ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the perception of a crisis in refugee policy is a relatively recent phenomenon, notions of both universal rights, and of supposedly conflicting particularist theories, have a long history in political thought. The role of political thought and empirical events in producing the current conception of conflict between refugee rights and national interests does of course make a number of assumptions about the relation between ideas and historical events. The notion of individual rights can be traced back to the concept of ius in early Roman law. The inter-war years saw a significant increase in the number of refugees, most of whom were fleeing religious and nationalist based persecution, and fascist regimes. The perceived conflict between refugee rights and national interests was exacerbated with the end of the Cold War. There are two possibilities for overcoming this perceived conflict and avoiding the marginalisation of liberal universalist conceptions of refugee rights.
