Conclusion: "Like the prohibition of torture, temporary refuge has a special value, a moral quality which distinguishes it from other rul~s of international law, such as those governing the delimitation of maritime boundaries. Less importance can therefore be ascribed to instances of contrary practice, because to recognise exceptions, to allow or approve return to the real risk of danger to life and liberty, would shock the conscience of mankind or, to use the words of the International Court of Justice, be contrary to ?elementary considerations ofhumanity?.104 To start, as it were, with the value, with the statement of principle before the practice, might be thought utopian, divorced from reality, even ?wishful legal thinking?.105 Nevertheless, having once accurately identified the obligations in issue admission and non-return - we can see how strong is the evidence of both practice and opinio juris. The practice has been occasionally undervalued and misrepresented, with the principle of admission and non-return of those displaced by conflict being theorised from within the box, which is the more or less closed system called ?Convention refugee law?. It has been too readily associated with, and then limited by; the established principle of non-refoulement, and it has suffered from the link; it has been wrongly presented as a norm about immigration, and dismissed for the lack of any corresponding individual or civil right. Individual rights are certainly of critical importance as a basis for challenging governmental action, but they do not always or automatically follow on from the existence of the rules or principles of international law; they commonly need to be mediated into domestic legal systems, either directly through express incorporation, or indirectly, through judicial processes of interpretation and application. For Perluss and Hartman in ig86, the obligation not to return those displaced by armed conflict was conceptually distinct from refugee law and from international humanitarian law. The object and purpose of temporary refuge, in their scheme of analysis, was general protection against the risk of relevant harm, irrespective of the style or type of armed conflict; and, in their view, it ought not to be subsumed within the principle of non-refoulement, even if, from time to time it might cover the same ground and benefit some of the same individuals. Today, the core obligations of the principle of temporary refuge are firmly rooted in customary international law, they operate across a broader spectrum than non-refoulement, and are closely integrated into the international refugee regime. For understandable reasons, its impact on issues of admission and nonreturn means that it continues to be associated with the principle of nonrefoulement. This can be advantageous, so far as non-refoulement acts as a powerful brake on the State, but it can also be a drawback. A good case can be made for de-linking the concepts of refuge and non-refoulement, and in developing refuge itself as the overarching principle of protection, sufficient to accommodate all those instances where States are obliged to act or refrain from action in order that individuals or groups are not exposed to the risk of certain harms. This is not a recipe for proactive intervention, or a variation on the responsibility to protect, and neither are the duties subsumed within the principle of refuge necessarily always absolute or unqualified; in each case, it has to be determined exactly what the particular obligation requires. Of course, temporary refuge, as described above, is not a complete answer to the problems of forced displacement, any more than the Refugee Convention is a complete answer to the protection needs of those in fear of persecution. But it is a critical normative first step in the effective international protection of those displaced by armed conflict, massive violations of human rights, or indiscriminate violence; and it is firmly and soundly based in customary international law, in the practice of States, and in their understanding of obligation."