The Contemporary Global Refugee Crisis

Peace Review A Journal of Social Justice

ISSN: 1040-2659 (Print) 1469-9982 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cper20

The Contemporary Global Refugee Crisis Joseph Besigye Bazirake To cite this article: Joseph Besigye Bazirake (2017) The Contemporary Global Refugee Crisis, Peace Review, 29:1, 61-67, DOI: 10.1080/10402659.2017.1272307 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10402659.2017.1272307

Published online: 31 Jan 2017.

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Date: 31 January 2017, At: 20:07

Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice, 29:61–67 C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Copyright ISSN 1040-2659 print; 1469-9982 online DOI: 10.1080/10402659.2017.1272307

The Contemporary Global Refugee Crisis Joseph Besigye Bazirake

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) cited the 65.3 million displaced persons in 2015 as the highest since the Second World War. These totals, which are only surpassed by the populations of 20 of the world’s most populous countries, point to the intensity of a human crisis of which the refugee regime forms part. More telling of the breakdown of these figures is the whopping 40.8 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), the 16.1 million refugees who are recognized within the UNHCR protective mandate, and an additional 5.2 million Palestinian refugees who are protected by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. The staggering 3.2 million asylum seekers by 2015 may also point to a supposition that the clearing rates for asylum seekers are under tremendous strain. Not surprisingly, therefore, when the refugee crisis is presented in popular media, the discourse focuses on the growing numbers of asylum seekers, who for instance, rose to 1.26 million in Europe according to the 2015 Eurostat figures. Several questions come to mind when engaging with the global statistics of forced displacement, especially in relation to the reported numbers of displaced people vis-à-vis the popular understanding of displacement that is often blanketed by references to the refugee crisis. Let us, therefore, engage with an understanding of the global refugee crisis by underscoring the definitional foundation of the status of refugees as well as the contemporary contradictions that relate to the settlement and resettlement processes of displaced persons.

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n the first instance, the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the status of refugees, guided by article 14 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, laid the groundwork for the recognition of the right of persons to seek protection from persecution from countries other than their own. Accordingly, the convention defined a “refugee” as someone who: as a result of events occurring before January 1, 1951 and owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his

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former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.

The peculiarity of this mouthful of a definition was in its spirit to assist persons who were fleeing events before January 1, 1951, and characteristically within Europe. Although this geographical and time limitation was eventually discarded in the 1967 New York protocol, the definitional parameters of refugees as persons who will, in essence, cease to avail themselves of the protection of their own countries is problematic in its de facto sense. This is because the premise of availing oneself to the protection of another country, whereas fundamental within the human rights law framework within which the refugee law finds credence, remains under strain in the status quo of the state-centric international legal framework. The international legal framework is regulated under the auspices of sovereign authority, and considerations for protection beyond the citizenry that such protection already accrues, remains within the confines of that authority. This was for instance made more explicit in the 2001 adaptation of the 1966 Bangkok Principles on Status and Treatment of Refugees that emphasized the state’s sovereign right to “grant or to refuse asylum in its territory to a refugee in accordance with its international obligations and national legislation.” Evidently, the forced choice of giving up the protection of one’s country and taking up the protection of another is far from a straightforward process, as access to protection, whereas it may be provided with oversight from UNHCR within the refugee framework, can only be actualized by the acceptance of a sovereign state to offer such protection. This dilemma of human protection, which is outlined as the responsibility of the State in the 1951 convention, can be seen in the hesitancy in opening up to possibilities of readily extending that responsibility beyond a State’s own citizenry as sought by the highly castigated principle of the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P). The strong foundation of the international legal framework in a state-centric format therefore makes for a practical challenge in the attempt to settle refugees. It is helpful to note, however, that the 1951 convention not only described the status, but also the rights of refugees, underpinned by the principles of non-discrimination, non-penalization, and non-refoulement. The principle of non-refoulement holds a particularly solid stance in its provisions for the non-expulsion or forced return of a refugee against his or her will to a territory where he or she fears threats to life or freedom.

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he challenges surrounding the protective status and rights-based formulation of the 1951 convention are therefore twofold. First, whereas individuals might find themselves in a situation that necessitates them to seek for the protection of another country, the international system is still bound

