to’. 235 Hence, the Tribunal explicitly held the refusal of entry, as a result of lack of citizenship, to be discriminatory treatment that could, together with other discriminatory treatments, amount to persecution. It concluded that the restrictions and discriminatory measures adopted by Jordan, particularly with regard to employment, would cause the applicant ‘significant economic hardship threatening his capacity to subsist’ in that he would be denied ‘access to basic services and the capacity to earn a livelihood’, and would constitute persecution for reasons of the applicant’s Palestinian ethnicity.236 However, the RRTA reached a different conclusion in the case of a stateless Palestinian from Kuwait who, after arriving in Australia, became unable to return to Kuwait following the termination of his contract of employment by his employer in Kuwait. The Tribunal argued that ‘a Kuwaiti law in relation to non residents could be considered to be a law of general application’, the enforcement of which does not ordinarily constitute persecution no matter how oppressive or repugnant that law is to the values of society.237 What is important for the purpose of showing a well-founded fear of persecution is whether the law operates in a discriminatory fashion, which in the context of refugee law refers to ‘the notion of the legitimacy of the objective of the law and whether the law is appropriate and adapted to achieve the objective’.238 Thus, a ‘legitimate object will ordinarily be an object the pursuit of which is required in order to protect or promote the general welfare of the State and its citizens’, as opposed to the oppression of the members of a race, religion or nationality.239 For the Tribunal, ‘there can be no persecution where there is a relevant reason for the different treatment and a relevant reason will always exist where the law in question has a legitimate objective and is appropriate and adopted to achieve this’. 240 In any such assessment, ‘international human rights standards as well as the laws and culture of the country are relevant matters’. 241 The Tribunal concluded that the law in relation to Palestinians applies to all non-Kuwaiti citizens. Whilst Palestinians may be subject to potentially indefinite detention (unlike non Palestinians) this is due to the fact that there is no country to deport them to; this is not due to a reason of a Convention ground.242 Hence, the applicant lacks a well-founded fear of persecution for Convention reasons.243 It may be noted that this decision is at odds with the previously mentioned decision by the same Authority (Appeal No. 080551), as well as with its decision on undocumented Bidoons (Appeal No. 74467). In fact, it comes very close to the finding by the New Zealand Authority in Appeal No. 72635/01, which I turn to now. In an early decision, the New Zealand Refugee Status Appeals Authority (RSAA) held that Ibid, para.56. Ibid, para.60. 237 Appeal No. 0808284 [2009] RRTA 454, 21 May 2009, paras.97-100. 238 Ibid, para.105. 239 Ibid, paras.107-108. 240 Ibid, para.109. 241 Ibid, para.111. 242 Ibid, para.112. 243 He was nonetheless recommended for humanitarian considerations to the Minister. 235 236 42