Sovereign State Power and the Refugee: A Theological Engagement with Issues of State Sovereignty and its Implications for Refugee Policy Reform in New Zealand

TL;DRAbstract

The current statistics from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees indicate the existence of an urgent global refugee crisis. In response to this crisis the New Zealand Government has proposed immigration policy reform, primarily through the Immigration Amendment Bill 2012. In this thesis I place the domestic debate regarding these policy reforms within the context of the international, deontological debate regarding the justification and legitimacy of nation-states and their obligations toward refugees and asylum seekers, and provide a theological perspective on it. I am concerned specifically with the questions “does a theological engagement with the deontological debate regarding the justification and legitimacy of nation-states, and the nature of their power, support the assumption that the New Zealand Government possesses the right to determine unilaterally its immigration policies regarding refugees and asylum seekers as it sees fit? If it does not, what limitations sh

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