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by the de facto choice of acceptance (or not) of such a responsibility by the receiving sovereign state. The second challenge lies within the limitation that certain individuals are unable to avail themselves of the protection of other countries, despite the dismal circumstances within which they find themselves in their own countries. This explains the unprecedented numbers of internally displaced persons for whom the failures of their countries to offer them protection also leaves them more adverse to risk without the kinds of protective possibilities that could be availed if they crossed borders. More so, the circumstances that result in refugees are increasingly diverting from the precepts outlined by the 1951 convention, which identified that individuals would be deserving of a refugee status if their wellfounded fear of persecution would be based on their racial, political, national, or religious identities. This convention, which was framed in the aftermath of two world wars, ironically seemed not to have anticipated that future wars could have actual threats to the lives of non-combatant masses, whose wellfounded fear would not necessarily relate to particular inherent characteristics or beliefs, but would solely be motivated by the threats to their lives when caught in the crossfire or used as human shields. The increase in mass movements of mixed groups of civilians who commonly flee from war seems to have become the primary reason for people to seek asylum in contemporary times. While anticipating some of these challenges, continental groupings have in the past sought to come up with more comprehensive parameters for identifying people in the need of protection in order to supplement the 1951 convention. The Organisation of African Unity (OAU; now the African Union) pioneered this trend when in its 1969 summit in Addis Ababa, the term “refugee” was co-opted to also apply to “every person who, owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing public order in either part or the whole of his country of origin or nationality is compelled to leave his place of habitual residence in order to seek refuge in another place outside his country of origin or nationality.” This adaptation has been significant in giving audience to the wider-ranging consideration that had not been included in the 1951 convention.

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his trend was furthered when regional standards for refugees in Central America, Mexico, and Panama, were adopted at a colloquium held at Cartagena, Colombia, in 1984. While the resultant Cartagena declaration had a limited geographical bound, its enlargement of the definition of a refugee to cater to victims of human-made disasters, and its insistence on the countries within the region of its scope to address the causes of mass displacement, was unprecedented. Refugees according to this declaration were defined as “ … persons who have fled their country because their lives, safety or freedom have been threatened by generalized violence, foreign aggression, internal

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conflicts, massive violation of human rights, or other circumstances which have seriously disturbed public order.” A critique can be laid, however, in relation to the Cartagena declaration’s bias toward the burden of proof to be borne by the individual under all circumstances, despite the pioneering precedence that had been set by OAU’s mass recognition of persons fleeing the risk of harm. Following the sentiments of the Cartagena declaration, however, it is important to note that the actual crisis surrounding the refugee situation is far from the interpretative arguments that have been raised in this essay so far. The recognition of the causes of refugees as derivative from human-made disasters, to which international cooperation ought to be sought, is perhaps the most basic form of appeal aimed at addressing the global refugee crisis. With the current highest sources of refugees (viz., Syria and Afghanistan), to also be battlegrounds for foreign troops is an anti-climax to the contemporary trends of the plight of refugees. For the contemporary realities of the global refugee crisis, and indeed the general forced displacement of people to be substantially reduced, it would be important for the 148 States that are party to either one or both of the global refugee protection instruments of the 1951 convention and 1967 protocol, to commit to being part of the solutions in ending the causes of refugees rather than further contributing to such wars directly or by proxy. These contemporary realities of the global refugee crisis reflect a number of unique features that need to be taken into consideration. For instance, the protracted nature of the wars from which people flee also have implications on the human security concerns even after the conclusion of such wars. As a result, the trend within which individuals endure great risk to seek for asylum in European and North American destinations can be understood in their proactive search for permanent solutions to their plight. The same logic can also explain the peculiar conflation between asylum seekers and migrants, whose northerly search for solutions to their plight leave them vulnerable and in the hands of predatory human traffickers and people smugglers. The desperation of these two groups speaks to the despair that forces individuals to put their lives on the line, in the pursuit for economic and/or social security.

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he fact that on top of the risk, individuals have to pay fees that have been reported to exceed prices for more comfortable and quicker travel alternatives is also reflective of an information gap, and the restrictive travel firewall in the international system, which makes access to safe and quicker alternatives further away from the reach of asylum seekers. Considering that they are protected from being penalized for their illegal entry or stay in another state by the 1951 refugee convention, it makes them easy prey for the people smugglers.


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Perhaps one of the least explored contradictions of the refugee regime is the one between settlement and resettlement policies. Only a small fraction of the world’s countries, particularly those in Europe and North America, offer the option of resettlement as a permanent solution for refugees and their families. By striving to arrive at destinations that offer resettlement opportunities as their first points of asylum registration, it can be assumed that the knowledge of the bureaucratic queue that the asylum seekers will have skipped by this action informs this risky choice. A field study in 2010 conducted by a collaborative group of master’s students from Royal Roads University’s Human Security & Peace Building Program (Victoria, Canada) and Makerere University’s Peace & Conflict Studies Program (Kampala, Uganda), in which this author was a participant, revealed that a fair proportion of the refugees of the Nakivale refugee settlement had applied for resettlement, and were in relentless anticipation for their resettlement to Europe, Canada, or the United States. It was also revealed that despite the progressive nature of Uganda’s refugee policies that had provided for pieces of cultivable land to families, for instance, such a policy seemed to work well for the refugees who originated from the Democratic Republic of Congo, but was atrocious for the Somalia community, whose preference to own livestock was prohibited at the time. This scenario highlights two critical trends. First, as already pointed out earlier in this essay, the search for resettlement opportunities in third countries in Europe and North America as a permanent solution for refugees and asylum seekers is a real systemic bottleneck that needs to be addressed. The fact that only up to 33 countries had active resettlement programs according to UNHCR’s 2015 statistics indicates a dire hierarchical contradiction between settlement and resettlement, where the latter becomes the desired status since it often comes along with offers of permanent residence to the refugees and their families in a third country. Quite unsurprisingly, resettlement is in the hands of the more advanced global economies, without any African country, and only Japan as the Asian representative. Refugee settlements, on the other hand, are in the global South, with Amnesty International indicating that 10 “poor” countries host up to 56 percent of the world’s refugees within such settlements.

