Unit 6: Refugee Related Issues in Nepal
6.1 Overview of Refugee Population in Nepal: Tibetan Refugees, Bhutanese Refugees and “UNHCR Mandate Refugees”
- The Tibetan refugees: the first modern wave (the 1959-and-after arrivals (the thousands; the settlements’ establishment (the Jawalakhel-and-the-hill-camp faces))); the generations’ problem (the Nepal-born children’s documentation (the ID-cards’ non-renewal issues (the residence papers’ gradual narrowing — the settled-but-paperless community)); the transit-and-newcomer history (the 1989-era arrivals’ handling); the present (the long-settled population’s quiet uncertainty).
- The Bhutanese refugees (the Lhotshampas): the 1990s exodus (the ethnic-citizenship-stripping (the Bhutan’s One-Nation policy’s expulsion faces)); the camps (the Jhapa-Morang seven camps; the 100,000+ peak); the verification-and-deadlock (the Nepal-Bhutan joint-verification’s stalled history); the third-country solution (the 2007-and-onward resettlement: the 100,000+ resettled (the US-and-the-West’s absorption — the world’s biggest resettlement program’s one (U7.1’s case study))); the residual population (the remaining families (the reunification claims)); the 2023 scandal (the fake-refugees case): the fraud’s exposure (the non-Bhutanese passed-off-as-refugees-for-money (the politicians-and-officials’ arrests-and-prosecution (the accountability’s public drama)).
- The “UNHCR mandate refugees”: the urban caseload (the Kathmandu’s few-hundred (the Somali-Iraqi-Pakistani-and-others)); the mandate’s basis (the Nepal’s non-party status (U6.3) → the UNHCR’s mandate-RSD (U3.1’s face)); the protection’s practice (the UNHCR’s mandate-certificates (the status papers (the U4.3’s documentation)); the government’s toleration (the stay’s practical accommodation)); the litigation’s line (the detained-mandate-refugee cases → U6.4).
6.2 Nepal’s Obligation under International Human Rights Laws Relevant to Refugee Protection
- The treaty’s floor (the party-status record): the ICCPR-ICESCR (the 1991 accession); the CAT (the first-South-Asian party (the Art-3-type removal protections)); the CRC; the CEDAW; the RPD (the racial-discrimination); the CED (the disappearance) — the non-refoulement-family obligations through the HR treaties (the removal-to-torture-and-arbitrary-deprivation bars (the U2.2.1’s depth)).
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