The intractable refugee gap in the Nordics: can human rights make a difference?

It is often postulated that third, faraway non-adjacent countries, the Nordics for example, collaborate with UNHCR, to permanently resettle a few refugees on a quota basis, as a ground to provide a durable solution to one of the most intractable refugee situations. Although, the decision is discretionary and benevolent, it is nonetheless grounded in international customary law since, normatively, refugees are to be protected from acts of persecution, scenes of desolation and other glaring human rights abuses, even by States which are yet to sign or formally ratify the Refugee Convention and the Refugee Protocol. The sought-after solution, however, often becomes a short-term palliative because, nearly half of the refugees partially, intermittently, or never participate in gainful employment. The act violates one of the most fundamental and internationally recognized right to work. Under similar circumstances, other social and economic rights are also violated because, human rights are universal, indivisible, and interdependent and interrelated. The violation results in the Refugee Gap, which calls for crafting remedies even when the causal linkages, the prima facie evidences, sound too remote from justiciability. This thesis approached the Gap using a novel method, by means of a multidisciplinary approach. It looked at the discrete events that cause and perpetuate the Gap, and how the natural consequences are captured and synthesized, using principles and norms developed from international human rights, regional as well as domestic jurisprudence. In the short-term, even when economic and social rights are fully respected at minimum level, the Gap is ineluctable because of refugees’ endogenous vulnerabilities. In the long-term, however, the Gap is symptomatic of the States’ partial failure to respect, protect, and fulfil, the ipso facto human rights obligations. Finally, the exogenous factors which refugees have no much control over, are so powerful, that crafting remedies becomes an intricate process. Therefore, the panacea to the Gap and the full realization of refugees’ right to work, inter alia, cannot be achieved without full commitment from authorities.

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

PhD thesis

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Middlesex University

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Mugalula, J.

Identifier

oai:repository.mdx.ac.uk:87q87

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.mdx.ac.uk:87q87