40 Years of Forced Migrations and Refugees Flows in South-East Asia: A Regional Model or a Legal Limbo?

In the last decades Southeast Asian countries has hosted significant numbers of refugees and forcibly displaced persons. However, although the problem of refugee flows and forced migrations continues to occupy a prominent place in the political agenda of these countries and represents a difficult challenge to address, it has been mainly addressed through an emergency approach outside any regional mechanism that would serve to define a regional approach and coordinate the respon.se of the various states of the region. This article firstly describes the legal framework applicable to refugee flows and forced migrations in South-Est Asia; secondly, it highlights how the management of the refugees and forcibly displaced persons over the past forty years led, and continues to lead, to the violation of the non-refoulement principle, and the denial of the fundamental rights that are protected by international refugee and human rights treaties.