The 1951 Refugee Convention’s Contingent Rights Framework and Article 26 of the ICCPR: A Fundamental Incompatibility?

Abstract

This article addresses the relationship between two primary structural features of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees—that many benefits under it accrue on the basis of a refugee’s degree of attachment to his or her host state and that many rights under the convention are guaranteed to a refugee only to the extent that they are enjoyed by a particular reference group—and the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’ article 26 equality guarantee. Specifically, it examines whether attachment contingencies and reference groups, when incorporated in the refugee laws of states party to the ICCPR, might run afoul of article 26.