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ypically, the preferred movement of asylum seekers would be imitative of the northerly flow of the increasingly rebuffed economic migration patterns, in which the search for socio-economic havens has become a humanitarian misadventure in its own right. Nonetheless, by maintaining the discrepancy between settlement and resettlement differentials, where settlement areas for asylum seekers are mostly located in developing countries that are already prone to outward economic migration, the inadvertent conflation between the flow of migrants and asylum seekers cannot be ignored.

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In essence, given the post-conflict uncertainties that might hinder the safe and voluntary return of refugees to their places of origin, coupled with the economic strain in staying within the makeshift conditions in most settlement areas, resettlement remains as the only other permissible option. It is therefore important to address this incongruity between refugee settlement and resettlement programs, where settlements tend to be presented as temporal responses, but can become long-term dwellings in practice. Judging from some of the families that had reportedly stayed in the Nakivale resettlement area for periods ranging from 8.15 years, this façade of refugee settlements as clearinghouses for resettlement to third countries needs to be scrutinized further. This situation also calls for more meaningful partnerships between the developed and developing states in addressing the refugee crisis through infrastructural development from which both the refugees and their host communities can benefit. Such partnerships need to also extend to post-conflict reconstruction and confidence building measures to facilitate safe and voluntary repatriation of refugees. Second, the scenario described earlier from the Nakivale refugee settlement points toward the importance of matching contextual appropriateness of asylum seekers to the places that they will be (re)settled. For instance, Somali refugees in the Nakivale refugee settlement were prohibited from keeping livestock owing to the fact that the animals had previously foraged on the crops of the other residents in the area. In this way, the Somali refugees’ way of life was curtailed in that context, due to its incompatibility with the other residents of the settlement and its surrounding areas. It would therefore be important to take note of the possibilities of contradictory beliefs and lifestyle choices in order to match asylum seekers with host communities. It would be paradoxical if people who become refugees, especially by fleeing war situations, end up in situations where they are castigated for their religions, nationalities, or lifestyle choices in the countries of their refuge. Cooperation would be essential in enabling refugee settlement areas in the global south to offer decent livelihoods to refugees, including asylum seekers. Such global partnerships could support frameworks that diminish the disparity between settlement and resettlement in the refugee regime. The response to the refugee crisis will, however, need to go beyond whether countries need to accept more refugees, and also seek to address the human-made conditions that result in forced displacement. Ultimately, the need for countries to commit to finding lasting solutions to hostilities will go a long way in ensuring that cases of human displacement are significantly reduced. Perhaps the first practical steps in the process should be in the form of commitments by global powers to cease with the military interventions that contribute to a bulk of refugees, and rally for post-conflict reconstruction support, in order to facilitate the safe and voluntary return of refugees and other displaced persons.


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ORCID Joseph Besigye Bazirake

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1720-999X

RECOMMENDED READINGS Amnesty International. 2015. Global Refugee Crisis in Numbers. Available at , last accessed October 12, 2016. Bazirake, Joseph B. and Bukuluki, Paul. 2015. “A critical reflection on the conceptual and practical limitations of the responsibility to protect.” The International Journal of Human Rights, 19(8): 1017–1028. Eurostat Statics Explained. 2016. Available at , last accessed October 15, 2016. Foreign Relations. 1984. Cartagena Declaration on Refugees. Available at , last accessed October 15, 2016. Hammond, Timothy G. 2015. “The Mediterranean Migration Crisis.” Foreign Policy Journal. Available at , last accessed January 6, 2017. OAU. 1974. “Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa.” Available at , last accessed October 15, 2016. UNHCR. 2010. “Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees.” Available at , last accessed October 15, 2016. UNHCR. 2016. Refugee Resettlement Trends. Available at , last accessed October 15, 2016.

Joseph Besigye Bazirake is a Doctoral Researcher at the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice, University of the Free State in South Africa. He is also a certification candidate with the International Center for Nonviolent Communication. E-mail: [email protected]