The following tabular statement sets out the number of applications for asylum per month since 1 January 1995. Such applications are examined in accordance with the provisions of the 1951 United Nations Convention and 1967 Protocol relating to the status of refugees.
Since January 1994 66 applicants have been recognised as refugees. An additional 16 applicants have been granted permission to remain in the State on humanitarian grounds. About 1,700 applications during the period in question remain to be processed to final decision and it is not possible to indicate, therefore, the extent to which a proportion of the overall figure can be attributed to economic migrants. Having said that, there is no doubt but that there is widespread international concern that the special provisions for the protection of refugees are being abused by persons who have no valid claims to refugee status.
It is important to note that what sets refugees apart from other persons in need of humanitarian assistance is a need of international protection. A specific set of reasons — involving persecution and a lack of national protection — essentially distinguished a refugee from other categories of migrants. Most persons can look to their own governments and state institutions for assistance but a refugee as defined in international law is not in a position to do that.
International law, therefore, imposes an obligation on states to refrain from forcibly repariating a refugee who has a well-founded fear of persecution. There is no similar legal responsibility for a state to admit economic migrants and the generally accepted, and appropriate, response to economic deprivation, for example, is considered to be humanitarian assistance at source rather than international protection. Persons who are victims of economic deprivation and human misery are undoubtedly in need of assistance but they do not necessarily require the kind of international protection implied in the word "refugee".
Refugees and other migrants, of course, often use the same routes for entry into another country. However, it is important for a state to be able to make a distinction in a fair and consistent manner in order that people who are genuinely in need of protection are granted such protection. It is important also that the system of protection established by any state in response to the humanitarian nature of the problem of refuges is not made unworkable as a result of being overwhelmed by economic migrants.