International order, the rule of law, and US departures from refugee protection

ABSTRACT

Compliance with international human rights norms and respect for the rule of law are mutually sustaining pillars of a liberal international order. State behaviours undermining customary and jus cogens legal norms are exceptionally disruptive to possibilities of global justice. This article posits that non-refoulement and a responsibility to protect refugees are connected to universally binding and peremptory norms in important ways such that state violations of these principles undermine the premises of international legal order. The article focuses on US norm violations in these areas, contextualising policy changes under the Trump administration within previous US departures from refugee protection principles. Given the position of the United States as a hegemonic and democratic actor in the international system, the article argues that US actions contra non-refoulement and efforts to shirk refugee responsibility-sharing in the wake of jus cogens crimes are particularly damaging to the foundations of global human rights governance and attendant notions of legitimacy and the rule of law.

KEYWORDS:

• Peremptory norms
• rule of law
• refugees
• non-refoulement
• Responsibility to Protect
• United States

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Alise Coen received her PhD from the University of Delaware in Political Science and International Relations. She is currently Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Sheboygan. Her research explores connections among global governance, humanitarian displacement crises, international human rights norms, and U.S. foreign policy. Her work has appeared in Ethics & International Affairs, Politics & Religion, Global Change, Peace & Security, and The International Journal of Human Rights.

ORCID

Alise Coen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5239-3358

Notes

1 For a summary of these perspectives see Constance Duncombe and Tim Dunne, ‘After Liberal World Order’, International Affairs 94, no. 1 (2018): 25–42.

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5 UN Report of the Secretary-General, ‘The Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies’ (23 August 2004) S/2004/616, 4, http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2004/616 (accessed October 30, 2017).

6 Thomas Risse and Stephen C. Ropp, ‘Introduction and Overview’, Ch. 1 in The Persistent Power of Human Rights: From Commitment to Compliance, ed. Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp, and Kathryn Sikkink (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 3–25, 18.

7 ‘2005 World Summit Outcome’, United Nations General Assembly A/RES/60/1 (24 October 2005), 27–29, https://www.un.org/ruleoflaw/files/2005%20World%20Summit%20Outcome.pdf (accessed January 7, 2018), para. 119.

8 See the working definition developed by the World Justice Project, https://worldjusticeproject.org/about-us/overview/what-rule-law (accessed 14 January 2018).

9 David P. Forsythe, Human Rights in International Relations (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 18.

10 Michael J. Mazarr et al., Measuring the Health of the Liberal International Order (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2017), xii.

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16 Larry May, Global Justice and Due Process (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 120–21.

17 William E. Conklin, ‘The Peremptory Norms of the International Community’, European Journal of International Law 23, no. 3 (2012): 837–61, 847.

18 David Armstrong, Theo Farrell and Helene Lambert, International Law and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 214.

19 Peter Sutch, ‘Normative IR Theory and the Legalization of International Politics: The Dictates of Humanity and of the Public Conscience as a Vehicle for Global Justice’, Journal of International Political Theory 8, no. 1–2 (2012): 1–24, 14.

20 Colin Harvey, ‘Time for Reform? Refugees, Asylum-Seekers, and Protection Under International Human Rights Law’, Refugee Survey Quarterly 34, no. 1 (2015): 43–60, 46.

21 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees, Refugee Protection in International Law: UNHCR’s Global Consultations International Protection (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 150.

22 See Chantal Marie-Jeanne Bostock, ‘The International Legal Obligations Owed to the Asylum Seekers on the MV Tampa’, International Journal of Refugee Law 14, no. 2/3 (2002): 279–301; and Alice Edwards, ‘Temporary Protection, Derogation and the 1951 Refugee Convention’, Melbourne Journal of International Law 13, no. 2 (2012): 595–635.

23 See, for example, Jean Allain, ‘The Jus Cogens Nature of Non-Refoulement’, International Journal of Refugee Law 13, no. 4 (2002): 533–58; Erika de Wet, ‘The Prohibition of Torture as an International Norm of Jus Cogens and Its Implications for National and Customary Law’, European Journal of International Law 15, no. 1 (2004): 97–121; and Sigit Riyanto, ‘The Refoulement Principle and Its Relevance in the International Law System’, Indonesia Journal of International Law 7, no. 4 (2010): 695–715.

