South Asia State of Minorities Report 2019 Although home to a large refugee population, Nepal is not a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention6 or its 1967 Protocol7 and lacks a comprehensive domestic legal framework for refugee protection and for the determination of individual refugee or asylum claims. However, the Government of Nepal has been cooperating with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to assist refugees living in Nepali territory. The primary focus of this chapter is to offer a comparative analysis of the present socio-economic situation of the two major refugee groups in Nepal, Tibetans and Bhutanese. Methodology This chapter incorporates information derived from both primary and secondary research. Interviews were conducted with 15 Bhutanese refugees in two Bhutanese refugee camps (Sanischare, Morang district, and Beldangi, Jhapa district) and 15 Tibetan refugees in two Tibetan refugee settlements in and around Pokhara (Chhorepatan and Dulegauda). Interviews were also conducted with officials of the Camp Management Committee (CMC) in the Bhutanese refugee camps and the Tibetan refugee settlements visited along with community-based organisations (CBOs) active in the Bhutanese refugee camps. Officials from international agencies providing services in the Bhutanese refugee camps were also interviewed as were those from the Snow Lion Foundation, a non-profit providing support to Tibetan refugees in all the settlements in Nepal. Alongside, a review of existing literature on both Tibetan and Bhutanese refugees as well as international and domestic legal instruments governing refugees was conducted. https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/living-on-the-margins/; Rewati Sapkota, ‘Nepal, India to jointly monitor movement of Rohingya refugees in border areas’, The Himalayan Times, October 31, 2018, https://thehimalayantimes.com/ kathmandu/nepal-india-to-jointly-monitor-movement-of-rohingya-refugeesin-border-areas/; Robic Upadhyay and Ashwin Sharma, ‘Anew beginning’, The Record, November 29, 2018, https://www.recordnepal.com/wire/videos/a-newbeginning-for-rohingya-refugees-in-nepal/. 6 UN General Assembly, Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 28 July 1951, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 189, p. 137, accessed November 5, 2019, https://www.refworld.org/docid/3be01b964.html. 7 UN General Assembly, Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, 31 January 1967, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 606, p. 267, accessed November 7, 2019, https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b3ae4.html. 66