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Introductory Remarks by Kate Jastram

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2021

Kate Jastram*
Affiliation:
University of California Hastings College of Law.

Extract

Some governments, including but not limited to the United States, are taking ever more draconian measures to prevent asylum seekers from gaining access to territory and status determination procedures. An unknown number die in the attempt to reach safety. Asylum seekers who are intercepted at sea and even those who succeed in reaching a land border may simply be turned back. If allowed to present a claim, they may face detention, family separation, criminal prosecution, and/or bars to eligibility for refugee status based on their lack of documentation, irregular entry, or other supposed legal fault, such as failure to apply for asylum in another country. In opposing policies that criminalize seeking asylum and in defending individual asylum seekers, attorneys have pointed to Article 31 of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which, subject to certain limitations, prohibits states from imposing penalties on refugees on account of their illegal entry or presence.

Type
Imprisoning Schindler: Responding to the Legal Vulnerability of Those Who Aid Refugees
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The American Society of International Law.

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Footnotes

This panel was convened at 2:15 p.m., Thursday, June 25, 2020, by its moderator Kate Jastram of the University of California Hastings College of Law, who introduced the panelists: Gregory Kuykendall of Kuykendall Law LLP; Obiora Okafor of Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto, Canada; and Frances Webber of the Institute of Race Relations.