Lawyers now have a new word, courtesy of the Supreme Court—‘refoulement’. Well known of course to immigration lawyers, but a rather strange concept to the rest of us, sounding a bit foreign and French even, and so to be treated with caution. But the Rwandan case has opened our eyes to this important concept. We have learnt that non-refoulement is a fundamental principle of international law. It forbids a country receiving asylum seekers from returning them to a country in which there would be ‘a reasonable likelihood’ of their being at risk of persecution based on ‘race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion’. The unanimous decision of the Supreme Court was that there was a substantial risk of illegal immigrants to the UK after transportation to Rwanda being sent back to their country of origin and thereby being at risk or ill-treatment, torture or even death.
Refoulement is a principle of customary
