Refugee camps: in pursuit of a legal definition and the delimitation of States’ obligations
Resumo
In its Policy on Alternatives to Camps, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (hereinafter UNHCR) estimated that about 40% of all refugees lived in camps in at the time that document was issued. Although millions of other refugees have settled in formal and informal arrangements in both urban and rural areas, encampment remains a reality especially when other alternatives are not feasible. In the absence of a specific universal regulation on refugee camps, this paper makes reference to existing international human rights rules, which are applicable to every individual subject to the jurisdiction of a State regardless of their place of residence or legal status, including asylum-seekers and refugees. The proposals made here also find support in the “normative interaction” among refugee law, human rights and humanitarian law. In particular, several arguments presented in this paper will be based on the recognized interplay between refugee law and human rights, especially considering that “human rights law fulfills the central function of filling the gaps in protection left by humanitarian and refugee law”. In the second chapter, I will analyze previous formulations concerning the notion of ‘refugee camps’. Considering, however, that such attempts do not provide for a uniform and binding legal basis with regards to these forms of settlements, in the third chapter I elaborate further on elements that would be relevant for establishing an international definition of refugee camps, and in the fourth chapter I delineate obligations that would have to be fulfilled by all host States as well as third countries under this universal definition in order to ensure the protection of camp residents. It is important to point out that the application of the proposals made in this paper could only be envisaged with regards to the establishment of future refugee camps, as it would not be practically feasible to expect the several distinct types of existing settlements to adapt their framework to a new uniform definition.
Referências
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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