The basic rights and freedoms of the twenty million refugees in the world are protected by the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. This convention ensures the basic human rights of vulnerable persons and that refugees will not be returned involuntarily to a country where they face persecution. However, violations of the basic human rights are still being denied to refugees in every region of the world. Although the People's Republic of China is a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention, it has no domestic law on refugee protection. It allows the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to conduct refugee status and it is in the process of drafting its own regulation on refugees. The U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR) visited Hong Kong and the mainland in China to assess the status of the Vietnamese refugees. …
