Refugee Convention and the United Kingdom Essay Example for Free

Refugee Convention and the United Kingdom Essay A person who escapes tyrannical or perilous circumstances is termed as a refugee. Some of the reasons for the creation of refugees are civil disturbances, environmental disasters or war. Around three hundred thousand people obtain this status per month and comprise of women and children in the main. The United Nations requires its member states to protect such people (What are refugees? , 2005). On the 14th of December, 1950, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees of UNHCR was established by the United Nations General Assembly. Its principal objective is to afford protection to refugees and find a viable solution to their problems. Fundamentally, the UNHCR makes strenuous efforts to enable the persecuted of the world to obtain asylum and â€Å"safe refuge in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or to resettle in a third country. † (Basic Facts). Article 1A(2) of the Refugee Convention states that refugees are individuals who leave their country on account of legitimate danger of persecution due to their political opinions, nationality, race or religion and who are not in a position to obtain the protection of their country (Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. Adopted on 28 July 1951 by the United Nations Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Status of Refugees and Stateless Persons convened under General Assembly resolution 429 (V) of 14 December 1950). The Member States of the European Union exhibited quite some differences in the interpretation of this definition of refugees. It became mandatory to establish the same guidelines within the Union, in order to implement a common asylum system in the EU. Accordingly, the European Commission made a proposal in the year 2001 to the European Council, whereby the requirements for deeming a person to be a refugee were clearly described and this was in accordance with the UNHCR Refugee Convention of 1951, Article 1 of the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees, discussions of the EC with its Member States and specialized institutions dealing with refugees like the European Council on Refugees and Exiles or ECRE and the UNHCR (The European Union clarifies what it means by refugee and subsidiary protection). This proposal comprised of several goals, some of them were to ensue the existence of basic protection, in all the Member States, for persons who required international protection. Initially, the concentration was to be on reducing the differences extant in the legislation and procedures of the various Member States. After this the aim was to restrict subsequent measures adopted by persons who were taking advantage of the variance in the laws relating to the recognition of refugees in the Member States in order to obtain subsidiary protection status. Moreover, it was a major objective of this proposal to assure adequate protection for those whose needs in this regard were genuine. Furthermore, the proposal aimed to ensure that no person could take undue advantage of the process of obtaining asylum (The European Union clarifies what it means by refugee and subsidiary protection). Consequently, in April 2004 Directive 2004/83/EC was adopted and this directive prescribes the requirements for according refugee status to stateless persons or people who do not belong to Member States of the EU. In addition, this directive describes the nature and extent of the protection to be granted to all such eligible persons (The European Union clarifies what it means by refugee and subsidiary protection). The immigration rules in the United Kingdom permit the grant of asylum to a refugee, only if it is possible for that person to establish that they face certain persecution due to their ethnicity, nationality, religion or due to the political opinions that they subscribe to if they return to their country of origin. These rules are in conformity with the United Nations convention relating to the status of refugees and Article 3 of the ECHR or European Convention on Human Rights. The result of these rules is that there is an exclusion of most of the refugees who have been permitted to reside in the UK under exceptional leave (asylum, political, 2005). In the year 1999 seventy one thousand persons sought political asylum in the United Kingdom and most of these persons were Kosovar refugees from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. A few of these applicants were from Somalia, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Turkey, Iraq, Albania and China. These numbers increased to a little over a hundred thousand by January 2000 indicating a massive increase in the influx of refugees to the United Kingdom (asylum, political, 2005). The data available with the Home Office has revealed that thirty six percent of those seeking refuge in 1999 were genuine and that an additional eleven percent had been granted asylum on