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The Causal Nexus In International Refugee Law, James C. Hathaway

Articles

For all of its value as a critical mechanism of human rights protection, international refugee law is not an all-encompassing remedy. In at least two ways, the category of persons of concern to refugee law is significantly more narrow than the universe of victims of human rights abuse. First, only persons able somehow to leave their own country can be refugees. Alienage is a requirement for refugee status because of concerns about the limits of international resources and the potential for responsibility-shifting, as well as in recognition of the fundamental constraints which sovereignty still places on meaningful intervention by the …