Law Commons^™

We Live In A Country Of Unhcr: The Un Surrogate State And Refugee Policy In The Middle East, Michael Kagan

Scholarly Works

Many gaps in the protection of refugees can be connected to a de facto transfer of responsibility for managing refugee policy from sovereign states to United Nations agencies. This phenomenon can be seen in dozens of countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, where the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) manage refugee camps, register newly arrived asylum-seekers, carry out refugee status determination, and administer education, health, livelihood and other social welfare programs.

In carrying out these functions, the UN acts to a great …

The Beleaguered Gatekeeper: Protection Challenges Posed By Unhcr Refugee Status Determination, Michael Kagan

Scholarly Works

The number of individual Refugee Status Determination (RSD) applications received by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) offices worldwide nearly doubled from 1997 to 2001, while UNHCR’s RSD operations have been criticized for failing to implement basic standards of procedural fairness. Yet, although there is some literature critiquing how UNHCR determines refugee status, there is little literature examining whether UNHCR should do so, and if it should, when, where, and under what conditions.

UNHCR performance of RSD poses protection challenges because it is founded on a basic contradiction. On the one hand, government action is essential for effective refugee …

Book Review, Michael Kagan

Scholarly Works

There is a frequent critique of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ protection role, which goes like this: as UNHCR has grown as a humanitarian aid delivery agency, law and human rights have lost currency. In Rights in Exile: Janus-Faced Humanitarianism, Guglielmo Verdirame and Barbara Harrell-Bond (with Zachary Lomo and Hannah Garry) take this as a starting point from which to reach a far more searing conclusion: UNHCR itself directly violates the human rights of the people it is supposed to protect. Detailed, direct and at times passionate, this book should be required reading for anyone who wants to …

Is Truth In The Eye Of The Beholder? Objective Credibility Assessment In Refugee Status Determination, Michael Kagan

Scholarly Works

Credibility assessment is often the single most important step in determining whether people seeking protection as refugees can be returned to countries where they say they are in danger of serious human rights violations. Despite its importance, credibility-based decisions in refugee and asylum cases are frequently based on personal judgment that is inconsistent from one adjudicator to the next, unreviewable on appeal, and potentially influenced by cultural misunderstandings. Some of the people who need protection most are especially likely to have trouble convincing decision-makers that they should be believed.

This article sets out principles, standards, and criteria drawn from international …