compassionate grounds. However, statistics from other sources have revealed that less than ten percent of persons whose application for refuge had been refused had been deported and that the remainder continued to stay as illegal immigrants (asylum, political, 2005). On the 1st of April, 2000 the United Kingdom enacted legislation, which expeditiously dealt with straightforward cases by adopting fast track processing of their applications, substituted a food voucher system for the extant welfare benefits and made provisions for the forced occupation of accommodation around the UK. These initiatives were successful in reducing the number of pending applications to ninety thousand by May 2000. However, the United Kingdom had to incur an exorbitant expenditure of nine hundred million pounds sterling, in order to support asylum seekers during the financial year 1999 to 2000 (asylum, political, 2005). The UNHCR, which was established in 1951, has provided succour to approximately thirty million refugees. The number of persons whose status has been of grave concern to the UNHCR has increased from seventeen to twenty seven million between 1991 and 1995. These numbers stood at twenty two million at the end of the year 1999 and comprises of eleven million refugees and five million persons who had been displaced within their own countries (asylum, political, 2005). The United Kingdom received three hundred and ninety thousand applications seeking asylum in the year 2000. Out of these ninety seven thousand, seven hundred were granted the status of refugees or provided with exceptional leave to remain in the UK. This amounted to thirty one percent of total asylum applications made all over Europe. Most of the applicants belonged to countries where human rights were being infringed with impunity. Many of these refugees hailed from Iraq, Iran, Sri Lanka, Somalia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. The number of refugees accepted by the UK was less than the number permitted in Belgium and the Netherlands as a ratio to the population, these observations were made by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Immigration and emigration, 2005). In order to compensate for the ageing population of the EU, it has to allow an influx of nearly 1. 4 million immigrants per year. The UK Home Office had undertaken reforms to its work permit system so as to allow foreign nationals to apply for such work permits in order to fill in job vacancies. The objective of these new reform proposals is to encourage legitimate immigration and thereby discourage illegal immigration. In October 2001 the Home Office had announced that the present scheme of issuing food vouchers to asylum applicants would be restructured by implementing a combined cash and identity card system (Immigration and emigration, 2005). The Ministerial Meeting on the Refugee Convention held in Geneva, provided an opportunity for the participating nations to adopt new policies to strengthen international refugee protection. Although, more than fifty years had elapsed, since the adoption of new policies in the Refugee Convention, yet nations were lagging behind in addressing the fundamental cause for refugee exodus. The cause for this situation was violation of human rights, especially during internal conflicts in the nations. Many countries were failing in their duty to respect the right to seek asylum from oppression. They were ignoring the non – refoulement principle, which held that refugees should not be deported to a place of conflict where the risk of serious breaches of human rights were prevalent (Refugee Convention a Convention for the 21st century. 2001). It is indeed deplorable to note that several countries had failed to initiate appropriate action against such infringement, as necessitated by the treaty obligations. According to Amnesty International, subsequent to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre, national governments should be required to reiterate their commitment to the Refugee Convention (Refugee Convention a Convention for the 21st century. 2001). By instituting stringent security measures, subsequent to the September 11 attacks, many countries ignored the human rights of refugees and asylum applicants. These measures targeted non – citizens of the nations. Specifically, countries with powerful economies have treated refugees and illegal immigrants alike and implemented several measures to isolate refugees. Instances have been reported where nations have unnecessarily indulged in imposing tighter security measures. One instance of this was reported in July 2001 to the Amnesty International, wherein the immigration authorities of the United Kingdom stationed at Prague airport detained travellers from the Roma ethnic minority, questioned them, did not permit them to enter the UK and prevented them from boarding flights (Refugee Convention a Convention for the 21st century. 