Briefing to the 59th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights
Asylum Seekers and Refugees
The Commission on Human Rights has not focused specifically on the human rights of asylum seekers and refugees, except as a part of its work on the human rights of non-nationals more generally. Human Rights Watch and others have consistently documented widespread and egregious human rights abuses that asylum seekers and refugees regularly face, often because governments do not recognize that they must be guaranteed rights under international human rights law as well as the 1951 Refugee Convention. We believe it is essential that the Commission adopt a specific resolution affirming the human rights of refugees and asylum seekers.
Throughout the world, asylum seekers and refugees have been arbitrarily arrested and detained. Some have been subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in detention. Human Rights Watch has documented the prolonged and arbitrary detention of asylum seekers (including those rejected from refugee status) as well as refugees in harsh and unacceptable conditions. Asylum seekers are often given inadequate access to legal representation and information pertaining to refugee determination processes. In some cases, the security of asylum seekers and refugees, particularly women and children, is not adequately safeguarded and governments and intergovernmental agencies fail to protect them from abuse, including by private actors. Finally, the rights of refugees to freedom of association and expression are sometimes infringed upon arbitrarily.
Asylum seekers and refugees, like all human beings, should not be subject to discrimination and should be treated equally before the law. However, governments have imposed entry policies, asylum determination procedures, and treatment in host countries that are discriminatory against refugees of particular nationalities or ethnicities. Discriminatory status determination procedures raise serious concerns about the rights of rejected asylum seekers, including the risk of their refoulement. Human Rights Watch has documented situations in which police have harassed specific ethnic groups or nationalities of asylum seekers and refugees, even when such individuals have permission to remain in a particular country.
The economic, social and cultural rights of refugees and asylum seekers have been curtailed by governmental policies of restricted access to social services and income support. Sometimes governmental policies violating economic and social rights are linked to violations of refugees' civil and political rights. For example, in some countries, refugee children are unable to access education in the country in which they live because their freedom of movement rights are not respected. Other refugees are unable to access employment because of temporary and/or restricted visa status.
The Commission on Human Rights should adopt a resolution that would:
- Recognize that all persons, including refugees and asylum seekers, are entitled to human rights and fundamental freedoms without distinction of any kind, as set forth in Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
- Urge states to end the arbitrary arrest and arbitrary and prolonged detention of refugees and asylum seekers, including those rejected.
- Recognize that asylum seekers and refugees have a right to be protected from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and call on all governments to take all measures necessary to prevent such violations.
- Recognize the particular vulnerability of refugee and asylum seeker populations and reaffirm their right to enjoy equality before the law and the equal protection of the law without discrimination, in accordance with Article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
- Reiterate that refugees have the right to engage in employment and to education, in accordance with the 1951 Refugee Convention, and that refugees have freedom of movement rights, and rights to expression and to assembly that are subject only to lawful limitations in accordance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
- Emphasize the right of everyone to be free to leave any country, including his or her own as enshrined in Article 12 (2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as the right to seek and enjoy asylum as stated in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
- Reaffirm the duty of states to ensure the observance of the principle of non-refoulement recognized in Article 33 of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and in Article 3 of the Convention against Torture.
February 27, 2003
BACK: Human Rights Watch and the United Nations
