International law of refugees - a subset of international human rights law

Abstract

International refugee law is concerned with refugee status through the framework and limits of the 1951 Refugee Convention, it is nevertheless strongly interrelated with international human rights law. Whilst application of human rights can be enjoyed by every human being, the benefits of refugee status are dependent on the predicament of persons need protection as based on the five grounds expressed in the definition of a refugee. The proliferation of the number of cases are going through the human rights courts, inevitably, had an impact on the application of the 1951 Refugee Convention through extending the definition of a refugee as an interpretation of its provisions. Therefore, the complementary and supplementary functions of international human rights law create the basis for full implementation of international refugee law. Although these two branches of international law are distinct from each other, both have common ground in terms of the protection of human beings, though through their own distinct approaches. It appears that the acceptance of refugee law within the basis of human rights law is as a subset of the latter, but with that the provision of the specific protection of refugees as a ‘first aid’ in some senses.