2001). It has become essential to implement measures that provide adequate protection in situations involving mass flight of the populace of a nation. Moreover, the UN refugee institution has to be provided with sufficient funds to carry out its work. The Amnesty International has demanded of the nations that had participated in the meeting in Geneva to resolve issues involving refugee protection in conformity with the spirit of the Refugee Convention (Refugee Convention a Convention for the 21st century. 2001). In R v. Special Adjudicator, Ullah a Pakistani national claimed asylum in the UK, as he feared persecution on account of his religious beliefs; the UK authorities did not accept his petition under the Refugee Convention. The House of Lords held that in the absence of a flagrant denial or gross abuse of an individual’s rights, there could be no compromise on maintain immigration controls in the larger public interest (R v Special Adjudicator, ex parte Ullah , 2004). Several instances exist, wherein the United Kingdom and its agents were unsuccessful in providing adequate protection to refugees, who had been deployed in special camps. In Kenya, a nineteen year old girl’s modesty was outraged in the vicinity of the offices of the refugee camp authorities and similarly, two Rwandan children were killed and their mother was stabbed in a secure residence. Moreover, a number of incidents involving the gross violations of the right to life, the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and violation of the non refoulement principle were reported in these centres (New Approaches to the Asylum Process. Human Rights Watch Submission to the House of Lords, Select Committee on the European Union, Sub-Committee F (Social Affairs, Education and Home Affairs), 2003). As such the responsibility of protecting refugees is vested with the United Kingdom and the latter has to ensure that such violations do not occur in the refugee centres. In case of failure to protect refugees in the camps, the U. N. General Assembly can authorize the UNHCR to provide sufficient protection to the refugees and help the UK Government to find permanent solutions for the problem of refugees (New Approaches to the Asylum Process. Human Rights Watch Submission to the House of Lords, Select Committee on the European Union, Sub-Committee F (Social Affairs, Education and Home Affairs), 2003). The Chief Executive of the Refugee Council, Nick Hardwick, opined that, the policy being implemented by the UK Government was insufficient, and that it was endangering the lives of a number of asylum seekers. He further stated that the UK’s record of granting asylum status to Sri Lankan Tamils was dismal. France had granted asylum to around seventy three percent of the applicants and Canada had allowed eighty percent, in comparison to the woefully meagre two percent by the UK Government. Many felt that such rejection would pose grave danger for these immigrants, who could expect torture and incarceration in dehumanized prisons in Sri Lanka (New Refugee Council report warns UK not to put refugees lives at risk, 2002). From the above it becomes very clear that the UK has not been very friendly towards immigrants. In particular, after the attacks made by terrorists owing allegiance to Osama bin laden, there has been a reluctance to admit foreign nationals into the country. Several instances have come to light, wherein the UK Government had failed to take into consideration the principle of proportionality, while assessing the status of asylum seekers. There is a marked reluctance to permit persons hailing from Asia, the Middle East and Africa into the United Kingdom. This is in gross violation of the Refugee Convention of 1951. Bibliography asylum, political. (2005).In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia including Atlas . Basic Facts. (n. d. ). Retrieved May 22, 2007, from UNHCR: http://www. unhcr. org/basics. html Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. Adopted on 28 July 1951 by the United Nations Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Status of Refugees and Stateless Persons convened under General Assembly resolution 429 (V) of 14 December 1950. (n. d. ). Retrieved May 22, 2007, from Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: http://www. unhchr. ch/html/menu3/b/o_c_ref. htm Immigration and emigration. (2005). Retrieved May 22, 2007, from In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia including Atlas: http://www. xreferplus. com/entry/6435900immigration and emigration New Approaches to the Asylum Process. Human Rights Watch Submission to the House of Lords, Select Committee on the European Union, Sub-Committee F (Social Affairs, Education and Home Affairs). (2003, September). Retrieved May 22, 2007, from http://hrw. org/backgrounder/eca/asylum-process. htm New Refugee Council report warns UK not to put refugees lives at risk. (2002, February 11). Retrieved May 22, 2007, from Refugee Council Online: http://www. refugeecouncil. org. uk/news/press/2002/february/20020211newr. htm R v Special Adjudicator, ex parte Ullah , UKHL 26 (2004). Refugee Convention a Convention for the 21st century. 2001. M2 Presswire. M2 Communications, Ltd. The European Union clarifies what it means by refugee and subsidiary protection. (n. d. ). Retrieved May 22, 2007, from European Commission. Justice and Home Affairs. Refugee subsidiary protection: http://ec. europa. eu/justice_home/fsj/asylum/subsidiary/fsj_asylum_subsidiary_en. htm What are refugees? (2005). The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia i

