Refugees are those people who have fled war, violence, conflict or persecution and have crossed an international border to find safety in another country, as UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency said. There were 79.5 million people forcibly displaced world-wide at the end of 2019. Providing protection to people fleeing in search of refuge is one of humanity’s most longstanding traditions – a shared value embedded in many religious and cultural traditions, and now part of international law.
In order for the Global Compact on Refugees to be successful and make a difference on the ground, new initiatives must be advanced and new commitments made. UN member states should incorporate the follow way outs in the Global Compact on Refugees.
1. Responsibility sharing
UN member states should agree to a specific responsibility-sharing formula, based on a comprehensive refugee response framework, defining when a mass migration occurs and how nations can share their resources in protecting large groups of refugees and migrants. The Global Compact on Refugees should be the instrument for forging a responsibility-sharing agreement.
Refugee protection measures should be front and center in any response to the large movement of refugees and migrants. These include the use of group determinations and the provision of legal protection as part of the screening process; “protection-sensitive” border policies to ensure that persons receive due process; and the removal of reservations from the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees.
Social, education, and healthcare support should be provided to large populations in countries of first asylum or refugee resettlement nations. The global community should develop an early warning system to identify nations in crisis and use peacekeeping operations and development to stabilize nations in crisis.
2. Filling the gaps in protection
Nations should implement the principles of the Nansen Initiative, which outline steps nations should take to protect persons displaced by natural disasters and climate change, and the principles of the MICIC initiative, which offers guidelines to protect migrant workers in cases of conflict or natural disaster. Such principles should be incorporated in the Global Compact on Refugees and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration.
Temporary protection measures should be used by host states to protect populations which may not meet the refugee definition but are in need of protection until a conflict or natural disaster has ended and the danger is gone. These measures should be based on the principle of non-refoulement and include an option for long-term residents to remain permanently in the host nation.
Nations that have not ratified binding instruments, such as the UN Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, or signed onto the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, should do so.
The repatriation of refugee populations should be truly safe and voluntary. If not possible, alternative solutions should be provided, such as labour mobility, local integration, and third-country resettlement. UNHCR should re-examine the requirements for invoking cessation clauses and not participate in repatriations which are not truly voluntary. Once it is established that repatriation is an option that is safe and voluntary, refugees should be allowed to participate in the process of determining the conditions of return, including “go and see” visits to their home country before making a final decision to return. These steps should be outlined in the Global Compact on Refugees.
3. Reducing the use of deterrence strategies
Nations should adopt a refugee protection model that replaces interdiction and return practices with protection policies, including regional comprehensive refugee response frameworks. The externalization of borders in the name of “border cooperation” should be replaced with an emphasis on the externalization of protection.
Destination states should assist transit countries to increase their capacity to protect refugees, and both destination and transit states should allow the admission of refugees at their borders and for resettlement. Assistance to host nations should be conditioned upon the implementation of human rights standards in addressing large flows of refugees and migrants.
International organizations should be provided access to large populations of refugees and should be funded to assess their needs and provide protections. Destination and transit countries should partner with civil society to provide assistance and protection to refugees, and to accept referrals from civil society of cases that warrant asylum protection.
Nations should not use deterrence tactics at their borders, including limiting access to asylum procedures and due process; detention; pushbacks; or the closing of borders. In addition, the externalization of borders must be replaced with the externalization of protection.
In responding to large refugee inflows, nations, in conjunction with international humanitarian and refugee agencies, must form a coherent strategy that invests in contingency planning and includes local and national authorities in such planning; coordinates service delivery in conjunction with communities who are served; and links humanitarian and development funding. Stable, multiyear funding must be committed to support this strategy.
4. The resettlement and self-sufficiency of refugees
The global community should commit to resettling 10 per cent of the world’s refugees per year by 2030. A refugee matching system which synchronizes the needs of refugees and host communities – on international, national, and local levels – could be effective in maintaining refugee relocation systems, particularly in a time of increased security concerns and growing xenophobia.
Nations should commit to launching public information campaigns that highlight the benefits of refugee resettlement and to de-linking refugee resettlement from national security issues. Refugee populations should be integrated into local communities in order to benefit refugees and host communities, and to prevent radicalization.
Development assistance should be directed to build the capacity of refugees to work and become entrepreneurs, and host nations should accommodate this goal by providing work authorization and labour mobility.
Investment in education, skills-building, and infrastructure should be increased in host countries in ways that both benefit host communities and allow refugees to become self-sufficient, including as entrepreneurs. Better data, research, and analysis are needed to understand the economic and political markets in which refugees operate and to eliminate barriers to their independence.
The development plans of nations, and thus the aid they provide, should include refugee populations and facilitate their economic integration into their country. Aid to host countries should be increased and should not be in the form of loans or conditioned on the implementation of austerity measures. The rights of refugees in a host country should be protected as a condition of development assistance. Refugees in a host country should be entitled to work, freedom of movement, and access to education, health care, and other benefits.
(The writer is a development activist).
