Statelessness Working Paper Series No. 2016/07 1. Introduction Malaysia is neither party to the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees of 1951 (the 1951 Refugee Convention) nor the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons of 1954 (the 1954 Convention). Malaysia also has yet to accede to the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (the 1961 Convention). As such, refugees, asylum seekers, and stateless persons are not categorised into separate groups of individuals in need of international law protection the way they are categorised by state parties to the conventions. To briefly explain the three categories within the international legal context: under the category of ‘stateless person fall all those who are not recognized as nationals by any state under the operation of its laws. Refugees are those who face persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a social group, or political opinion, among others. Persons with the intention of leaving their State of nationality or State of habitual residence to claim asylum abroad are considered to be asylum seekers until their status as refugee is determined. This article highlights the problems that arise in terms of policy-making and implementation when a state, in this case Malaysia, chooses not to be bound by international treaties designed to protect vulnerable groups. 2. Asylum Policy in Malaysia: a general overview The Malaysian government only saw the need to establish policies concerning asylum seekers in the 1970s, as people from South-East Asia began making their way to Malaysia due to persecution they faced in their respective home States.2 From the policy initiatives, targeted implementation of policy is apparent whereby the policies seemed to work to the benefit of certain refugees with the end result being the issuance of IMM13 documents to refugees. The IMM13 is a Social Visit Pass issued by the Malaysian Government under Regulation 11 (10) of the Immigration Regulations 1963 and allowed refugees or migrants to reside and work in Malaysia for a period of two years.3 This targeted approach has generally been employed by Asian States that have yet to accede to pertinent international law on refugees and statelessness such as Thailand and Bangladesh. The Vietnamese, Cambodian, Indochinese Muslim, Filipino, Sri Lankan and Iranian asylum-seekers were all dealt with differently by the Malaysian Government.4 For instance, the Vietnamese boat people were able to attain temporary refuge, and were allowed to remain in Malaysia until repatriation to Vietnam or resettlement in a third country. This was the measure taken at that point to address the arrival of boat people from the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia and was done with assistance from UNHCR towards eventual resettlement and repatriation of these people.5 Local integration, however, was not an option as Malaysia was not prepared to accept refugees as residents of the State. Drastic measures were imposed in 1979 including the ‘threat to shoot’, in order to ensure that such asylum-seekers did not land in Malaysia.6 As third countries promised to provide resettlement places to the Vietnamese boat people, the Malaysian government began to relax its policy and allow more Vietnamese refugees to enter its territory. A converse policy stance was seen in relation to Cambodian asylum-seekers that arrived in 1985 2 V. Muntarbhorn, The Status of Refugees in Asia, Clarendon Press Oxford, England, 1992, p 113. A. Kaur, ‘Refugees and Refugee Policy in Malaysia’ (2008) 18 UNEAC Asia Papers, p 88. 4 V. Muntarbhorn, The Status of Refugees in Asia, Clarendon Press Oxford, England, 1992, p 113. 5 Amarjit Kaur, ‘Refugees and Refugee Policy in Malaysia’, p 83. 6 Ibid. p 114 3 1