24 Allain, ‘Jus Cogens Nature of Non-Refoulement’, 539.

25 ‘Cartagena Declaration on Refugees, Colloquium on the International Protection of Refugees in Central America, Mexico and Panama’ (November 1984), Section III, https://www.oas.org/dil/1984_cartagena_declaration_on_refugees.pdf (accessed 29 October 2017); and ‘Brazil Declaration: A Framework for Cooperation and Regional Solidarity to Strengthen the International Protection of Refugees, Displaced and Stateless Persons in Latin America and the Caribbean’ (3 December 2014), 2, http://www.acnur.org/t3/fileadmin/Documentos/BDL/2014/9865.pdf (accessed 29 October 2017).

26 UNHCR, Refugee Protection in International Law, 155.

27 Rene Bruin and Kees Wouters, ‘Terrorism and the Non-Derogability of Non-Refoulement’, International Journal of Refugee Law 15, no. 1 (2003): 5–29, 25.

28 Sylvie Da Lomba, The Right to Seek Refugee Status in the European Union (Oxford: Intersentia, 2004), 7.

29 UNHCR, Refugee Protection in International Law, 150.

30 Aoife Duffy, ‘Expulsion to Face Torture? Non-Refoulement in International Law’, International Journal of Refugee Law 20, no. 3 (2008): 373–90, 390.

31 See Alice Farmer, ‘Non-Refoulement and Jus Cogens: Limiting Anti-Terror Measures that Threaten Refugee Protection’, Georgetown Immigration Law Journal 23, no. 1 (2008): 1–38; and Shirley Llain Arenilla, ‘Violations to the Principle of Non-Refoulement Under the Asylum Policy of the United States’, Anuario Mexicano de Derecho Internacional XV (2015): 283–322, 288.

32 Guy S. Goodwin-Gill, ‘The Right to Seek Asylum: Interception at Sea and the Principle of Non-Refoulement’, International Journal of Refugee Law 23, no. 3 (2011): 443–57, 445.

33 ‘2005 World Summit Outcome’, para. 139.

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35 Jennifer M. Welsh, ‘Norm Contestation and the Responsibility to Protect’, Global Responsibility to Protect 5 (2013): 365–96, 366.

36 See Brian Barbour and Brian Gorlick, ‘Embracing the “Responsibility to Protect”: A Repertoire of Measures Including Asylum for Potential Victims’, International Journal of Refugee Law 20, no. 4 (2008): 533–66; Alise Coen, ‘R2P, Global Governance, and the Syrian Refugee Crisis’, International Journal of Human Rights 19, no. 8 (2015): 1044–58; Chloë Gilgan, ‘Exploring the Link between R2P and Refugee Protection: Arriving at Resettlement’, Global Responsibility to Protect 9, no. 4 (2017): 366–94; and Jason Ralph and James Souter, ‘A Special Responsibility to Protect: the UK, Australia and the Rise of Islamic State’, International Affairs 91, no. 4 (2015): 709–23.

37 Barbour and Gorlick, ‘Embracing the “Responsibility to Protect”’, 541; and Sonja Grover, ‘R2P and the Syrian Crisis: When Semantics Becomes a Matter of Life or Death’, The International Journal of Human Rights 19, no. 8 (2015): 1112–28, 1125.

38 Luke Glanville, ‘The Responsibility to Protect Beyond Borders’, Human Rights Law Review 12, no. 1 (2012): 1–32, 27.

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40 See Luara Ferracioli, ‘The Appeal and Danger of a New Refugee Convention’, Social Theory and Practice 40, no. 1 (2014): 123–44; and Matthew J. Gibney, ‘Refugees and Justice between States’, European Journal of Political Theory 14, no. 4 (2015): 448–63.

