 |
| Refugees in Lebanon |
Lebanon’s attitude towards
the ‘Syrian exception’ can be used as the starting point for its policy to come
into line with international refugee and human rights norms, standards and
protection.
“Lebanon is not a country of asylum” has been
the official Lebanese cry for decades. Lebanon is not a signatory to the 1951
Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, and lacks a comprehensive or adequate
national refugee legal framework. Refugees and asylum seekers are treated as
irregular migrants and are subject to arrest and deportation following
prolonged arbitrary detention solely on grounds of lack of legal status.
Refugees who do manage to enter Lebanon tend to live in urban areas in private
lodgings and only Palestinian refugees live in camps. Non-Palestinian refugees
or undocumented Palestinian refugees do not have their refugee status recognised
by the Lebanese authorities.
Lebanon’s standard justification includes that the
country is small and for decades has hosted the largest Palestinian refugee
population, who make up around 10% of its total population, and that as such it
has taken more than its share of the international community’s refugee ‘burden’.
