Reforming the Refugee Regime

Essay from the year 2012 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Peace and Conflict Studies, Security, Seattle Pacific University, language: English, abstract: The Refugee Regime centers on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as the primary agency, and around the Convention (1951) and Protocol (1967) on the Status of Refugees as foundational legal documents (Keely, 2001: 304). Despite this existing legal framework, political refugees continue to be one of the most under-protected and legally mishandled groups of people especially in third world countries and other environments where the political climate is not always as stable as in developed nations. There needs to be a more efficient and effective set of international human rights law put into place in order to ensure political refugees all over the world are taken care of and protected by the international community efficiently and quickly. This paper will first delineate the existing legal context and institutional framework for refugee protection. Then, I will provide a brief review of relevant scholarship pertaining to refugee studies. Finally, I will argue that the existing Refugee Regime must be fundamentally updated and clarified in order to respond to the changing identity and needs of refugees.