Rights, Needs and Responsibility: Challenges to Rights-Based Advocacy for Non-Palestinian Refugees' Health and Education in Lebanon.

Abstract

This report highlights challenges to rights-based strategies to improve non- Palestinian refugees' social and economic welfare in Lebanon. By using the specific case study of Lebanon, the authors argue that social and economic rights must be seen in connection with two other inter-related factors. First, though in theory social and economic rights do not necessarily depend on formal recognition of refugee status, their realization is likely to be impeded where (as in Lebanon) a government fails to recognize refugees' basic civil status. Second, it is difficult to implement a theoretical right without a clear understanding about who is responsible for realizing and implementing the right.

In order to highlight these challenges, this study assesses the prevalence of rights-based versus needs-based approaches to the health and education of non-Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

Citation

DRC Research Reports, Sussex, UK, DRC on Migration, Globalisation and Poverty, 44 pp.

Rights, Needs and Responsibility: Challenges to Rights-Based Advocacy for Non-Palestinian Refugees’ Health and Education in Lebanon.

Published 1 January 2006