Abstract

The words of Dr. Chaim Azriel Weizmann, who became the first president of Israel, best illustrate the situation of refugees today. He said that during the Second World War, “the world was divided into two parts: those places where Jews could not live and those where they could not enter.” Today’s world seems to be dividing into places that refugees cannot reach and places that refugees cannot be protected. On the one hand, countries with judicial systems that could guarantee a fair refugee status determination process have built up barriers that make it nearly impossible for refugees to reach their shores and thus access their judicial systems. On the other hand, in countries that refugees can reach, their rights are often violated by non-compliance with the obligations established by the 1951 Refugee Convention, including its non-derogable clauses providing for non-refoulement. This book suggests that the creation of an enforcement mechanism for the 1951 Refugee Convention would contribute to the improvement of refugee law and would begin to help solve the current crisis faced by the refugee protection regime.