Public National Security and Refugees Crimes in Kenya: Examining International Human Rights Law (IHRL) and 1951 Refugee Convention in the Defense of Accused Refugees (2011-2019)

Refugees have often engaged in criminal activities or compromising situations that often lead them into crimes. Refugee involvement in crime has thus become a key matter within the refugee protection agenda. This is also happening at a time when the issue of human rights protection has also become especially important. The fundamental question has concerned the guarantees that International Human Rights Law (IHRL) and 1951 Refugee Convention accord refugees, especially those accused of criminal activity. This is an important matter for Kenya, which hosts hundreds of thousands of refugees and has witnessed incidences of refugee involvement in criminal offenses. The purpose of this study is twofold. First, it will examine refugees in light of public national security in Kenya. The study will seek to identify financial, political, economic, terrorism activities and graft related issues of insecurity committed by the refugee community. Secondly, while most studies have highlighted the increasing refugee numbers into Kenya and their increased involvement in criminal activity, the area of defending and or representing the accused remains largely under-researched. Examining the role of IHRL and the 1951 Refugee Convention in defense of accused refugees in Kenya thus offers a topical area of study. Key study objectives include exploring the nature of crimes that refugees in Kenya have been accused of between 2011 and 2019 and secondly to evaluate the usefulness of the IHRL and the 1951 Refuge Convention provisions as a legal framework in the defense of accused refugees. This study will use a positivist approach. Owing to global recommendations on social distancing and subsequent closure of most relevant refugee offices and installations. This study will adopt secondary data collection albeit with a limited phone or email information collection from available refuge protection officers where possible. The focus will be on the data from Kakuma and Daadab refuges. Data from the Eastleigh area of Nairobi, which hosts a lot of urban Somali refugees will be integrated into the study. The information and data collected will be analyzed using content and thematic analysis to draw relevant conclusions useful for policy review and formulation.