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"After the Second World War, human rights law became entrenched in legal discourse as demonstrated by a proliferation of human rights treaties. While the right of asylum was recognized as a fundamental right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it has never been an absolute right but instead has been restricted in various ways — most significantly, that asylum should not be conferred on criminals and that refugees with a criminal background could be removed from the country of refuge. Exclusion and Refoulement: Criminality in International and Domestic Refugee Law examines the legislative instruments at the international and domestic levels as well as the extensive jurisprudence emanating from these instruments, which has attempted to balance the right of asylum for an individual versus the state of refugee to restrict this right in situations of criminality."--

This article will discuss the relationship between International Criminal Law (ICL) and refugee law. The emphasis will be on the interplay between concepts developed in ICL with respect to war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as the notion of extended liability on one hand and the exclusion provision in the 1951 Refugee Convention (Refugee Convention) on the other.

The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (&ldquo ; Refugee Convention&rdquo ; ) defines &lsquo ; persecution&rsquo ; based on five enumerated grounds: race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, and political opinion. This list of protected groups has not changed in the nearly 70 years since its inception, although the political and social context that gave rise to the Refugee Convention has changed. This article examines how &lsquo ; membership in a particular social group&rsquo ; (&ldquo ; MPSG&rdquo ; ) has been interpreted, then surveys international human rights law, transnational criminal law, international humanitarian law, and international criminal law instruments to determine whether MPSG can encompass the broader protections afforded under other international law regimes. It concludes that the enumerated grounds are largely consistent with other instruments and protects, or at least has the potential to protect, many of the other categories through MPSG. However, as this ground is subject to domestic judicial interpretation and various analytical approaches taken in different countries, protection could be enhanced by amending the Refugee Convention to explicitly include additional protected groups from these other areas of international law, specifically international human rights law and international criminal law.

This article explores the international and Canadian dimensions of the crossroads between criminal law on one hand and the immigration and refugee law on the other, with special emphasis on the regulation and jurisprudence regarding criminal activities such as terrorism, organized crime, genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. In addition to examining the context of international policy and the international criminal law in this area, the article also describes in detail the Canadian case-law in relation to the sections in the Immigration Act that address these types of serious criminality, such as the admissibility provisions and the exclusion clauses. At the same time, the policy of the Canadian government is coming to grips with its international obligations when dealing with persons involved in such criminal activities. ; Cet article explore les dimensions canadiennes et internationales du carrefour où se croisent d'une part la loi criminelle, et de l'autre, la loi sur l'immigration et le droit d'asile, avec une emphase toute particulière sur les règlements et la jurisprudence concernant les activités criminelles, comme le terrorisme, la criminalité organisée, le génocide, les crimes de guerre et les crimes contre l'humanité. En sus d'un examen du contexte politique international et du droit criminel international dans ce domaine, l'article décrit aussi dans les détails la jurisprudence canadienne concernant les sections de la Loi sur l'immigration qui s'adressent à ce type de criminalité grave, telles que les provisions sur l'admissibilité et les clauses d'exclusion. Par la même occasion, l'article discute de la politique du gouvernement canadien face à ses obligations internationales en ce qu'il s'agit de personnes impliquées dans de telles activités criminelles.