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3 U. Malaya L. Rev. 223 (1961)
The Right of Asylum in International Law

handle is hein.journals/sjls3 and id is 229 raw text is: December 1961 THE RIGHT OF ASYLUM IN INTERNATIONAL LAW* by L. C. GREEN Most codes extend their definition of treason to acts not really against one's country. They do not distinguish between acts against the government and acts against the oppressions of the government. The latter are virtues, yet have furnished more victims to the executioner than the former . . . The unsuccessful strugglers against tyranny have been the chief martyrs of treason laws in all countries ... Treasons, often, taking the simulated with the real, are sufficiently punished by exile. Such was the view of Secretary of State Jefferson in 1792. In the 150 years that have elapsed since then, however, governments have tended to become less rather than more liberal. They have sought therefore to punish those guilty of 'simulated' or 'real' treason and, far from sending them into exile, have endeavoured to prevent them from going into voluntary exile, and to recover them from the country concerned when they have succeeded in so doing. The increase in the number of dictatorial States governed by a monolithic party denying all political rights to its opponents, accompanied by an intensification of the 'cold war', has led to a desire to temper tyranny with mercy, at least where the enemies of one's political opponents are concerned. This 'humanitarian' sentiment finds perhaps its loftiest expression in Article 14, paragraph 1, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights : Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. Nowhere in this Declaration does there appear any obligation upon any State to grant asylum to the refuge seeker, and it is the purpose of this paper to examine how far inter- national law recognises or imposes any duty upon the States which are its subjects to grant such asylum. * Inaugural lecture delivered from the Chair of International Law in the University of Malaya in Singapore. I Moore, Digest of International Law, vol. 4, p. 332. 223

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