40 YEARS OF FORCED MIGRATIONS AND REFUGEES FLOWS IN SOUTH-EAST ASIA: A REGIONAL MODEL OR A LEGAL LIMBO?

Abstract

In the last decades Southeast Asian countries have hosted significant numbers of refugees and forcibly displaced persons. The problem of refugee flows and forced migrations is continuing to occupy a prominent place in the political agenda of these countries and represents a difficult challenge to address. However, it has been mainly addressed through an emergency approach outside any regional mechanism that would serve to define a regional approach and coordinate the response of the various States of the region. Most of them have neither acceded to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention nor to the 1967 Protocol, and the initiatives taken at a regional level reflect their traditional attitude of not interfering in the internal affairs and their reluctance to conclude binding agreements. The aim of this chapter is firstly to describe the legal framework applicable to refugee flows and forced migrations in South-Est Asia; secondly, to highlight how the management of the refugees and forcibly displaced persons over the past forty years led, and is continuing to lead, to the violation of the non-refoulement principle, and the denial of the fundamental rights that are protected by international refugee and human rights treaties.