Liberalism And Freedom Essay -- essays research papers fc

Liberalism and Freedom Liberalism is a force that has produced change from the birth of this nation to the politics of today. Liberal tenets have been a basis of thought and action in American politics since well before the signing of the Constitution. Certainly, liberalism has had to transform in order to remain a legitimate force throughout the years. When considering this transformation, one may ask whether or not the ideas and goals of classical liberalism have been lost in the conversion into modern liberalism. In order to answer this, the areas of freedom, the role of government, human nature, and the function of law should be addressed. While this may not be a complete register of change in liberalism, research into these subjects can provide strong indications toward the nature of this transition. Objectively, the evidence suggests that many of the ideas of classical liberalism were either abandoned or changed fundamentally when America entered the modern era. Freedom The idea of freedom has been a paramount concern of liberalism throughout history. Consider the classical ideas of religious freedom, the right to resist and the inherent right of every individual to be independent. These were some of the main focuses of classical liberalism in early America. On religious freedom, seventeenth century minister Roger Williams wrote: "All Civill States with their Officers of justice in their respectiveconstitutions and administrations are proved essentially Civill, and therefore not judges, governours or defendours of the spirituall or christian state and worship." (Volkomer, 50) This quote is notable because it illustrates the early liberal ideas of religious freedom by stating that government officials have no right to pass judgment on religious practices. In furtherance of his views, Williams founded a colony at Plymouth and contributed to the development of religious tolerance in the new world. Religious tolerance meant that a nation with multiple religions need no longer mean a country with internal strife and civil insurrection due to intolerance (Volkomer, 1969). The notion of religious open- mindedness helped pave the way for individual independence by suggesting that people were able to determine their own fundamental beliefs. The right of ind... ...rrelationship helps ensure liberalism's role in bringing about change in the future. Bibliography An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law: New Haven; Yale University Press, 1922 The Relevence of Liberalism; Westview Press, Boulder, CO. 1978 Beiner, Ronald: What's the Matter With Liberlism? University of California Press, Los Angeles, 1992 De Tocqueville, Alexis: Democracy in America; Penguin Books Ltd., Middlesex, England, 1984 Dewey, John: Liberalism and Social Action; New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1935 Dietze, Gottfried: Liberalism Proper and Proper Liberalism, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1985 Dunbar, Leslie: Reclaiming Liberalism, WW Norton & Co., New York, 1991 Gerstle, Gary: "The Protean Nature of American Liberalism", The American Historical Review, October 10, 1994, American Historical Review, New York, New York Kotkin, Joel: "What's Wrong With Liberalism"; The American Enterprise, Jan/Feb 1996 Vol. 7 No. 1, The American Enterprise Institute, Washington D.C. Lewis, Edward: A History Of Political Thought, The Macmillan Co., New York, 1937 Mansfield, Harvey: The Spirit of Liberalism, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1978

Pride in Beowulf, Paradise Lost and Gulliver’s Travels Essay

The theme of pride has been treated in various literary texts – from the Old Testament to current literature. The scripture says: â€Å"Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before stumbling. † (Proverbs. 