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Guest post by Prima Sukmanop. Prima has extensive academic background and client-facing experience in international human rights law with a focus on asylum and refugees. She provided legal representation to asylum seekers undergoing the refugee status determination (RSD) procedures with the UNHCR; counselled forcibly displaced individuals for the National Screening Mechanism (NSM) with Thailand’s Immigration Bureau; and interviewed refugee applicants in Asia Pacific for third country resettlement. She graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from Chulalongkorn University and is licensed to practice law in Thailand.
In September 2023, Thailand’s Immigration Bureau initiated the National Screening Mechanism (NSM), where non-citizens granted the “Protected Person” status are permitted temporary residence and receive protection against forcible return to their countries of origin where they may face persecution, alongside access to education and healthcare.
Thailand remains a non-signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and still criminalises irregular migration. While the NSM is a commendable effort towards migrant protection, its implementation under existing legal landscape may open door to certain loopholes, including exemptions from protection for “national security” purposes.
The NSM is not a novel initiative from Thailand, but mirrors a previous development in Hong Kong: the Unified Screening Mechanism (USM). Thailand and Hong Kong are both refugee-hosting territories that have not acceded to the Refugee Convention nor its Protocol, but have acceded to 7 and 15 human rights treaties respectively. UNHCR has also had operational presence in conducting refugee status determination (RSD) in both territories. In 2004, Hong Kong implemented a screening mechanism that provides non-refoulement protection against forcible return of non-citizens to torture, which later expanded to include cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in 2012 and persecution in 2014.
Thailand’s NSM and Hong Kong’s USM reflect a new trend within Asia’s migration sphere: jurisdictions which are non-signatory to the Refugee Convention are initiating “localized” mechanisms that intend to provide domestic legal protection for forcibly displaced individuals. Nonetheless, there are concerning challenges to the NSM’s implementation, which may be traced back to 1) its status as part of domestic immigration procedures, which render its objective towards refugee protection secondary to border control and national security; and 2) its unclear criteria which may undermine its effectiveness of protection.
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