Excluding Justice: The Dangerous Intersection between Refugee Claims, Criminal Law, and ‘Guilty’ Asylum Seekers

摘要

The 1951 Refugee Convention contains an ‘exclusion clause’ stipulating that individuals who have committed certain serious crimes – including war crimes and crimes against humanity – are not entitled to the protections associated with being a legal refugee. Each time the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) or a resettlement country conducts an evaluation to determine whether an asylum seeker meets the convention criteria, the exclusion provision is considered.