16:18) Pride has various consequences in varied circumstances. Religion views it as a sin, but pride is also used as a sentiment of honor associated with one’s family, nation, or profession which we glorify. In a sense pride is a kind of overstretched or excessive confidence in one’s power. It is necessary to a certain degree for the preservation of one’s dignity, but beyond that limit it is bad like excessive eating and drinking. Moreover, sometimes people are accused of pride even when its merits shine brighter than modesty. Oxford English Dictionary (online) defines pride as: â€Å"A high, esp. an excessively high, opinion of one’s own worth or importance which gives rise to a feeling or attitude of superiority over others; inordinate self-esteem. † In Beowulf king Hrothgar warns Beowulf against pride after his thumping victory over Grendel. In Gulliver’s Travels it is pride that leads to war as well as peace, in Paradise Lost Satan’s pride leads to his fall from heaven to hell, yet he continues his battle with pride and zeal. There are many proud moments in Beowulf’s life. The hero gains victory against colossal monsters thrice: first in his unarmed battle against Grendel, then with his chosen comrades against Grendel’s mother with some divine help, and finally his killing of the fire-breathing flying dragon in old age when he is mortally wounded and dies a hero’s death. But Beowulf’s innate humility is never affected by his outstanding success and even the offer of the crown and people’s adoration. As Hrothgar gives him a hero’s welcome and praises God for helping him with the gold hilt sword, â€Å"Take your place, then, with pride and pleasure,/ and move to the feast. † (ll. 1882-83) and then he examines the mighty gold hilt offered by Beowulf. He delivers a sermon on pride: â€Å" O flower of warriors, beware of that trap/†¦Do not give way to pride. / For a brief while your strength is in bloom/ but it fades quickly;† (ll. 759-1763). He talks wisely about the transience of human youth and power and cites his own example of ignoring the shape of things to come: â€Å"hard reversal from bliss to grief. Grendel struck/after lying in wait†. (ll. 174-76) So the word pride has been used in both good and bad senses. In Gulliver’s Travels pride has another dimension. OED also define pride as: â€Å"A consciousness of what befits, is due to, or is worthy of oneself or one’s position; self-respect; self-esteem, esp. of a legitimate or healthy kind or degree. Though of pigmy size the Lilliputians are highly efficient people proud of their skill. They feed, cloth and manage the Mountain man effectively and even with his help avoid a war with the Blefuscu. Only in Lilliput Gulliver is amazed to find the emperor and his administration strictly honors the rule of reward and punishment. In Brobdingnag Gulliver meets giants who are so honorable and civilized that they shudder at the mention of war and ammunitions. The imaginary lands and peoples provide Swift an opportunity of launching a scathing attack on the pride of English way of life. In spite of great intellectual powers, his pride turns out to be vanity. His overriding ambition to become a great literary man stood in the way of marriage to either â€Å"Stella† or â€Å"Vanessa†, and a man who hated children created a classic of children’s literature. His own obituary reveals the proud author and his works: â€Å"The body of Jonathan Swift, Doctor of Divinity, is buried here, where fierce indignation can tear his heart no more. Go traveler and imitate, if you can, one who strove with utmost to champion human liberty. In Milton’s Paradise Lost Satan defies the Almighty God and his angels to wage a war and seize power in heaven. Though he is hurled into hell as punishment, he provides leadership to his demoralized followers and with Beelzebub’s help holds a conference to wage â€Å"eternal war† against God. Like a proud leader with strategic insight he converts this defeat as a springboard for the next battle and accordingly inspires his followers with a thunderous call: â€Å"What though the field be lost? All is not lost: the unconquerable will,/ And study of revenge, immortal hate,†(ll. 105-07) He instills a confidence in his comrades that victory and defeat are in the hands of the fighters. So his clarion call to his army is addressed to boost their morale and shake off their depression: â€Å"Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen! †. (l. 330) The uncompromising nature of Satan is revealed in his speech: â€Å"our better part remains/ to work in close design, by fraud or guile,† (Bk. I. ll. 645-46) and his continual emphasis on victory: â€Å"For who can think submission? War then, war/ open or understood must be resolved. † (ll. 661-62) The opposition leader often resorts to disparaging remarks and undermining the image of his rival as Satan debunks God, â€Å"Who now triumphs, and in excess of joy/ sole reigning holds the tyranny of heaven. † (ll. 123-24) Satan shows the right mindset of a winner who would not accept anything short of victory as he speaks candidly about it: â€Å"To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:/ Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. (Bk. I. ll. 262-63) Satan represents the freedom-loving individualist who also demonstrates great pragmatic sense by adapting himself to the harsh realities of Hell and consoles himself with his psychological insight: â€Å"The mind is its own place, and in itself/ Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. † (Bk. I. ll. 254-255) From Beowulf, Gulliver’s Travels to Paradise Lost pride has evolved from good to bad and the worst; it has also passed through religious as well as secular ramifications.

