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Article: Asylum
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Asylum
Michael Dunne
John Bassett Moore, the greatest American international lawyer of his age, wrote in his monumental
Digest of International Law
(1906): "No legal term in common use is perhaps so lacking in uniformity and accuracy of definitio
n as the 'right of asylum.' " A century later, the same can still be said. Asylum, originally conceived as a right claimed by an individual fugitive, is now more readily regarded as a privilege abused by hordes of foreigners, self-styled refugees seeking to avoid the immigration restrictions of beneficent countries. The twentieth century, which began at the high point of intercontinental and peaceful migration, ended as ...