Abstract
“Irregular movement” of asylum seekers is a very recent concept. It belongs to the realm of international refugee policy rather than international refugee law, and it is a notion that must be treated carefully. I was asked by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in 1984 to undertake a study of the concept, in response to an initiative by Canada taken in the Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme that year. Canada, like many other industrialized countries, found itself troubled by arrivals of numerous asylum seekers from distant continents, in a fashion that it had not earlier encountered and which it regarded as irregular. It sought the help of the international community in developing new ways to deal with some of the attendant problems. Hence my Study.1
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Notes
See Report of the Executive Comm. of the High Commissioner’s Programme (35th Sess.), para. 76, U.N. Doc. A/AC.96/651 (1984) [hereinafter 1984 Ex. Comm. Report].
See Report of the Sub-Comm. of the Whole on International Protection, Executive Comm. of the High Commissioner’s Programme (36th Sess.), paras. 59-70, U.N. Doc. A/AC.96/671 (1985) [hereinafter 1985 Sub-Comm. Report] (includes a draft Conclusion on the subject which was generally agreed to by the Sub-Committee).
See Report of the Executive Comm. of the High Commissioner’s Programme (36th Sess.), paras. 76-82, U.N. Doc. A/AC.96/673 (1985) [hereinafter 1985 Ex. Comm. Report]; General, Conclusion 36 (XXXVI), id., para. 115(l)(j), 40 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 12A) at 30, U.N. Doc. A/40/12/Add. 1 (1985).
See Report of the Sub-Comm. of the Whole on International Protection, Executive Comm. of the High Commissioner’s Programme (37th Sess.), para. 2, U.N. Doc. A/AC.96/685 (1986).
Report of the Executive Comm. of the High Commissioner’s Programme (38th Sess.), paras. 32-67, 204(i), U.N. Doc. A/AC.96/702 (1987) [hereinafter 1987 Ex. Comm. Report].
G. Jaeger, Study of Irregular Movements of Asylum Seekers and Refugees (Geneva, July 1985). This study was prepared at the request of the High Commissioner for Refugees for consideration by his Executive Committee, and was originally printed as a U.N. Document in a limited series, U.N. Doc. WG/M/2 (1985).
Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, July 28, 1951, 189 U.N.T.S. 137; Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, Jan 31, 1967, 606 U.N.T.S. 267. For the sake of simplicity we shall restrict our analysis to the universal convention on refugee status.
See generally Note on Procedures for the Determination of Refugee Status under International Instruments, submitted to the Executive Comm. of the High Commissioner’s Programme (36th Sess.), U.N. Doc. A/AC.96/INF.152/Rev. 6 (1985).
“Granting” is at least ambiguous and could be a lapsus calami. It is preferable to avoid this terminology; refugee status is usually “determined” or “recognized.”.
Conclusion 30 (XXXIV), Report of the Executive Comm. of the High Commissioner’s Programme (34th Sess.), para. 97(2), U.N. Doc. A/AC.96/631 (1983), 38 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 12A) at 25, U.N. Doc. A/38/12/Add.1 (1983).
Id.
Arrangement with regard to the issue of certificates of identity to Russian refugees, 5 July 1922, 13 L.N.T.S. 238 (No. 355).
Convention, supra note 7, art. 31(1).
Matter of Salim, 18 I. & N. Dec. 311 (BIA 1982). More recent American practice is receding from this harsh rule. See, e.g., Matter of Pula, Interim Dec. No. 3033 (BIA 1987).
See Jaeger, supra note 6, paras. 32-38.
See Note on Asylum: Refugees Without an Asylum Country, submitted to the Executive Comm. of the High Commissioner’s Programme (30th Sess.), U.N.Doc. EC/SCP/12 (1979), reprinted in Division of International Protection of UNHCR, Collection of Notes presented to the Sub-Committee of the Whole on International Protection, 1977-1980 (1981) (Note VII).
See, e.g., Refugees Without an Asylum Country, Conclusion 15 (XXX), 34 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 12) at 17, U.N. Doc. A/34/12/Add.1 (1979).
See Vierdag, The Country of “First Asylum”: Some European Aspects, this volume; Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Responsibility for Examining an Asylum Request 17 (Report No. 1, 1986) (report of a seminar held in Lund, Sweden, 24 to 26 April 1985).
See generally M. Marrus, The Unwanted: European Refugees in the Twentieth Century 51-121 (1985).
See Jaeger, supra note 6, paras. 91-110, 115-19, 255.
See id., para. 128.
In its Conclusion 22 (XXXII) on Protection of Asylum Seekers in Situations of Large-Scale Influx, Report of the Executive Comm. of the High Commissioner’s Programme (32d Sess.), para. 57(2), U.N. Doc. A/AC.96/601 (1981), 36 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 12A), at 17, U.N. Doc. A/36/12/Add.1 (1981), the Executive Committee has defined standards for the “treatment of asylum seekers who have been temporarily admitted to a country pending arrangements for a durable solution.”.
