ASYLUM AND VOLUNTARY REPATRIATION APPLIED TO THE SUB-SAHARAN AFRICAN LEGAL CONTEXT: ARE THEY TWO VIABLE SOLUTIONS FOR REFUGEES?,"

Cristiano d'orsi, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva

Abstract

This article deals with two aspects bound to the legal conditions of refugees in the African continent, namely asylum and voluntary repatriation. The first is considered like the “traditional” solution for people, either individuals or groups, obliged to flee from their own countries. On the contrary, the second is the solution traditionally invoked as the preferable one either by States or by institutions, like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees , to put an end to the precarious condition of refugees. In this work, we will also examine the principle of non-refoulement, cornerstone of the legal protection of refugees in general, and in Africa in particular, principle that seems now to have even assumed the role of peremptory norm of the international law. Analysing some practice as well, we will see how the question of the refugees in the African continent is, at least under a legal point of view, still far to be stabilized towards a spread well-being of this particular category of individuals.