Deborah Anker

International Human Rights and us Refugee Law: Synergies and Contradictions

The relationship of the United States (us) to international human rights law appears paradoxical. On the one hand, the us was a leader in the international human rights movement born in the immediate aftermath of World War ii. On the other, the us has generally eschewed ratifying major instruments of international human rights law. Yet refugee law is one field in which this apparent distancing from international human rights law on the part of the us is not so evident.1 Indeed, the United States ratified the United Nations refugee law treaty, the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (albeit belatedly),2 and incorporated key provisions of that treaty into domestic law in 1980.3 Moreover, over the past 35 years, the United States has developed a rich body of refugee law that at times – including in Supreme Court decisions and key federal court decisions – has explicitly recognized refugee law’s international legal origins. Despite some ambivalence on the point, the United States sees itself as nation of immigrants and especially as a place of refuge for the persecuted.4 However, paradoxes remain. Thus, for example, even after incorporating the Refugee Convention through its 1980 Refugee Act, the us generally has not participated, as have many other States parties, in the transnationalised refugee