Australian Refugees

Australian Refugees

Introduction

Section 2 (1) defines convention refugee as the person who has a fear of prosecution for reasons being nationality, race, religion, or association with particular political opinion and social group. Convention refugee is the one who is outside one's country of which one's holds the nationality and because of fear is unable to protect one's country. Article 1 defines refugee to be anyone who has committed the crime against humanity and peace and have been involved in war crime. The refugee is said to have been associated with serious, non-political crime before entering into a specific country as a refugee. The refugee is one who has behaved and acted against the principles and purposes of United Nations.

Article 1 of the 1951 Convention defines 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 his nationality and is unable to enjoy the protection of that country or will not enjoy such protection of that country, or, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or unwilling to return to it owing to such fear”.

The definition identifies four dominant criteria to be met by the applicant for refugee status, as follows. First of all, the refugee must belong to another country or possess the nationality of other country from one's formal habitual residence. Second, the refugee must have a well-founded fear of persecution. Third the circumstances feared by the refugee must be related to persecution. Lastly, the fear of persecution can be based on religion, membership of social or political group, race and nationality. These criteria must be evaluated in conjunction and must be related to one another.

Some acts have their own legal weights but have not much weight and impact on the governmental decisions. Some political bodies on a global scale have acts, conclusions, resolutions and decisions for the human rights monitoring purpose. International human rights standards are strengthened by the major decisions made by international bodies related to human rights. The decisions made by international bodies can have an impact on the decision making practice of the government and states. The decision making process of human rights is known as soft law.

Article 33: Prohibition of Expulsion or Return

It is prohibited that any refugee must be returned or expelled from the contracting state to the frontier of the territories where the probability of danger of refugee's life is high. The threatening of life can be made on account of his race, belief, nationality and link with any group or political opinion. This claim cannot be made by the refugee who is still considered as a danger to the security by the country who has taken refuge in this country. The refugee can be given a final judgment by the court for committing a serious crime which constitutes the danger of security to ...