A More Promising Promised Land: Israel Copes With an Influx of Asylum Seekers by Implementing the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol

Aliyah M. Phillips, American University Washington College of Law

Abstract

This Comment addresses the State of Israel’s most recent actions in coping with a mass influx of African asylum seekers, and whether those actions represent compliance with the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (“1951 Convention”), and the 1967 Protocol. Past scholarship has criticized Israel’s response to the influx, focusing on a lack of compliance. By examining Israel’s most recent practices with regard to asylum seekers, this Comment takes a novel and nuanced approach to identifying Israel’s compliance with the 1951 Convention. The argument set forth in this Comment operates from the presumption that a state’s compliance with the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol is not a black and white matter. Rather, by adopting practices relating to asylum seekers within their borders, States place themselves along a continuum of compliance; each practice adopted can thus influence a state’s place along that continuum of compliance. It is with this understanding of compliance that this Comment explores Israel’s progress along the continuum of compliance.