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Full-Text Articles in Law
Queer Cases Make Bad Law, James C. Hathaway, Jason Pobjoy
Queer Cases Make Bad Law, James C. Hathaway, Jason Pobjoy
Articles
The Refugee Convention, now adopted by 147 states, is the primary instrument governing refugee status under international law. The Convention sets a binding and nonamendable definition of which persons are entitled to recognition as refugees, and thus to enjoy the surrogate or substitute national protection of an asylum state. The core of the article 1A(2) definition provides that a refugee is a person who has a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership of a particular social group.” A person is thus a refugee, and entitled to the non-refoulement and other protections …
Is There A Subjective Element In The Refugee Convention's Requirement Of 'Well-Founded Fear'?, James C. Hathaway, William S. Hicks
Is There A Subjective Element In The Refugee Convention's Requirement Of 'Well-Founded Fear'?, James C. Hathaway, William S. Hicks
Articles
Linguistic ambiguity in the refugee definition's requirement of "well-founded fear" of being persecuted has given rise to a wide range of interpretations. There is general agreement that a fear is "well-founded" only if the refugee claimant faces an actual, forward-looking risk of being persecuted in her country of origin (the "objective element"). But it is less clear whether the well-founded "fear" standard also requires a showing that the applicant is not only genuinely at risk, but also stands in trepidation of being persecuted. Beyond vague references to the subjective quality of "fear," few courts or commentators have undertaken the task …
Framing Refugee Protection In The New World Disorder, James C. Hathaway, Colin J. Harvey
Framing Refugee Protection In The New World Disorder, James C. Hathaway, Colin J. Harvey
Articles
A number of jurisdictions have fastened onto a "solution" that appears to reconcile respect for refugee law with the determination of states to rid themselves quickly of potentially violent asylum seekers. Courts in these states have been persuaded that a person who has committed or facilitated acts of violence may lawfully be denied a refugee status hearing under a clause of the Refugee Convention that authorizes the automatic exclusion of persons whom the government reasonably believes are international or extraditable criminals. Refugee law so interpreted is reconcilable with even fairly blunt measures for the exclusion of violent asylum seekers. In …
Refugee Rights Are Not Negotiable, James C. Hathaway, Anne K. Cusick
Refugee Rights Are Not Negotiable, James C. Hathaway, Anne K. Cusick
Articles
America's troubled relationship with international law, in particular human rights law, is well documented. In many cases, the United States simply will not agree to be bound by international human rights treaties. For example, the United States has yet to ratify even such fundamental agreements as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. When the United States does agree to become a party to an international human rights treaty, it has often sought to condition its acceptance …
International Refugee Law: The Michigan Guidelines On The Internal Protection Alternative, James C. Hathaway
International Refugee Law: The Michigan Guidelines On The Internal Protection Alternative, James C. Hathaway
Articles
International refugee law is designed only to provide a back-up source of protection to seriously at-risk persons. Its purpose is not to displace the primary rule that individuals should look to their state of nationality for protection, but simply to provide a safety net in the event a state fails to meet its basic protective responsibilities.1 As observed by the Supreme Court of Canada, "[t]he international community was meant to be a forum of second resort for the persecuted, a 'surrogate,' approachable upon the failure of local protection. The rationale upon which international refugee law rests is not simply the …
America's Apostasy, James C. Hathaway
America's Apostasy, James C. Hathaway
Articles
It has often struck me that the prominence of the Restatement of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States epitomizes the plight of international law in this country. The title of this standard reference on international law does not even refer to international law, but instead to foreign relations law. That is, it is meant to set out the standards by which we may legitimately judge the conduct of others. The clear, if unintended, message is that the Restatement is not really a codification of laws that bind us. And indeed, it is explicitly not just a codification, but …