Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2000
ISSN
1386-1972
Publisher
Brill Academic Publishers
Language
en-US
Abstract
Palestinian refugees have a status that is unique under international refugee law. Unlike any other group or category of refugees in the world, Palestinians are singled out for exceptional treatment in the major international legal instruments which govern the rights and obligations of states towards refugees: the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol; the Statute of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; and, specifically with regard to the Palestinians, the Regulations governing the mandate of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East. Almost all states and international entities have interpreted the relevant provisions in these instruments as severely restricting the rights of Palestinian refugees qua refugees in comparison to the rights guaranteed every other refugee group in the world. As a result, Palestinian refugees have been treated as ineligible for the most basic protection rights guaranteed under international law to refugees in general, further exacerbating the precarious international legal guarantees that international human rights and humanitarian law currently extends to this population.
A number of refugee law advocates and academics have been examining the interpretation of these international refugee law provisions, and have come to the conclusion that the prevalent interpretations are grossly in error. Professor Guy Goodwin-Gill at the University of Oxford and Associate Professor Susan M. Akram at Boston University School of Law, have submitted their interpretation of the applicable international legal provisions to Palestinian refugees in a brief amicus curiae to the United States Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) in several Palestinian cases. [The BIA is the highest appellate body in the administrative system governing immigration decisions in the United States, including decisions concerning refugees and asylum-seekers]. The brief argues that, taking into account the plain language, drafting history, actual historical context and appropriate canons of treaty construction, the actual intent of the interrelated provisions governing the legal status of Palestinian refugees was to provide them with greater protection than that afforded all other refugees in the world, rather than the least protection which they receive under the current regime.
Recommended Citation
Guy Goodwin-Gill & Susan M. Akram,
Forward to Amicus Brief on the Status of Palestinian Refugees Under International Refugee Law
,
11
Palestine Yearbook of International Law
185
(2000).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/1557
