Law Education
Need for studying International Refugee Law
ASM Tofazzel Haque
At present, the problem of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) -- global, multidimensional and critical in nature -- has posed a great challenge and before the national and international community. The number of refugees and IDP's have increased numerously, particularly due to man made disaster or natural disaster as well.
Generally, a refugee is a person who is bound to flee his native place or residence or leave his country of origin owing to oppression, persecution, massive violation of human rights, war, poverty, flight from effects of natural disaster like flood, earthquake, drought etc.
International Refugee Laws deal with the rights, duties and responsibilities of the refugees and at the same time, with the duties and responsibilities of the host and refugee producing countries simultaneously. At bottom, International Refugee Laws comprising the international instruments (the 1951 United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, and its 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention relating to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Article 44, the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness) defines and determines, inter alia, basic standards for treatment, human dignity and value of refugees. Apart from international refugee laws, the international bill of human rights, some international declarations and instruments have shown keen interest to and importance of refugees issues, for example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which provide that,
(a) “No one shall be subject to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 9);
(b) “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 14);
(c) Everyone has the "right to a nationality” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 15);
(d) “Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State; everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 13; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 12)
By establishing the UNHCR in 1949, the UN reaffirmed and recognised the responsibilities of UN for the international protection of refugees. International protection is based on human rights principles. Since the refugees do not enjoy the protection of the country of origin, the international community must come forward to provide that protection.
For international protection one could rely on international legal Conventions and Declarations adopted by the UN or by the regional organisations, such as the OAU Convention or Cartagena Declaration for Latin America. In conflict situations, the 1949 Geneva Convention related to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and the Additional Protocols of 1977 assume particular significance.
In many areas both to the host and refugee producing countries, the refugee law remains unclear, obsolete even today. It is to be noted that no country from the Indian subcontinent became party to the 1951 refugee convention. But all the countries have a traditional and long experience of providing shelter and attaching dignity to the refugees. India has a long tradition of accepting refugees from other countries (e.g. Tibetan refugees and the Dalai Lama, Afghan and Iranian refugees). Pakistan accepted thousands of Afghan refugees after the troops of he Soviet Union entered Afghanistan in 1979. Nepal has provided shelter to refugees from Bhutan of Nepali origin.
The people of Bangladesh had been subject to genocide and crimes against humanity in 1971 by Pakistan's military junta. Around 10 million Bangladeshi nationals had to leave for India to escape the marauding Pakistan army. Many of the Bangladeshi nationals became refugees in India for a nine-month period till Bangladesh emerged as an independent country on 16 December 1971.
Further Bangladesh has been confronted with the flow of refugees from Myanmar (Burma). Thousands of refugees came in 1978 from Akyab (now named as Rakhine) and again in 1991 another flow of more than 200,000 such refugees took shelter in Chittagong and its adjoining areas. The refugees are commonly known as 'Rohingya'.
And in this context, International Refugee Law is obviously a sine qua non of the legal study, especially at the university level. Because knowledge of law will be incomplete and inadequate unless and until international refugee law is studied and understood properly. And in doing so, today's slogan may be “Study refugee law and know your duties and responsibilities”. With a view to fulfilling the call of slogans and imparting theoretical and practical knowledge on refugee law Department of Law and Justice, Southeast University, Dhaka, as the first university (both among private and public), has taken the unique opportunity and privilege to introduce international refugee law as a core course in the syllabus of graduate and post graduate programmes in consultation with and assistance from the UNHCR Bangladesh. True to say, refugee law has tremendous prospects and potentiality of protecting human rights both at national and international level. Keeping this important view in mind, the syllabus of this programme is designed to impart practical and theoretical law education on refugee and to cope with the demand of time, to overview asylum, statelessness of IDPs and refugees, its causes and the UNHCR etc, to help familiarise students with the principals and related issues of international refugee law, to sensitise the students how they can be utilised to assist legal aid for ensuring access to justice of refuges, as the next responsible members of bar and bench.
Though some public and private universities introduce international human rights law and international humanitarian law in the academic curriculum, the international refuge law, the part an parcel of human rights law, is yet to be introduced or somehow ignored. Needless to say, today's students of law are tomorrow's leaders and policy makers in national and international arena. Hence, they should be sensitized with, inter alia, refugee and IDP issues, legal instruments, asylum procedure, detention, restriction on freedom of movement, the issues on identity, travel and other documents, access to justice, political, economic, social and cultural rights as enunciated in the international bill of human rights, the UN charter and international instrument of refugee.
Being a student of law one should obtain knowledge, as a whole, as to who is a refugee and what are his or her rights under international law. What are the rights of those asylum seekers who fail to qualify as refugees under the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol? How can refugees be distinguished from economic migrants? Can the international community deny protection to those who claim not to receive protection from their country of origin? They should know what exactly is the link between violation of human rights and movement of refugees? To what extent are those violations the causes of mass exoduses? In what ways can the rights of refugees be violated in the process of asylum-seeking in host countries? Last but not the least, students ought to know what the relationship between repatriation and human rights is? Can repatriation be truly voluntary when the country of origin is unable, or unwilling, to guarantee respect for the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of its citizens?
In fine let me inform that the UNHCR, Bangladesh Bar Council, RAMRU, ELCOP, some individuals, print and electronic media, NGOs and, of course, Department of Law and Justice, Southeast University have their different programmes for the promotion and protection of International refugee laws. . It is pertinent to note that EPG in South Asia has been doing a lot to disseminate and promote refugee law, mainly in drafting the South Asia declaration on refugees and model national laws on refugees. The public and private universities of Bangladesh should come forward to introduce international refugee law in their respective law syllabus and the syllabus of other courses to impart a complete human rights law education. And it should be done, at least, for the sake of respecting fundamental human rights and dignity of refugees and IDPs as human beings and at the same time, showing proper honour of the words of Mrs. Sadako Ogata: "The refugee issue must be put to all governments and peoples as a test of their commitment to human rights.”
The writer is an Assistant Professor of Department of Law and Justice, Southeast University, Dhaka.
