Israeli judges in a Jewish state and the decline of refugee protection

Abstract

This LLM thesis reviews the Israeli state of affairs in the asylum context, which may be best defined as ‘the denial of (contemporary) refugee-hood’. That state of affairs is exemplified, inter alia, in the un-typical governmental- minded judicial approach displayed by the Israeli judges when they decide on appeals against the administrative decision for not recognizing asylum seekers as refugees. While some academic attention has already been given to the virtually 0% refugee recognition rate at first instance of the Israeli administrative authority, the fact that the Israeli Courts have only twice so far begged to differ with the state and ordered the government to grant asylum seekers appellants the refugee status, was never before a subject to academic research.