Durable asylum entails by definition an indefinite right of residence. Its actual content as to civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights has been defined by the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, supra note 7.
Jaeger, supra note 6, paras. 11 and 12.
Verwaltungsgericht [Administrative Court of] Gelsenkirchen, decision of 17 May 1982 (translation by the present authors). See also the discussion of German doctrine on this point in Vierdag, The Country of “First Asylum”: Some European Aspects, this volume.
See Jaeger, supra note 6, paras. 69-72.
Id., paras. 120-123.
Figures are from UNHCR, other United Nations or government sources. See also Note on the Consultations on the Arrivals of Asylum-Seekers and Refugees in Europe, submitted to Executive Comm. of the High Commissioner’s Programme (36th Sess.), Annex I, para. 16, U.N. Doc. A/AC.96/INF.174 (1985) [hereinafter Note on European Consultations].
Id., para. 188 (footnotes omitted).
See 1987 Ex. Comm. Report, supra note 5, para. 204(c); Note on International Protection, Executive Comm. of the High Commissioner’s Programme (38th Sess.), paras. 21-24, U.N. Doc. A/AC.96/694 (1987); Overview of UNHCR Activities, Report for 1986-1987, Executive Comm. of the High Commissioner’s Programme (38th Sess.), paras. 10, 22, U.N. Doc. A/AC.96/696 (1987).
Convention, supra note 7, art. 33.
See text accompanying note 28 supra, which contains statistics on arrivals of asylum seekers in Western Europe. A series of deterrent measures were introduced in many countries in 1980–81, resulting in a temporary decline which lasted only about two years.
Jaeger, supra note 6, paras. 189–191 (footnotes omitted).
Id., para. 237.
A highly general report of the meeting appears in Note on European Consultations, supra note 28. See also Jaeger, supra note 6, Annex IV.
Conclusion 22 (XXXII), supra note 22, paras. IV(3), (4).
Statute of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, G.A. Res. 428(V), Annex, paras. 1, 8(c), 5 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 20) at 46, U.N. Doc. A/1775 (1950).
Voluntary Repatriation, Conclusion 40 (XXXVI), 1985 Ex.Comm. Report, supra note 3, para. 115(5), 40 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 12A) at 33, U.N. Doc. A/40/12/Add.1 (1985).
Jaeger, supra note 6, para. 145.
Note on European Consultations, supra note 28, Annex I, paras. 29–30, referring to principles described in Note on Refugee Aid and Development, Executive Comm. of the High Commissioner’s Programme (35th Sess.), para. 3, U.N. Doc. A/AC.96/645 (1984); see also 1984 Ex. Comm. Report, supra note 1, para. 97.
Jaeger, supra note 6, para. 274.
1985 Sub-Comm. Report, supra note 2, para. 60. Although called a Sub-committee, this body actually includes all 41 member States of the Executive Committee, meeting separately in advance of the full Committee’s deliberations in order to focus specifically on issues involving international protection.
1985 Ex.Comm. Report, supra note 3, para. 82.
1985 Sub-Comm. Report, supra note 2, para. 70.
Id., para. 68.
Id., para. 65.
Contained in Conclusion 22 (XXXII), supra note 22, para. II.B.
Commission on Human Rights, Res. 30 (XXXVI), 36 U.N. ESCOR Supp. (No. 3) at 191, U.N. Doc. E/1980/13, E/CN.4/1408 (1980).
G.A. Res. 35/124, 35 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 48) at 93, U.N. Doc. A/35/48 (1981).
Study on Human Rights and Massive Exoduses, Commission on Human Rights, Recommendations, p. (i), U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/1503 (1981). See generally Martin, Large-Scale Migrations of Asylum Seekers, 76 Am. J. Int’l L. 598 (1982).
41 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 53) at 128, U.N. Doc. A/41/53 (1986). The Group’s Final Report appears in International Co-operation to Avert New Flows of Refugees (Note by the Secretary General), U.N. Doc. A/41/324 (1986).
See Jaeger, supra note 6, paras. 278-283.
Statute of the UNHCR, supra note 37, para. 2 (“The work of the High Commissioner shall be of an entirely non-political character; it shall be humanitarian and social...”). This reticence was again emphasized by the Office in preparing the Consultations of May 1985. See Note on European Consultations, supra note 28, Annex I, para. 40.
See 1987 Ex. Comm. Report, supra note 5, paras. 31, 204(k); Report of the Executive Comm. of the High Commissioner’s Program (37th Sess.), paras. 28, 125(e), U.N. Doc. A/AC.96/688 (1986). For a precursor of these developments, see 1985 Ex. Comm. Report, supra note 3, para. 115 (5)(c).
Jaeger, supra note 6, paras. 287-291.
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Jaeger, G. (1988). Irregular Movements: The Concept and Possible Solutions. In: Martin, D.A. (eds) The New Asylum Seekers: Refugee Law in the 1980s. International Studies in Human Rights. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-6389-9_2
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