Forthcoming in the Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law (27)
a treaty adopted on the basis of the draft articles, states have been quite skeptical to recognize
this rule as established international law. 106
IV. The Expulsion of Non-Nationals under International Law and the Perils of
Progressive Development
Few topics are as relevant and controversial as the admission and stay of non-nationals in the
territory of a state. No doubt, the control over who enters and stays in one’s territory is one of
the areas encroaching deeply on the self-interest of states. While the traditional view was that
states have an ‘unfettered right’107 to refuse admission of aliens, as well as to settle the
conditions for their lawful stay, such discretion is by now restricted by both international
refugee and human rights law norms – especially by obligations of non-refoulement. These,
however, have remained scattered around a vast legal expanse of both treaty-based provisions
and customary international law norms, which are normally assessed in compartmentalized
ways. It was in this context that, in its first effort to systematize the law in this area, 108 the ILC
decided in 2004 to include the expulsion of aliens on its agenda and appointed Maurice Kamto
as its special rapporteur.
A. The Draft Articles on the Expulsion of Aliens (2014)
See UN ILC, ‘Comments and Observations Received from Governments, Diplomatic Protection’, at 45–47.
See also Al Rawi and Others, R(on the Application of) v. Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Another [2006]
EWHC 972 (Admin) at para. 63.
107
See e.g., S. Oda, ‘The Individual in International Law’ in M. Sorensen (ed.), Manual of Public International
Law (Macmillan Press 1968), at 482.
108
In fact, even though the law on extradition – one of the loci classici of the rules limiting the discretion of states
in this area – was included in the provisional list of topics for codification in 1949, the Commission never actually
elaborated draft articles on the topic. Rather, in 2014, the ILC concluded its final report on the obligation to
extradite or prosecute (aut dedere aut judicare), where it briefly mentions the rule of non-extradition of asylees.
See UN ILC, ‘The Obligation to Extradite or Prosecute (aut dedere aut judicare), Final Report of the International
Law Commission’ in Yearbook of the International Law Commission 2014, vol. II (Part Two) UN Doc.
A/CN.4/SER.A/2014/Add.1, at 19.
106
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Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4816199