Anomaly upon Anomaly: The 1951 Convention and State Disintegration

This article draws the attention of refugee law scholarship to a troubling anomaly. It first illustrates how the 1951 Refugee Convention is fundamentally concerned with symptomatically addressing the casting out of refugees from the State-based international order by resolving their anomalous legal status. It then demonstrates, based on the Libyan example, that when confronted with State disintegration, the law fails to do justice to its original purpose. In reflecting on the significance of this phenomenon of ‘anomaly upon anomaly’, the article suggests an exploration of State-transcending models of jurisdiction.