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CONCLUSION
Non-refoulement
principle. A short phrase that has the power to save lives. Its
importance has grown in the last couple of months for theMember States of the European
Union, and also for the Czech Republic, following the mass influx of persons that began
in the year 2015, at the time when we were finishing this publication. Therefore, it is
useful to do a short reflection of the current situation from the point of view of this
phenomenon and its application for the states’ maritime borders.
While researching the principle we went back to its definition in refugee law, thus
to the roots of the legal regulations. The role of
non-refoulement
is crucial- it is the
only obligation that is imposed upon states by universal refugee law. The Convention
on the Status of Refugees imposes upon states a duty not to return a refugee to the
borders of a territory where his or her life or freedom would be endangered for reasons
stated in the definition of the term ‘refugee’. Other obligations are dependent on
situations when states let a person stay on their territory either voluntarily or because
they cannot return the person to a different state. In these scenarios, the refugee is
entitled to the benefits stemming from the Convention such as the possibility to enter
the labor market, access to courts, access of children to schools, and the possibility to
conduct business. The Convention itself does not oblige the states to grant refugee
status. Therefore, the refugee after leaving his or her home country does not know
whether and where he or she will receive protection. That is in fact in the hands of the
states. Even though it is obvious from the Preamble of the Convention that it would
be appropriate for states to share their burden voluntarily which otherwise lies on
the shoulders only of those states that neighbor the home countries of the refugees,
it was not embodied into any normative wording. In history the states succeeded in
adequately responding to the mass influx of persons from Hungary in the year 1956
when around 200 000 refugees came to Austria over a couple of weeks. Almost
100 000 of them were transferred to other countries over the following couple weeks.
Such a positive approach has not however been common in recent decades. Refugees
usually stay in the countries of their region either because they want to or because there
is no chance to go somewhere else. On the other hand, some of them try to leave to
different countries and especially the more economically developed countries look for
ways to prevent their arrival.
Therefore, the system of the protection of refugees based on the principle of non-
refoulement is not only unjust towards states but it is also not possible to accept it
as favorable to refugees. The law makes it practically possible for states to leave the
weight of the big numbers of persons on the states that are bordering countries to
the ones that the refugees come from. If there is only one obligation to not return the
refugees back to danger, there is no doubt that many states will use this literally when
needed. The European legislation explicitly allows for this approach in its provisions
on the safe third countries or the safe countries of origin, and even though there are