Refugees: A Very Short Introduction by Gil Loescher

Author:Gil Loescher [Loescher, Gil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780198811787
Google: DRUuEAAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0198811780
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2021-05-26T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

Responding to refugee movements

When governments created a system for responding to the needs of refugees, they agreed on the principles and institutions necessary to provide protection for refugees and to find a solution to their plight. As discussed in Chapter 2, the fundamental principles are detailed in the 1951 Refugee Convention. The core institution of the system is UNHCR. Together, these instruments are supposed to ensure that refugees have access to key rights while they are in exile. They are also supposed to help refugees find a solution to their plight.

Because refugees are individuals who have fled their home country and no longer enjoy the protection afforded to citizens of a state, the 1951 Refugee Convention also sets out the rights to which all refugees are entitled, namely that refugees should have access to national courts, the right to employment and education, and to a host of other social, economic, and civil rights on a par with nationals of the host country. UNHCR also has responsibility for monitoring and supporting states’ compliance with these rights. As we saw in Chapter 2, UNHCR has a long history of protecting and assisting millions of refugees and other displaced people around the world. For decades, the international structure for the protection of refugees provided a global treaty framework which (with some major exceptions) assisted and protected many refugees in Europe, Africa, Latin America, and most of Asia and North America.

Since its creation in December 1950 by the UN General Assembly, UNHCR has had a specific mandate, namely to ensure that refugees have access to protection from persecution. The framers of the UNHCR mandate also set out a range of ‘durable solutions’ aimed at resolving refugee problems. These solutions include resettlement in another country, local integration in a nearby receiving country, or repatriation to their home countries when conditions are safe enough for refugees to return and reclaim their rights in their country of origin.

However, the global refugee system is not able to do this work on its own. Instead, every element of the system was designed around the understanding that governments would cooperate with the regime and each other to make the system work. UNHCR’s 1950 statute does not give the organization the authority to work on its own. Instead, it works under the authority of the UN General Assembly, which is made up of states. UNHCR cannot provide solutions for refugees on its own. Instead, it is mandated to assist governments in finding solutions and can only implement solutions with the approval and cooperation of governments.

The entire logic of the global refugee system is premised on the cooperation of states. In fact, the preamble of the 1951 Convention notes that ‘the granting of asylum can place unduly heavy burdens on certain countries’, that the issue of refugees is ‘international in scope and nature’, and that protection and solutions for refugees ‘cannot be achieved without international cooperation’.

While states have reaffirmed their commitment to the idea of international cooperation dozens of times over

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