Right of asylum

The right of asylum (sometimes called right of political asylum, from the Ancient Greek word ἄσυλον) is an ancient juridical concept, under which a person persecuted by one's own country may be protected by another sovereign authority, such as another country or church official, who in medieval times could offer sanctuary. This right was recognized by the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Hebrews, from whom it was adopted into Western tradition. René Descartes fled to the Netherlands, Voltaire to England, and Thomas Hobbes to France, because each state offered protection to persecuted foreigners.In England, King Æthelberht of Kent proclaimed the first Anglo-Saxon laws on sanctuary in about 600 AD. However Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Regum Britanniae (c. 1136) says that the legendary pre-Saxon king Dunvallo Molmutius (4th/5th century BC) enacted sanctuary laws among the Molmutine Laws as recorded by Gildas (c. 500–570). The term grith was used by the laws of king Ethelred.By the Norman era that followed 1066, two kinds of sanctuary had evolved: all churches had the lower-level powers and could grant sanctuary within the church proper, but the broader powers of churches licensed by royal charter extended sanctuary to a zone around the church. At least twenty-two churches had charters for this broader sanctuary, includingArticle 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that 'Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.' The United Nations 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees guides national legislation concerning political asylum. Under these agreements, a refugee (or for cases where repressing base means has been applied directly or environmentally to the refugee) is a person who is outside that person's own country's territory (or place of habitual residence if stateless) owing to fear of persecution on protected grounds. Protected grounds include race, caste, nationality, religion, political opinions and membership or participation in any particular social group or social activities. Rendering true victims of persecution to their persecutor is a violation of a principle called non-refoulement, part of the customary and trucial Law of Nations.Perhaps the most perplexing component of the Iraq refugee crisis... has been the inability for the U.S. to absorb more Iraqis following the 2003 invasion of the country. To date, the U.S. has granted less than 800 Iraqis refugee status, just 133 in 2007. By contrast, the U.S. granted asylum to more than 100,000 Vietnamese refugees during the Vietnam War.