How to Parse a Xml in Oracle Using Xpath with Xmltype - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 2 Words: 583 Downloads: 2 Date added: 2017/09/13 Category Advertising Essay Did you like this example? Old school DOM ! Traditionally Xml parsing was doing using dom objects in Pl/Sql level. This method of parsing XMLs has significant performance hit, even if we left out the many loops that we have to go through to get a value of a single XML element. Enough of Dom, Lest see abut XMLtype. Oracle 9i and above has this new type of object which is capable of recognizing a XML document end to end. This is the link to the document. https://download. oracle. com/docs/cd/B10501_01/appdev. 920/a96620/xdb04cre. htm And if u don’t have time to read it your self I have red it and these are some available functions to extract values safely from a XML. And all the code you see is PLSQL 1. XML is represented as CLOB. Take the below XML as an example. The xml need (well there might be other ways too) to be provided as clob to the XML type constructor. l_clob CLOB := 123456789 AIR USA123 1 2 3 2 DUPLEX_VERTICAL EMAIL [emailprotected] com Don’t Write Blog Posts at work Please do not do any thing other than work while you are at work [emailprotected] com OTHER SMS Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "How to Parse a Xml in Oracle Using Xpath with Xmltype" essay for you Create order SMS_SENDER1 ’;2. Lest Start the fire. Creating XML object. xml_object SYS. Xmltype; xml_object:=sys. xmltype. createXML(l_clob);3. Accessing a value of a XML element. If you do this in the proper safe way this is actually three steps. Here are the steps. Check if the Item that you are trying to access exits. Check if the value on the item is not Null. Access the value. IF ( xml_object. existsNode(/ROOT_TAG/HOTLINE) = 1 ) THEN IF( xml_object. extract(/ROOT_TAG/HOTLINE/text()) IS NOT NULL ) THEN xml_data_str := xml_object. xtract(/ROOT_TAG/HOTLINE/text()). getStringval(); END IF; END IF; The xml_object. existsNode just checks whether the element specified in the Xpath exists. If so returns Scalar 1. Then the code checks whether the element is null or not, this step may looks like redundant but this is needed for a cleaner code. Then the . getStringval() returns the String value. In the best case only the 3rd step in enough but†¦ all the 1st and 2nd lines for a more dependab le code. 4. Accessing reparative set of Items and fetching the values. Point here to note is you can access the specific Item of a repetitive list of items using an index. Index starts at 1†¦. xml_data_str := xml_object. extract(/ROOT_TAG/ITEM[1]/CHANNEL/text()). getStringval() ; xml_data_str := xml_object. extract(/ROOT_TAG/ITEM[2]/CHANNEL/text()). getStringval() ; xml_data_str := xml_object. extract(/ROOT_TAG/ITEM[3]/CHANNEL/text()). getStringval() ;The above code will return the channel of the first Item,second,third. U can always write a loop by incrementing the Index vale and access all the item. 5. Checking if a Specific Item with a specific vale exists. IF ( xml_object. existsNode(/ROOT_TAG/ITEM[CHANNEL=PRINTER]) = 1 ) THEN †¦. END IF:Above code only checks whether I item with the channel == â€Å"PRINTER† exists†¦ simple. these â€Å". existsNode† checks can be very useful when you are searching a value of a frequently changing XML. if other methods such as â€Å"extract† hits a null element you will endup with an exception, so always use â€Å"existNode† to before accessing the values. this is a very basic. but very frequently used set of xml extraction stuff. read the doc people..