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Effectiveness Of The United States And Canada 's Polices Towards Refugees Essay

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Effectiveness of the United States and Canada’s Polices Towards Refugees
Has United States or Canada been more effective with implementing and abiding by refugee rules and laws? Before discussing and comparing which of these countries had been more successful, the historical context of refugees needs to be explored. Although refugees have existed throughout the course of history, the definitions of what a refuge is had shifted and evolved over time. The League of Nations in the 1920s defined refugees “by categories, specifically in relation to their country of origin.” Up until 1950s, the League of Nations, which later became the United Nations, “established and dismantled several international institutions devoted to refugees in Europe.” After World War II, creating and facilitating solutions for refugees were of high importance internationally. This is evident in the first session of United Nations General Assembly in 1946 when it adopted the principle that no refugee who had “expressed valid objections to returning to their countries [sic] of origin ... shall be compelled to return.” Additionally, the United Nations in 1947 established the International Refugee Organization (IRO), a specialized temporary agency aimed at handling the displacement of refugees after the conclusion World War II. A refugee was by the IRO defined as a person who was “a victim of state intolerance” or was a “genuinely motivated political dissident.” Since the IRO was established as a

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