ABSTRACT
If the contemporary 'right of asylum' is fundamentally the right of the state to give shelter to fugitives on its territory, then it is at least doubtful that asylum as understood in the classical sense as freedom from seizure by sovereign power. The right of asylum does not necessarily possess any objective free-standing characteristics, such as those based on faith and political solidarity, as it is a function of sovereignty itself. A conference convened by the UN in 1977 to draft a convention collapsed as states made it clear that in order to grant an individual right, the legal definition would have to be made far more restrictive than even that contained in the 1951 Convention. writers on the historical tradition of asylum approach the subject as of antiquarian interest.
