Laws imposed on Palestinian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon

Abstract

In international law, Palestinian refugees are regarded as stateless. This allows the countries hosting them to be discrete in the way they treat them. In Lebanon, Palestinian refugees are treated like “temporary guests”; they reside in refugee camps and have no legal rights for education and work. In Jordan, a common assumption that Palestinians are granted more rights than in Lebanon may be proven to be true by some laws. However, till this day Palestinian refugees in Jordan are struggling. In 2010, the Jordanian nationality was withdrawn from many Jordanians with Palestinian origin, this means that the rights that come hand in hand with the nationality were stripped away too. This study on Palestinian refugees will examine the different laws (citizenship, employment, property) the Palestinians have to face in Jordan and in Lebanon. This information will give us a deeper understanding on how each of the countries’ laws affects Palestinians and their access to rights and how these laws threaten to cause tension between these countries and the refugees residing in them. Furthermore, the study will underscore the institutional origins of the injustice Palestinian refugees are continuing to face ever since the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.