Christopher J. Ayres writes that the migration crisis has prompted discussions over whether individuals seeking to enter the EU should be classified as ‘refugees’ or simply ‘migrants’. He argues that in light of these debates it is time for the EU to drop the requirement for an individual to have a ‘well-founded fear of persecution’ to be labelled a refugee, noting that this definition is 65 years old, antiquated, and was articulated by the United Nations Refugee Agency before the EU existed.
In Europe our attention is drawn more and more to issues involving asylum seekers and refugees. Much of the debate centres around whether people who have left their places of origin seeking EU residence are legally deserving of that right because they are ‘refugees’, or conversely have no such right because they are merely ‘migrants’ wishing to better their economic circumstances. For a vast number of endangered people on the move, and for aligned governments such as those in the European Union (EU), that debate could end with an overdue evolution of the criteria necessary to obtain refugee status and its associated rights. These are rights for which the EU needn’t wait around for the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) to amend.
Refugee status and the protection it connotes presently depends upon “fear of persecution”, a narrow, under-evolved notion of protection enunciated in the wake of World War II. In 1951 the United Nations stated that a refugee becomes so “…owing to a 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”.
At first glance there is nothing objectionable to this neatly-phrased formulation of protection. Its humane intentions are clear. But looking to the practice, how the letter of the law plays out in reality in the field over decades of opportunities for observation presents another tale. Having managed and resided in refugee shelters for several years in Africa, the shortcomings of the definition was all too often revealed.
For example, one shelter in Kampala was full of people who had fled the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in particular the Kivus which border Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. Their homes had been destroyed by years of violence and instability and what have subsequently been termed two African world wars. None of the Congolese who made their way to our shelter were wanted by the DRC government. None would be persecuted if forced to return to the DRC. None would be arrested. They would simply perish.
In other words, the wretched conditions in the DRC’s Kivus, in part created by the DRC government itself (along with multiple belligerents) rendered chances of survival no better than if the government purposefully sought the would-be refugees out to wrongly imprison, torture, deprive them of land, or for that matter kill them. They could conduct no sustained or viable economic activity in order to survive. They could not ‘dig’, meaning engage in subsistence farming without interruption.
It often became too dangerous to harvest their own crops, it they had any. Combatants pillaged whatever they wished and raped the women and girls. Hostilities, bloodshed, mine fields and insecurity were the features of everyday living. For many, it remains that way today. If these are not the conditions the UNHCR had in mind when they sought protection for endangered people on the move, it is hard to say what one must endure to qualify.
Indeed, those taking flight from the DRC could not avail themselves of the protection of their country of origin, which could not as a whole protect itself from hostile neighbours and internal threats. Yet many individuals and families would be rejected as ‘migrants’ whose only aim was to improve their economic opportunities. This implies that they had economic resources to improve upon, circumstances adequate to survival and merely wished to better their existence where the grass was greener.
But they had no such resources, and what some had was plundered. They used their feet to get away, even while many others could not even do that. They scavenged, they hungered, they succumbed to illness and, lacking official protection, endured raids and abuse along the path of their exit and journey through Uganda. They frequently suffered attacks and abuse in Uganda itself from residents and officials alike. Lacking refugee status they could be killed with impunity.
None of which is to say that after reaching Uganda all those who decamped from the DRC were denied refugee status. In fact, some were in time successfully resettled in third countries including the UK, Australia and the US. But for the most part they had to convince or bribe UNHCR officers to confirm that they faced some form of government sponsored persecution if they were obliged to return to the DRC. In short, fleeing for your life was not enough.
The circumstances and background of endangered people on the move to the EU today are not that different than those mentioned above. Thousands would not face government sponsored persecution if returned to their countries of origin (although many would). They would face worse, abuse from any quarter and extremely doubtful means of livelihood.
Thus, a better, more nuanced approach reflecting decades of experience in the field and at home is long overdue for EU member states. Those who make their way into the EU under circumstances similar to those forced to flee the Kivus in the DRC should be granted full refugee status on the basis of an amended EU wide common policy that broadens current antiquated UNHCR phraseology.
This would give renewed credibility to EU claims to be highly concerned about endangered people on the move. It could be accomplished merely by removing the words “of persecution” and leaving in place “a well-founded fear”. It would dismantle what too often amounts to a discriminatory pretext for removing from the EU endangered peoples on the move who have already suffered enough.
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Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics.
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Christopher J. Ayres – Berlin School of Economics & Law
Christopher J. Ayres is a Lecturer in international human rights and humanitarian law at the Berlin School of Economics and Law. He is a former U.N. attorney in Rwanda during that country’s genocidal years of 1994-5, and from 1996 to 2011 directed non-profit humanitarian and human rights initiatives in the Great Lakes Region of Africa where he worked and resided for 11 years. He holds a Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School.
It is simply not possible to keep taking in millions of the EU’s economic migrants & at the same time be expected to give refuge to millions more from Africa who want to jump on the same gravy train as European unemployed migrants. The solution is the African Union deals with an African problem & sanctions imposed if they fail to come to the plate
The bulk of the world’s refugee problems have been borne for a long time by Africa and Asia. Europe has not pulled its weight in accepting refugees, and now is the time for it to “step up to the plate” as you put it. The rest of the world has done so; Europe — and most notably the UK — has failed dismally.
