Guy Goodwin-Gill

Reviews current interception practices, particularly as conducted by EU Member States and the EU agency, Frontex, and considers the lawfulness of such operations in the light of EU law, the recent jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, and the international law background, including the right to seek asylum and the principle of non-refoulement.

This article lays out some of the international legal foundations governing the responsibility of States and international organizations when they undertake the processing of asylum seekers outside the country in which they are seeking refuge. It looks at the responsibility of States for conduct outside their territory; at the responsibility of international organizations, with particular reference to the protection of refugee rights; and at the responsibility of States for the conduct, acts and omissions of international organizations and of other States. It aims to show something of what international law does require, whenever a State elects to intercept or interdict asylum seekers, to transfer them to another State’s territory for ‘processing’, and to contract or engage the assistance of an international organization. Like many measures which a State may take in the grey, apparently unregulated areas of international law, off-shore processing is in fact subject to law, and subject to the rule of law; and so far too little recognition has been given to this and to the legal implications for both States and international organizations. The article concludes with a summary of relevant legal principles.

ISBN: 26-40

This article looks back to the 1920s, and tries to tease out the politics of refugee protection as it evolved in the practice of States and international organizations in a period of growing ideological divide. The question addressed is whether the politics of protection at any particular moment are humanitarian or whether they serve primarily other purposes, in which the refugee is merely instrumental. It is unrealistic to imagine that the problem of refugees can ever be entirely non-political. What the history of the 1920–55 period confirms is the continued vitality of self-interest as a motivating factor in the responses of States to refugee flows. The international refugee regime that emerged in the late 1940s and early 1950s defined refugees through the politics of denunciation in a persecution-oriented definition that continues to limit and confuse, not only at the international operations level, but also in national asylum procedures. In this context, the article concludes that the art or UNHCR is not to allow solutions or assistance to have priority over protection. For if it cannot provide protection, it will be judged a failure and accountable, and not merely excused because it tried hard in difficult political circumstances.

ISBN: ISSN 1020-4067

Reviews international law relating to the rescue and subsequent treatment of asylum seekers in distress at sea; considers the legality of the Australian practice in relation to the MV Tampa, in light of earlier precedent and practice.

ISBN: 1066-8632

Examines the future of asylum and the 1951 Convention/1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees

ISBN: 0953-8186