism
  • Concerns of post-colonial states
  • UNHCR refugee status determination (RSD)
  • Mass influx of refugees
  • International burden sharing
  • Illegal migration

Soft Law

  1. UNHCR, ‘Putting Refugees on Development Agenda: How Refugees and Returnees can Contribute to Achieving the Millennium Development Goals’, FORUM/2005/4, 2005.
  2. Bangkok Principles on Status and Treatment of Refugees, 2001.
  3. UN Guidelines on Internally Displaced Persons, 1998.
  4. Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA) Indo-Chinese Refugees, 1989.
  5. UNHCR, Executive Committee Conclusion No. 22 (XXXII), 1981.
  6. Asian African Legal Consultative Organization (AALCO), ‘Final Text of the AALCO’s 1966 Bangkok Principles on Status and Treatment of Refugees’, 1966.

Readings

Core

  1. C. Abrar, ‘Legal Protection of Refugees in South Asia’, Forced Migration Review, vol. 10 (April 2001), pp. 21–23.
  2. M. Kagan, ‘The Beleaguered Gatekeeper: Protection Challenges Posed by UNHCR Refugee Status Determination’, International Journal of Refugee Law, vol. 18, no. 1 (2006), pp. 1–29.
  3. V. Muntharborn, The Status of Refugees in Asia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), pp. 3–29.
  4. UNHCR, ‘Putting Refugees on Development Agenda: How Refugees and Returnees can Contribute to Achieving the Millennium Development Goals’, Forum, 4/2005.
  5. RSDWatch.org, An independent source of information about the way the UN Refugee agency decides refugee cases. The Asian states in which UNHCR conducts RSD include Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.

Extended

  1. H. Adelman (ed.), Protracted Displacement in Asia: No Place to Call Home (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008).
  2. S. Bari, ‘Refugee Status Determination under the Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA): A Personal Assessment’, International Journal of Refugee Law, vol. 4, no. 4 (1992), pp. 487–513.
  3. A. Betts, ‘Comprehensive Plans of Action: Insights from CIREFCA and the Indo-Chinese CPA’, New Issues in Refugee Research, Working Paper no. 120 (2006).
  4. B. S. Chimni, ‘Co-Option and Resistance: Two Faces of Global Administrative Law’, New York University Journal of International Law and Politics, vol. 37, no. 4 (2005), pp. 799–827.
  5. B. S. Chimni, ‘Outside the Bounds of Citizenship: The Status of Aliens, Illegal Migrants and Refugees in India’, in R. Bhargava and H. Reifeld (eds), Civil Society, Public Sphere and Citizenship: Dialogues and Perceptions, (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2005), pp. 277–313, pp. 295–297.
  6. B. S. Chimni, ‘Status of Refugees in India: Strategic Ambiguity’, in R. Samaddar (ed.), Refugees and the State: Practices of Asylum and Care in India 1947–2000, (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2003), pp. 277–313.
  7. S. E. Davies, Legitimizing Rejection: International Refugee Law in South East Asia (Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 2008).
  8. S. Davies, ‘The Asian Rejection: International Refugee Law in Asia’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. 52, no. 4 (2006), pp. 562–575.
  9. A. Schloenhardt, ‘Immigration and Refugee Law in the Asia-Pacific Region’, Hong Kong Law Journal, vol. 32, no. 3 (2002), pp. 519–548.