보편적 난민법치에 대한 연구: 미국 법원판례를 중심으로

Abstract

The 1951 Refugee Convention provides that a refugee is someone who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country." Refugees have no protection from their own state - indeed it is often their own government that is threatening to persecute them. If other countries do not let them in, and do not help them once they are in, then they may be condemning them to death - or to an intolerable life in the shadows, without sustenance and without rights. Owing to this strange situation, asylum and refugee status are special legal protections available to person who have left their home country for their own safety and are afraid to return. The practice of granting asylum to people fleeing persecution in foreign lands is one of the earliest hallmarks of civilization. Protecting refugees was made the core mandate of the UN refugee agency, which was set up to look after refugees. The UNHCR has offered protection and assistance to tens of millions of refugees. There are two kinds of refugee admission process. One is asylum process and the other is ordinary refuge process. And then what's the difference between asylum and refugee status under U.S. immigration laws? Under the U.S.A law, people outside of the United States must apply for refugee status. On the contrary people who have already made it to the United States border or the interior (perhaps by using a visa or by entering illegally) can apply for asylum status. Once granted, both statuses allow them to stay in the United States indefinitely. Asylees and refugees are given permission to work and are allowed to apply for a green card (within one year of either entering the United States as a refugee or being approved for asylum). However, determining eligibility and applying for asylum or refugee status isn't easy. The U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement(ORR) provides new populations with the opportunity to maximize their potential in the United States. The U.S.A's refugee process is one of the most exemplary system controled by due process of law. Mean while, as one of the Republic of Korea’s response to the refugee issues, the Congress of Korea legislated a new law which was named the Refugee Act which will be executed from july 1, 2013. The Refugee Act is intended to make it easier for the Republic of Korea to assist refugees by providing international standard decision and support, during and after the final decision for the status. For the successful implementation of this law, especially lessons from the U.S.A refugee decision cases is very useful. From all these points of view, this paper examines the right and needed refuge decision process for corresponding to due process of law. Actually, the aim of this work is to enhance and emphasis the necessity of the establishment of a standard refugee decision principle and process in the Republic of Korea. For this purpose, this paper analyzes the U.S.A refugee decision process and model cases by the U.S.A court under the international refugee convention.