Remarks by Lung-Chu Chen

Abstract

This discussion on “Expulsion and Expatriation in International Law” is very timely indeed. Today we are witnessing a new type of people “in orbit,” not astronauts but “refugees in orbit.” In a recent bulletin, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees vividly describes how a typical refugee in orbit wandered from country to country over the past half year in quest of some one country that might let him in and stay. What made the case dramatic was that during that long period the refugee was shuffled from airplane to airplane, and confined in airports. Compelled to leave the country of residence and lacking proper identity and travel documents, many people cannot disembark legally anywhere. In earlier times there was always the possibility of jumping ship. But today, under the closed national boundary system policed by more sophisticated entry and exit control, such unfortunate persons are condemned to a nightmarish cycle of enforced airplane journeys and periods of practical imDrisonment in ainrart waiting rooms.