non-refoulement

See also: nonrefoulement

English

WOTD – 10 December 2022

Etymology

From non- (prefix meaning ‘not’) +‎ refoulement.^[1] Refoulement is borrowed from French refoulement (“act of pushing something back (as gunpowder into a gun barrel, or water by a dam); act of water overflowing; forced relocation of a group of people; forced repatriation of asylum-seekers or refugees”), from refouler (“to cause to flow or turn back; to repress, suppress; to repulse; to trample on again”) (from re- (prefix meaning ‘again’) + fouler (“to impress, stamp; to trample, walk on; to mistreat, oppress”) (ultimately from Medieval Latin fullare (“to make cloth denser and firmer by soaking, beating and pressing, to full”), from Latin fullō (“one who fulls cloth, fuller”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₃- (“to blow; to inflate, swell”)) + -ment (suffix forming nouns from verbs, usually denoting resulting actions or states).

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌnɒnɹəˈfuːlmɒ̃/
(General American) IPA^(key): /ˌnɑnɹəˌfulˈmɑn/
Hyphenation: non-re‧foule‧ment

Noun

non-refoulement (uncountable)

(international law) The principle that a person (particularly a refugee) should not be returned to an area (chiefly their country of origin) where they would face mistreatment.
Antonym: refoulement
- 2008, Vladislava Stoyanova, “The Principle of Non-refoulement and the Right of Asylum-seekers to Enter State Territory”, in Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Rights Law‎^[1], volume 3, number 1, Bay Shore, N.Y.: Council for American Students in International Negotiations, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 1:
  In international law, there is a principle that is of paramount importance—the principle of non-refoulement (prohibition to return). The principle is applicable to any refugee, asylum-seeker or an alien who needs some form of shelter from the state whose control he/she is under. The non-refoulement principle means that states cannot return aliens to territories where they might be subjected to torture, inhumane or degrading treatment, or where their lives and freedoms might be at risk.

Alternative forms

nonrefoulement, non-refoulment

Translations

principle that a person should not be returned to an area where they would face mistreatment

Arabic: عدم الإعادة القسرية ?
Dutch: non-refoulement
Esperanto: ne-transŝovado
Finnish: palautuskielto
German: Non-refoulement-Gebot n, Grundsatz der Nichtzurückweisung m, Nichtzurückweisungsprinzip n, Refoulement-Verbot n, Nicht-Zurückweisung f, Nicht-Abschiebung f
Hebrew: עקרון האי-החזרה
Italian: principio di non-respingimento m
Japanese: ノン・ルフールマン原則 (ノン・ルフールマンげんそく)
Persian: نان رفولمان
Polish: zasada non-refoulement f
Spanish: principio de no devolución m
Swedish: principen om non-refoulement c
Turkish: geri gönderme yasağı
Vietnamese: luật không gửi trả

References

^ “non-refoulement, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2022; “non-refoulement, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.