Page 45 - KDU Law Journal Volume 4 Issue 2
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KDU Law Journal                                  Volume 04 Issue II
                                                               September, 2024
              International Refugee Laws
              Historically, the League of Nations in the  interwar  period made
              some efforts to respond to the situation of refugees first, introducing
              the passport of Nansen for stateless persons.  However, the current
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              system of refugee protection can be attributed to be formed post 1945
              and officially the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
              (UNHCR) was mandated and launched in the year 1950 to take the
              leadership role in the global cooperation for protection of refugees and
              to provide global solution to refugee problems.  In the past decades,
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              such instruments as the 1969 OAU Convention on Refugee Problems
              in  Africa and the 1984 Cartagena Declaration on Refugees have
              broadened the idea and the list of the means of protection for refugees
              conforming to regional peculiarities.

              Apart from the above, following international refugee laws act as
              essential apparatus for preserving the people escaping persecution,
              conflict, and violence in their route to becoming refugees. In the first
              place, the legal system operates on the basis of the 1951 Refugee
              Convention and its 1967 Protocol that lays the foundation of legal
              procedures in the refugee rights and responsibilities.
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              Definition and Scope
              The main element of the international refugee laws is the definition
              of a refugee contained in the 1951 Refugee Convention. Under this
              definition, a refugee is a refugee as a person who “owing to well-
              founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion,
              nationality, membership of a particular social group or political
              opinion, is outside the country of their nationality and is unable or,
              owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail themself of the protection

              2  David James Cantor, ‘Reframing Relationships: Revisiting the Procedural Standards for
              Refugee Status Determination in Light of Recent Human Rights Treaty Body Jurisprudence’,
              (34(1), Refugee Survey Quarterly, 2015) 79-111.
              3  Erika Feller at el, Refugee Protection in International Law: UNHCR’s Global Consultations
              on International Protection (Cambridge University Press 2003) 62-84
              4  James Hathaway, The Rights of Refugees under International Law (Cambridge University
              Press 2005) 150-178.
               law.faculty@kdu.ac.lk
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