New Asylum Regimes or a World without Asylum? The Myth of International Protection

Abstract

This chapter is based on a contribution to a conference entitled ‘New Asylum Regimes in the World’ but it might be more accurate to call it ‘Towards a World without Asylum’. For that is the direction in which we are moving, a world in which growing human rights rhetoric is matched by increasing barriers imposed by states to keep out asylum seekers. The problem is compounded by a serious decline in the modest level of human rights protection offered to refugees, all of whom are by definition victims, or potential victims, of human rights violations, who have fled across an international border.² Let us not forget that what is at stake is what has traditionally been the only effective form of international protection offered to victims of human rights abuses. The United Nations system created in the aftermath of the Holocaust and the Second World War did not envisage effective intervention to protect the human rights of persons inside their national boundaries even if the UN Charter and other international instruments did make reference to promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and for intervention in exceptional circumstances to preserve international peace and security.³ Cold War politics ruled out any effective, practical international intervention to protect fundamental human rights.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author, a UNHCR staff member, and not necessarily shared by the United Nations or UNHCR. The help of colleagues is gratefully acknowledged, but the article remains a personal point of view. Mr Gentile currently serves as the Refugee Law Training Officer in the UNHCR Branch Office for the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.