41 Gabriela Baczynska, ‘EU Proposes Scheme to Share Out Asylum Seekers’, Reuters (4 May 2016), https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-eu-asylum/eu-proposes-scheme-to-share-out-asylum-seekers-idUSKCN0XV13G (accessed 7 January 2018).

42 See Michael Barutciski and Astri Suhrke, ‘Lessons from the Kosovo Refugee Crisis: Innovations in Protection and Burden-Sharing’, Journal of Refugee Studies 14, no. 2 (2001): 95–134; James Souter, ‘Towards a Theory of Asylum as Reparation for Past Injustice’, Political Studies 62, no. 2 (2014): 326–42; Ralph and Souter, ‘A Special Responsibility to Protect’; and Alise Coen, 'Capable and Culpable? The United States, RtoP, and Refugee Responsibility-Sharing', Ethics and International Affairs 31, no. 1 (2017): 71–92

43 Ikenberry, ‘Future of Liberal World Order’, 451.

44 Nicolas Guilhot, Democracy Makers: Human Rights and International Order (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 19.

45 Kathryn Sikkink, ‘The United States and Torture: Does the Spiral Model Work?’ Ch. 8 in The Persistent Power of Human Rights: From Commitment to Compliance, ed. Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp, and Kathryn Sikkink (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 145.

46 Chris Nwachukwu Okeke and James A. R. Nafziger, ‘United States Migration Law: Essentials for Comparison’, The American Journal of Comparative Law 54 (2006): 531–52, 532.

47 Joan Fitzpatrick, ‘The International Dimension of US Refugee Law’, Berkeley Journal of International Law 15, no. 1 (1997): 1–26, 25.

48 Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, ‘International Refugee Law and Refugee Policy: The Case of Deterrence Policies’, Journal of Refugee Studies 27, no. 4 (2014): 1–22, 4.

49 ‘Legal Obligations of the United States Under Article 33 of the Refugee Convention’, The United States Department of Justice (12 December 1991), https://www.justice.gov/file/23326/download (accessed 1 November 2017), 87.

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52 ‘Beyond Detention: A Global Strategy to Support Governments to End the Detention of Asylum-Seekers and Refugees, Progress Report’, UNHCR (18 August 2016), 82, http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/protection/detention/57b579e47/unhcr-global-strategy-beyond-detention-progress-report.html (accessed 22 November 2017).

53 Alice Edwards, ‘The Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and the Detention of Refugees’, The International and Comparative Law Quarterly 57, no. 4 (2008): 789–825, 790.

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56 Celia Medrano, ‘Securing Protection for De Facto Refugees: The Case of Central America’s Northern Triangle’, Ethics & International Affairs 31, no. 2 (2017): 129–42, 129.

57 Ediberto Román, Those Damned Immigrants: America’s Hysteria over Undocumented Immigration (New York and London: New York University Press, 2013), 33.

58 David R. Roediger, Working Toward Whiteness: How America’s Immigrants Became White (New York: Basic Books, 2005), 207.

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61 Fiona de Londras, ‘Can Counter-Terrorist Internment Ever be Legitimate?’, Human Rights Quarterly 33, no. 3 (2011): 593–619, 607.

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66 Hathaway, ‘Refugees and Asylum’, 190.

67 ‘Executive Order Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States’, The White House (27 January 2017), https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-protecting-nation-foreign-terrorist-entry-united-states/ (accessed 4 November 2017). Note that the order was revised several times over the course of 2017 amid evolving legal challenges and court interpretations.

68 Goodwin-Gill, ‘Right to Seek Asylum’, 445.

69 Meg Satterthwaite and Alexander Zetes, ‘Explainer on the Legal Obligation Not to Return Refugees and How Trump’s Exec Order Breaks It’, Just Security (4 February 2017), https://www.justsecurity.org/37305/explainer-legal-obligation-return-refugees-trumps-executive-order-breaks/ (accessed 4 November 2017).

