Exclusion and Refoulement

After the Second World War, human rights law became entrenched in legal discourse as demonstrated by a proliferation of human rights treaties. While the right of asylum was recognized as a fundamental right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it has never been an absolute right but instead has been restricted in various ways -- most significantly, that asylum should not be conferred on criminals and that refugees with a criminal background could be removed from the country of refuge.

Exclusion and Refoulement: Criminality in International and Domestic Refugee Law examines the legislative instruments at the international and domestic levels as well as the extensive jurisprudence emanating from these instruments, which has attempted to balance the right of asylum for an individual versus the state of refuge to restrict this right in situations of criminality.