International Refugee Law The 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention spells out the rights of refugees and the obligation of states towards them. It stemmed from the realization, after the Second World War, that states could help citizens persecuted in other countries by offering them protection. Article 33 of the Convention develops the notion of refoulement: it states that “no Contracting State shall expel or return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of a territory where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion”. The UNHCR has been the leading agency with regard to refugee issues. During the past 50 years it has promoted three main ways to protect refugees: firstly through voluntary repatriation; secondly through local settlement; and finally through third country resettlement. All these policies have taken exile as their starting point. The notion of non-refoulement is central to refugee protection and is the basis of asylum policy. A state is obliged, under international law, to accept within its borders refugees in need of protection and thus to grant them asylum. This has been the main protection ‘tool’ used since the establishment of the Convention. However, in recent years, governments in ‘third countries’ have tended to shy away from their legal duty. Northern countries, who have in the past granted refugees permanent status, have withdrawn from their obligation. Largely due to the political cost linked to high immigration rates, governments have started perceiving asylum policy as a ‘back-door’ to immigration. The current system of protection for refugees is thus under threat. Asylum policy as the main method to protect refugees is weakened by the fact that states are less willing to accept refugees within their borders. Furthermore, the current understanding of who a refugee is and thus who should receive protection is very restrictive within the framework of the 1951 Convention, thus excluding many people from their protection. For example, people suffering from non-state persecution are not taken to be eligible for refugee status and thus for protection. In the same context one could highlight the situation of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), “persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular, as a result of, or in order to avoid the effects of, armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized state border”. IDPs are not eligible for refugee protection status because they have not crossed an international border due to distance from frontiers, increasing restrictions or simply by choice of staying close to their roots and culture. Nonetheless, IDPs represent 20 to 25 million people (twice as many as there are refugees), and thus a significant proportion of people do not receive protection under the current asylum regime. These people are denied the right citizens have to be protected by their governments - just like refugees - and thus their protection should be of the highest priority. Current asylum policy undeniably saves countless lives. However, due to increasing reluctance from governments to open their frontiers it is clear that this present policy cannot deal with massive influx of refugees nor does it help protect individuals ‘stuck’ in their countries. It is largely due to this context that the idea of the ‘right to remain’ has emerged. The UNHCR developed the idea that refugee movements could be averted if action was taken to reduce the threats which force people to leave their country. The policy of safe havens that was implemented in different countries throughout the 1990s is an outcome of this new way of thinking. Critics have argued that this new policy has merely been a way to legitimize non-entrée policies of the North and has not offered effective protection compared to that offered by the asylum policies. Nonetheless in the light of the limitations of the asylum policy it is very relevant to evaluate the role safe havens could play as a parallel policy in dealing with the sheer number of people in situations of peril and the need of the IDPs. | 
