Open AccessSafe Places and Unsafe Places:Geography and the 1996 Asylum and Immigration Act in the United Kingdom
Author(s) -
Allen White
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
refuge
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.485
H-Index - 22
eISSN - 1920-7336
pISSN - 0229-5113
DOI - 10.25071/1920-7336.21994
Subject(s) - refugee , refugee law , immigration , law , convention , international law , political science , geopolitics , immigration law , universalism , appeal , principle of legality , sociology , politics
Over the last decade and a half the internationalrefugee régime, as enshrined bythe 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocolhas come under sustained attack in westernstates. This is because of implicit assumptionsabout the universalism of therefugee identity and the rootedness ofnational identities by the framers, draftersand subsequent commentators on internationalrefugee law (see Malkki1992, and Hyndman 1998). Criticalapproaches to international refugee lawhave sufered from underdeveloped ideasabout space and about the relationshipbetween geography and law. In this paperI point to geographical and geopoliticalassumptions and thinking that lies behindthe passage and enforcement of acceleratedasylum determination andappeal procedures in the United Kingdom.I conclude by suggesting how themoral landscape of refugee and asylumlaw might be re-oriented to stress connectionsbetween the United Kingdom andpersecuted and oppressed peoples ratherthan stress the protection of the UK'sboundaries.