Refuge and Refusal: Credibility Assessment, Status Determination and Making It Feasible for Refugees to Say “No”

Abstract

At present, administrative justifications for states to grant asylum tend to refer explicitly to moral and ethical “humanitarian” obligations. However, despite these motives, the broad preponderance of policies and governmental practices refer only to mere administrative expediency and not to humanitarian concerns. Why does a nation grant asylum—ostensibly, for reasons of humanitarian morality? How does a nation-state go about the tasks of granting asylum—through administrative practices generally un-informed by corresponding moral or ethical humanitarian guidelines? The standard for treatment quite often comes down to a minimal requirement, albeit a self-imposed one, for agencies to avoid “refouling” refugees—that is, to avoid putting refuge seekers in immediate danger as bad as or worse than what they fled. The prohibition on refoulment counts as a negative imperative designating what administrative agents ought not to do, but does not provide for specifically positive commission to treat refugees in any particular ways. Moreover, non-refoulment rules depend largely on domestic and international legal-juridical models that place primacy on risk reduction, ostensibly intended to minimize potential legal liabilities. As I argue, these minimum standards for asylum procedures count as politically expedient, but do not reflect moral criteria for evaluating such practices. What sort of criteria might nation-states use to evaluate the morality of institutional agents who administer and enforce asylum procedures, particularly given the need for political expediency ininternational contexts?