70 Rottman, ‘Path to Asylum in the US’, 7.

71 See Nick Cumming-Bruce, ‘ISIS Committed Genocide against Yazidis in Syria and Iraq, UN Panel Says’, New York Times (16 June 2016), https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/world/middleeast/isis-genocide-yazidi-un.html (accessed 14 January 2018); and ‘These Are the Crimes We Are Fleeing’, Human Rights Watch (3 October 2017), https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/10/03/these-are-crimes-we-are-fleeing/justice-syria-swedish-and-german-courts (accessed 14 January 2018).

72 Alex J. Bellamy and Ruben Reike, ‘The Responsibility to Protect and International Law’, Global Responsibility to Protect 2, no. 3 (2010): 267–86, 276.

73 Chandra Lekha Sriram, Globalizing Justice for Mass Atrocities: A Revolution in Accountability (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), 43.

74 James C. Hathaway, ‘Executive (Dis)order and Refugees – the Trump Policy’s Blindness to International Law’, Just Security (1 February 2017), https://www.justsecurity.org/37113/executive-disorder-refugees-the-trump-policys-blindness-international-law/ (accessed 4 November 2017).

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77 Cathryn Costello and Michelle Foster, ‘Non-Refoulement as Custom and Jus Cogens? Putting the Prohibition to the Test’, in Netherlands Yearbook of International Law 2015: Jus Cogens: Quo Vadis? ed. Maarten den Heijer and Harmen van der Wilt (The Hague, Netherlands: Springer, 2016) 273–328, 315–16.

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80 Colum Lynch, ‘Trump to Cut Number of Refugees in US by More than Half’, Foreign Policy (26 September 2017), http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/09/26/trump-to-cut-number-of-refugees-in-u-s-by-more-than-half/ (accessed 19 November 2017).

81 For a discussion of US culpability-based responsibilities to protect Syrian refugees, see Coen, ‘Capable and Culpable’.

82 Krishnadev Calamur, ‘Trump’s New Refugee Policy Targets These 11 Countries’, The Atlantic (25 October 2017), https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/us-refugees-11-countries/543933/ (accessed 19 November 2017).

83 Yeganeh Torbati, ‘Under Trump Plan, Refugees from 11 Countries Face Additional US Barriers’, Reuters (24 October 2017), https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-refugees/under-trump-plan-refugees-from-11-countries-face-additional-u-s-barriers-idUSKBN1CT2IV (accessed 19 November 2017).

84 See, for example, Carlo Allegri, ‘Trump Plans New Guidelines to Speed Deportation of Asylum-Seekers: Draft Memo’, Reuters (19 February 2017), http://www.newsweek.com/trump-guidelines-speed-deportations-asylum-seekers-558520 (accessed 14 January 2018); and Conchita Cruz and Swapna Reddy, ‘Why Deportation Could Mean Death for Some Refugees’, Time (9 March 2017), http://time.com/4696017/deportation-death-refugees-asylum/ (accessed 14 January 2018).

85 Ryan Devereaux, ‘US Illegally Denying Immigrants their Right to Seek Asylum at the Mexican Border, According to Lawsuit’, The Intercept (16 November 2017), https://theintercept.com/2017/11/16/immigration-asylum-seekers-denied-border-entry-lawsuit/ (accessed 14 January 2018).

86 Clark Mindock, ‘Trump Administration Considering Family Separation Policy for Asylum Seekers’, The Independent (22 December 2017), http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-family-separation-policy-asylum-seekers-deportation-ice-a8125546.html (accessed 14 January 2018).

87 George Sørensen, Rethinking the New World Order (London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 31.

88 ‘2005 World Summit Outcome’, para. 134.

89 Costello and Foster, ‘Non-Refoulement as Custom and Jus Cogens’, 317.

90 Choi, ‘Fighting Terrorism through the Rule of Law’, 948.

91 Forsythe, Human Rights in International Relations, 10.

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93 G. John Ikenberry, Liberal Order & Imperial Ambition (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006), 190.

94 Brooks, ‘Drones and the International Rule of Law’, 98.

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96 David Armstrong, ‘Evolving Conceptions of Justice in International Law’, Review of International Studies 37, no. 5 (2011): 2121–36, 2133.