Reworking the Relationship between Asylum and Employment

This book examines the extent to which the right to work for refugees and asylum-seekers is protected by international human rights law. Work is central to durable solutions for refugees — whether the solution is repatriation to the country of origin, local integration in a country of first asylum or resettlement in a third country. However, it is almost taboo to speak about the economic aspect of refugee-hood because governments often seek to discredit asylum-seekers as mere ‘economic migrants’. Frequently, governments in developing countries deny even recognized refugees the right to work on the basis that they fear they cannot integrate refugees. In developed countries, asylum-seekers are often denied the right to work because it is feared that permission to work will stimulate abuse of the asylum system by economic migrants. This book examines the legal position looking at the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as well as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
The book also considers whether countries are prevented under customary international law and its prohibition against torture, and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, from consigning refugees and asylum-seekers to destitution through discriminatory denial of the rights to social support and work. The book argues that both refugees and asylum-seekers have the human right to work, and situates the law in the context of broader economic, philosophical and political debates about sovereign control of immigration and the right to work.

Author Biography

Penelope Mathew is the Visiting Professor and Interim Director, of the Program in Refugee and Asylum Law, at the University of Michigan, USA and the incoming Freilich Foundation Chair at the Australian National University, Australia.