Protection Where? - or When?: First asylum, deflection policies and the significance of time

• Published in: International journal of refugee law 2009-03, Vol.21 (1), p.75-80
• Main Author: Durieux, J.-F.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Church State Relationship; Law; Norms; Political Science; Refugees; Regime Theory
• ISSN: 0953-8186; 1464-3715
• DOI: 10.1093/ijrl/een043

In a forthcoming book on 'Regimes as Practice: International Institutions & Refugee Protection', a few political scientists & at least one lawyer will attempt to bear out the claim that the international refugee regime offers a particularly useful context within which to revisit the core tenets of regime theory The analysis revolves around three dimensions of states' & international organisations' practice, namely: vertical (from the global to the local); horizontal (connecting to other issue-areas); & temporal. With regard to this last dimension, what matters is not only how the regime has evolved over time, but how it 'manages' time within any given refugee situation. This is a critical dimension indeed, given that the regime's stated ambition is to lead refugees, & the states involved in their causation or their protection, to solutions. Refugee situations are exceptional circumstances in international relations, in the same way as refugeehood is an anomaly in the relationship between state & citizen. As such, they are necessarily temporary, & the regime must, theoretically at least, constantly work itself out of relevance. To be sure, temporal connotations pervade the regime's norms & processes, from the concept of emergency through temporaly protection; first asylum; cessation of status; etc., to durable solutions. Adapted from the source document.