And if you are complaining about a few million with a total EU population of 500 million (that is, something like 0.6%) then you might care to reflect on countries like Jordan and Lebanon, or several African countries, where the refugee populations can outnumber their indigenous populations. Your comment is simply recycling media and right wing propaganda, and has no basis in fact or morality — not to mention international law.
We did not cause this problem. It is an African issue. Either we say enough is enough & invade & seize control of the countries & put in our own governors or we accept they wanted independence & elected the various people to run their affairs ahead of colonial rule. Either way it is not our problem it is an African problem the PC brigade refuse to point the finger of blame preferring instead to wring their hands and say “we” although they really mean “you” should take these people in, feed them, clothe them, educate them, house them & provide a free health service for them. I suggest as a fella did in Ireland today that you write to Teresa May & offer your home & offer to sponsor a family. If not stop moaning.
I’m more than a little shocked that you consider advocacy of the UK playing a moral role in the world to be “moaning”. The problem with your own self-interested whining is that every single “fact” that you state is at best wrong — at worst a deliberate and cynical lie — in order to justify doing nothing to help other human beings. Of course, I do appreciate that the Thatcherite evil has had a very nasty and long-term impact on the morality of much of the UK: it is is hardly a surprise that so many of the population are interested in nothing else than money-grubbing and foolishly gloating about inflated house prices.
In terms of facts: the vast majority of people arriving in Europe are from Syria. If you consult an atlas, you will find that Syria is not in Africa. Secondly, the UK did assist in causing this problem — along with other leading countries — by financing and sponsoring terrorism in Syria. This was explained away as helping the Syrian people escape the bad dictator Assad: the clear reality is that it was international terrorism, with ISIS able to emerge and even trounce Al-Q’aida’s power in the region.
Furthermore, of these persons arriving who are from Africa, a good proportion of them are from war zones. Of the remainder who are not, you would be surprised to find out how many of them have a good education and are prepared to work hard. It is far from clear that they should be turned away, even if some of them do not have a claim to humanitarian protection.
Finally, turning this into a personal argument — that I should have to offer my home to refugees because I dare to propose public policy — is redolent of the evil woman Thatcher. “There is no such thing as society”, she spat — while doing her best to destroy it. She has almost succeeded, it seems.
Do you even know how much aid the UK has given towards the Syrian Crisis? £1.1 Billion Pounds! More than Germany, Netherlands, France, Italy, Hungary, Austria & Poland combined. If the UK wasn’t devoting it’s aid towards the crisis centre hundreds of thousands more would be flooding across the sea’s in rubber boats. The UK is taking in legitimate refugees that have been legally processed by the UN not swarms of migrants seeking to bypass the international rule of law
Joe: with all respect, you are totally misguided on this. The UK and others have financed terrorism in Syria — causing the collapse of the Assad regime and the rise of ISIS. The UK has played a large role in creating refugee flows — not in minimising them.
As for taking in refugees, no. The UK government has set very low limits — which have nothing to do with legitimacy. This is a political decision — the Uk government doesn’t want to receive refugees from Syria. There is little or no UN processing of the Syrian refugees, as far as I know. This is all being handled by national authorities.
The UK is not accepting its fair share of a burden that it actually helped to create. Pure hypocrisy and cant from Cameron and May.
@Martin
you are wasting your time if you think you can make Joe Thorpe look at reality
he has been trolling fora for the past several years, spouting his xenophobic nonsense
one look at his “numbers” is enough to show he’s gobbling up the UK government’s line (and its right-wing pals) about being the “biggest donor” for syrian refugees
here are some numbers to put things in perspective
http://ec.europa.eu/echo/files/aid/countries/factsheets/syria_en.pdf
in addition, I remember that Syria’s unstability was engineered by jihadists financed by gulf states and overzealous “democrats” (neocons), following the descent into chaos of Iraq in the past decade … guess we won’t hear much from him about UK responsibility and “moral streak” on that front
finally, and very unfortunately too, Syria is just one of many areas with strife and/or failing governments.
it’s good for the syrian refugees that the UK is giving some aid (1.1 billion pounds over 5 years is barely 0.15% of the UK government yearly budget)
their situation might be hot on the news, but all others are no less dire (darfur, sahel, somalia, congo, haiti, afghanistan, iraq, south-east asia …).
if international donors focus their money into helping them more than the syrian that doesn’t make them any less praiseworthy, though it might not be as media-savvy
Best regards,
Hi, Starbuck. Thanks for the comment — and especially for the factsheet which I have not seen before.
You are right that the global refugee crisis concerns far more than Syrians: they have become what we might call “the respectable face of asylum” with their paler skin colour, largely middle class orientation and ability to communicate in English. Meanwhile, other refugee flows are ignored, and frequently denounced as economic migration — the supposedly “fake asylum-seekers” that the far Right loves to demonise.
As for dealing with uninformed xenophobia, my view is that if we don’t rebut it online, many others might be fooled by the disinformation. The problem is having the patience to do this repeatedly without getting bad tempered 🙂