The Nuremberg principles were a set of guidelines for determining what constitutes a war crime. The document was created by the International Law Commission of the United Nations to codify the legal principles underlying the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi party members following World War II.
Ahmed Zaoui is an Algerian member of the Islamic Salvation Front. He arrived in New Zealand on 4 December 2002 where he sought refugee status. Objections from the Security Intelligence Service were withdrawn in September 2007, allowing him to remain in New Zealand. He was granted New Zealand citizenship in 2014.
Jeremy Dean Hinzman was the first American Iraq War resister/deserter to seek refugee status in Canada.
Established in 1989, the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, is an independent administrative tribunal that is responsible for making well-founded and fair decisions on immigration and refugee matters, efficiently and in accordance with the law. Established by an Act of Parliament, the IRB decides on refugee applications made by individuals who land in Canada and make an asylum claim to be in need of protection.
Gregorian Bivolaru also known as Magnus Aurolsson and nicknamed Grieg, Grig or, by the press, Guru is a fugitive spiritual teacher and the founder of the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute (MISA).
Singh v Canada , [1985] 1 S.C.R. 177 is a 1985 case of the Supreme Court of Canada.
The New Zealand Refugee Status Appeals Authority or RSAA, was an independent authority that heard the appeals of people who had been declined refugee status by the Refugee Status Branch of the New Zealand Immigration Service. It was established in 1991, and was replaced by the Immigration and Protection Tribunal in 2010. New Zealand established the RSAA as part of its responsibility to uphold the right of asylum as a result of being a signatory of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol. The decisions of the RSAA are not binding, but have had a significant impact on refugee jurisprudence.
Suresh v Canada , [2002] 1 S.C.R. 3 is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in the areas of constitutional law and administrative law. The Court held that under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in most circumstances the government cannot deport someone to a country where they risk being tortured, but refugee claimants can be deported to their homelands if they are a serious security risk to Canadians.
Canada (AG) v Mossop, [1993] 1 SCR 554 was the first decision of the Supreme Court of Canada to consider equality rights for gays. The case is also significant as one of Justice L'Heureux-Dube's most famous dissents where she proposes an evolving model of the "family".
Jeffry A. House is a lawyer in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is best known for his efforts on behalf and representation of fugitive American soldiers and Native Canadian protesters.
Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Predrag Stevic, 467 U.S. 407 (1984), was a U.S. Supreme Court case holding that an alien seeking to avoid deportation proceedings by claiming that he would be persecuted if returned to his native land must show a "clear probability" that he will be persecuted there.
Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421 (1987), decided that the standard for withholding of removal set in INS v. Stevic, was too high a standard for applicants for asylum to satisfy. In its place, and consistent with the standard set by the United Nations, the Court in Cardoza-Fonseca held that an applicant for asylum in the United States only needs to demonstrate a "well-founded fear" of persecution, which can be met even if the applicant does not show that it is more likely than not he will be persecuted if returned to his home country.
Joshua "Josh" Key is a United States Army deserter, who fled while on leave from the Iraq War, and is a current resident of Canada. He is the author, with Lawrence Hill, of The Deserter's Tale, a book chronicling his service in Iraq and his subsequent departure from military life.
During the Iraq War, which began with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, there were United States military personnel who refused to participate, or continue to participate, in that specific war. Their refusal meant that they faced the possibility of punishment in the United States according to Article 85 of the US Uniform Code of Military Justice. For that reason some of them chose to go to Canada as a place of refuge. The choice of these US Iraq War resisters to go to Canada has led to considerable debate in Canada's society, press, legal arenas, and political arenas. Much of the debate on this issue has been due to the controversial nature of the Iraq War itself. Among the many elements of that debate are Canada's relationship to the Iraq War, and Canada's relationship to the US, its largest trading partner.
A war resister is a person who resists war. The term can mean several things: resisting participation in all war, or a specific war, either before or after enlisting in, being inducted into, or being conscripted into a military force.
Ahani v Canada [2002] 1 S.C.R. 72; 2002 SCC 2 is a significant decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in the areas of constitutional law and administrative law. It is a companion case to Suresh v. Canada , [2002] 1 S.C.R. 3. Both cases deal with the procedure for removal of Convention refugees for reasons of national security under the Immigration Act, R.S.C. 1985, and address questions of procedural fairness.
HJ (Iran) and HT (Cameroon) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] UKSC 31 is a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom concerning two men, from Iran and Cameroon respectively, claiming asylum in the United Kingdom on the grounds of their homosexuality. The men's claims had previously been turned down on the basis they would not face persecution in their own countries if they would conceal their sexuality. The appeal therefore centred on the question as to whether the men on their return could reasonably be expected to tolerate this requirement of discretion; the so-called 'discretion' or 'reasonable tolerability' test. Interventions were made by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
The Immigration and Protection Tribunal is a specialist, independent tribunal established in New Zealand under the Immigration Act 2009 with jurisdiction to hear appeals and applications regarding residence class visas, deportation, and claims to be recognised as a refugee or as a protected person. The Tribunal is administered by the Ministry of Justice and is chaired by a District Court Judge, appointed by the Governor General on the recommendation of the Attorney-General.
Particular social group (PSG) is one of five categories that may be used to claim refugee status according to two key United Nations documents: the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees. The other four categories are race, religion, nationality, and political opinion. As the most ambiguous and open-ended of the categories, the PSG category has been the subject of considerable debate and controversy in refugee law. Note that just as with the other four categories, membership in a PSG is not sufficient grounds for being granted refugee status. Rather, to be granted refugee status, one must both demonstrate membership in one of the five categories and a nexus between that membership and persecution one is facing or risks facing.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender (LGBT) or Gender and Sexual Minority (GSM) refugees and asylum-seekers are those who are making the refugee claim due to their sexual orientation or gender identity in Canada. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), refugees are displaced persons 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." In order to gain refugee status in Canada, an individual must demonstrate that they are at risk of being persecuted and unable to seek protection from their home country. These claims can be made once the individual resides in Canada on a visa or prior to their arrival. Much of the research on this population tends to be qualitative in character and is carried out with asylum seekers who already reside in Canada.
