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stranded Rohingyas.
This is not to say that there has been no progress in the international law framework to deal with
refugees. The principle of non-refoulement has increasingly come to be recognised as a pre-emptory
norm of customary international law.
Perhaps of greater significance to the majority of todays refugees is the emerging customary norm
of temporary refuge, which prohibits a state from expelling foreign nationals who have fled armed
conflict and civil strife. Such persons are not the targets of persecution but are innocent civilians
whose own government cannot guarantee their safety. The situation in Syria perhaps represents the
need for such a norm.
Nevertheless, the events over the past several months have brought into sharp focus the limitations
of the existing regime and the need for greater consensus building at the international level to put in
place new norms to deal with the evolving migrant situation. India, with its long history of
providing shelter to the persecuted, from the Zoroastrians to, more recently, the Tibetans, is perhaps
uniquely positioned, particularly in the Asian subcontinent, to take the lead in any international
consensus building on the subject.
(Jay Sanklecha is a graduate of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata,
and is working with a law firm in Mumbai. The views expressed are personal.)
TheRohingyacrisiswasrelievedonlyaftersustainedinternationalpressureandamultinationalconference,whenthe
migrantsweregrantedtemporaryrefugeinIndonesia,MalaysiaandThailand.