66 Azadeh Dastyari and Asher Hirsch principle of sovereignty allows states the “freedom to act unconstrained and the right to exclude foreigners from their territory.”57 Yet this absolute sovereignty has been partially relinquished through the voluntary ratification of international treaties. By agreeing to be bound by international treaties, including international human rights law, states have taken on additional obligations to uphold certain rights for both citizens and non-citizens within their jurisdiction. As Goodwin-Gill and McAdam note: The refugee in international law occupies a legal space characterised, on the one hand, by the principle of State sovereignty and the related principles of territorial supremacy and self-preservation; and, on the other hand, by competing humanitarian principles deriving from general international law (including the purposes and principles of the United Nations) and from treaty.58 International law, and in particular the right to seek asylum and obligations of the Refugee Convention, poses a challenge to the traditional concept of sovereignty. Although the right to seek asylum is provided in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR),59 it is often referred to as an empty right because it does not create a subsequent duty upon states to grant asylum.60 Indeed, the Declaration on Territorial Asylum reiterates that the granting of asylum is an “exercise of [State] sovereignty.”61 Nevertheless, although states may not have a duty to grant asylum, they do have an obligation to provide access to their asylum procedures. Goodwin-Gill and McAdam argue that “while individuals may not be able to claim a ‘right to asylum,’ states have a duty under international law not to obstruct the right to seek asylum.”62 In addition to the UDHR, the Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol provide further obligations on states with regard to their borders. By ratifying the Refugee Convention, states forfeit their claim to absolute control over their borders. One hundred and forty-six states, including Australia, have ratified the 1967 Protocol, which affirms the obligations of the Refugee Convention and removes its temporal and geographic limitations to post-Second World War Europe, transforming it into a set of global commitments. As Gammeltoft-Hansen argues, “refugee law places a constraint on the otherwise well-established right of any state to decide who may 57 Gammeltoft-Hansen, Access to Asylum, p. 13. G. S. Goodwin-Gill and J. McAdam, The Refugee in International Law (3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 1. 59 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, December 10, 1948, United Nations General Assembly Res. 217A(III), art. 14. 60 S. Kneebone, Refugees, Asylum Seekers and the Rule of Law: Comparative Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 10. 61 United Nations General Assembly Res. 2312 (XXIX), Declaration on Territorial Asylum (December 14, 1967), art. 1(1). 62 Goodwin-Gill and McAdam, The Refugee in International Law, p. 358. 58 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108914994 Published online by Cambridge University Press