Reworking the Relationship between Asylum and Employment

This book examines the extent to which the right to work for refugees and asylum-seekers is protected by international human rights law. This book explores the legal position looking at the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as well as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The book also considers whether countries are prevented under customary international law and its prohibition against torture, and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, from consigning refugees and asylum-seekers to destitution through discriminatory denial of the rights to social support and work. The book argues that both refugees and asylum-seekers have the human right to work, and situates the law in the context of broader economic, philosophical and political debates about sovereign control of immigration and the right to work.