E/CN.4/1503 page 21
41. The Declaration's Articles dealing with the individual
before the law (6-12) have to be viewed in the context of the
particular situation prevailing in many of the countries from
which mass movement has been forthcoming. Sadly, most of the
provisions are rather academic in times of conflict. More
importantly, they appear to have been conceived for a society in which the legislature is truly independent, where "competent
national tribunals" (Article 8) exist and where where "everyone
(charged with a penal offence) has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial
at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his
defence" (Article 11(1)).
42. This is a "never-never land" for most of the victims of
man's inhumanity to man.
Conditions prevailing in many
countries make it all the more incumbent on those whose re-
sponsibility or inclination it is to uphold human rights to
spare no effort in seeking rapid change. How can we expect a
reduction in the number of asylum seekers if present practices
are allowed to continue?
43.
Tragically, refugees who left their country because their
human rights were forfeited are often subjected to equally
harsh treatment in countries of asylum and even forcibly
returned. As Stephen Young of Harvard Law School states:
"The international law on human rights does not bear on the
most important opportunity for a refugee or stateless person
obtaining access to a land of refuge. Human rights law speaks
to the treatment of people within a jurisdiction, not to their
ease of entry.
The drafters of the Universal Declaration
consciously refused to adopt asylum as a universal human right
when such a right had been proposed.
2/
2/ Young, op.cit.