CONCEPTUALISING REFUGEE RIGHTS THROUGH HUMAN RIGHT PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

For too long, the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees has been treated as a piece of international legislation that could only be interpreted according to its own internal logic and objectives in isolation from international human rights law. This article will show how it is no longer possible to interpret or apply the Refugee Convention without drawing on the text and jurisprudence of other human rights treaties. Conversely, it is not possible to monitor the implementation of other human rights treaties, where refugees are concerned, without drawing on the text of the Refugee Convention and related interpretive conclusions of the UNHCR Executive Committee (EXCOM Conclusions), agreed to by States and introduced below.

The 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties makes clear that interpretation is to be based on the ordinary meaning of the text in the context of the whole treaty including its purpose and in the juridical context of subsequent agreements by States Parties. Subsequent agreement includes texts of human rights treaties and related jurisprudence. Consequently, the International Court of Justice, which can interpret the Refugee Convention, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights which can interpret human rights treaties in the Americas, have pointed out in case-laws that a treaty is to be interpreted in its current juridical context. Other human rights treaties are part of that juridical context. In exploring the Refugee Convention, this article will draw both on its text and own context and on the relevant provisions of subsequent human rights treaties and related international jurisprudence.