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Current Issues
Refugees and asylum seekers: a guide to key resources and recent developments
E-Brief: Online Only updated 1 May 2007
Catherine Böhm, Information/E-links
Social Policy Section
Adrienne Millbank, Analysis and Policy
Social Policy Section
Introduction
At the end of 2005, according to the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) publication Global
Refugee Trends 2005, the global number of refugees reached an estimated
8.4 million persons, the lowest level since 1980. The total population
of concern to UNHCR increased from 19.5 million persons at the beginning
of 2005 to 20.8 million by the end of 2005 (+6%). Refugees constituted
40 per cent of the total population of concern to UNHCR, down from 49
per cent at the start of 2005. Internally displaced persons (IDPs) protected
or assisted by UNHCR are the second largest group under the Office’s mandate
accounting for 32 per cent, followed by stateless persons with 11 per
cent. The total population of concern to UNHCR, however, is not totally
reflected in these figures, either because a significant number of stateless
people have not been systematically identified, or statistical data is
unavailable despite renewed efforts on the part of UNHCR.
During 2005, 1.1 million refugees were repatriated voluntarily to their
countries of origin, and 30,500 were resettled under UNHCR auspices, in
third countries (most in the USA,
Australia and Canada).
The ‘warehousing’ of refugees for many years in refugee camps or protracted
refugee situations has emerged as an issue of concern. In 2005 the
sharp decline of recent years in the number of asylum claims lodged in
(50) industrialized countries continued; 336,100 claims were lodged, down
from 655,100 in 2001. Asylum seekers however remain a politically salient
issue in many countries. Despite efforts at the international level to
shore up the international asylum system, increasingly restrictive measures
have been adopted.
This resource guide provides links to statistics
and information about the world’s refugees, asylum seekers and others
‘of concern’. There are of course many electronic sites with information
on refugee issues. This guide focuses on key agencies and materials that
track recent developments and explore current issues. It aims to enable
comparisons to be made between Australian and international refugee and
asylum seeker responses and policies. Different countries vary widely
in terms of standards of living, geography, political systems and migration
traditions and cultures. The complexity of refugee situations and different
ways of compiling statistics need to be taken into account when drawing
comparisons.
The 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status
of Refugees is often described as a product of Europe: it grew out of
the situation in Europe after the Second World War; 75 per cent of claims
for asylum have been lodged in European countries; and much of the policy
development in the international asylum system has happened in Europe.
For this reason, there is a focus in this guide on recent developments
in Europe.
The Refugee Convention
The 1951 UN Convention Relating
to the Status of Refugees is the key legal document defining refugee
status and rights and the legal obligations of signatory states. The 1967 Protocol removed
geographical and temporal restrictions (the 1951 Convention applied to
refugees in Europe following World War II). As at 1 March 2006, there
were 143 States Parties to the 1951 convention and 143 to the 1967 Protocol.
The Convention was ratified
by Australia on 22 January 1954, and the Protocol was ratified on
13 December 1973. States
that have not yet acceded to the 1951 Convention or its 1967 Protocol
are mainly in Asia and the Middle East. The USA
is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, although it has signed
the 1967 Protocol.
There are two key articles in the Convention.
Article 1
defines a refugee as ‘A person who is outside his/her country of nationality
or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of persecution because
of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social
group or political opinion; and is unable or unwilling to avail himself/herself
of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution.’
Article 33
spells out the key obligation, of ‘non-refoulement’, that is not to return
someone to a country where they have a credible fear of persecution.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR) was established on December 14, 1950 by the United
Nations General Assembly, with a mandate
to lead and co-ordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve
refugee problems worldwide. It is also expected under certain circumstances
to assist groups of people such as internally displaced persons, asylum
seekers and returnees (those refugees who have returned to their own countries).
Mr.
Ruud Lubbers, UNHCR's ninth High Commissioner resigned on February
20, 2005. Mr. Lubbers had served
since January 1, 2001, when he succeeded Mrs. Sadako
Ogata of Japan.
His successor is the, former Portuguese Prime Minister, Mr
Antonio Guterres who was appointed on 25 May 2005. The UNHCR is guided
in its activities by an Executive
Committee (EXCOM), currently comprising delegates from 64 countries.
EXCOM produces Protection Publications
to provide guidance on refugee issues. The UNHCR is funded through annual
donations – donor
countries and donations each year since 1990 are publicly listed.
The USA and Japan
are the major donors.
General information and statistics on refugees
and the work of UNHCR
- Basic Facts
- News from the UN Refugee
Agency
- UNHCR
Global Report 2005 (an assessment of the year in review and a look
at populations
of concern)
- The
State of the World’s Refugees 2006 provides a more detailed look
at trends and issues, against the broader political context of the effects
of national security concerns and migratory flows on asylum seekers,
refugees and internally displaced persons worldwide
- Refugees
by Numbers 2006
- Global
Refugee Trends provides more detailed statistics on refugees, asylum-seekers,
internally displaced persons, stateless persons and other persons of
concern to UNHCR. The tables cover refugee populations and movements,
major locations, repatriation, asylum applications, refugee status determination,
recognition rates, and demographic characteristics
- Protecting Refugees
contains information about the resettlement of refugees under UNHCR
auspices including refugee
children
- Refugee
Resettlement Handbook describes the role of resettlement in the
resolution of refugee situations and criteria for resettlement. This
includes country chapters where the resettlement programs of different
countries are described
Internal Displacement
The definition of ‘refugee’ in the 1951 Refugee Convention does not cover
internally displaced people (IDPs). The UNHCR is not mandated to deal
with IDPs, and they have attracted less attention than international refugees,
although their plight is often worse. An alternative source of comprehensive
and up to date information and statistics on internal displacement is
provided by the Geneva-based Internal
Displacement Monitoring Centre’s interactive Global IDP Database,
maintained by the Norwegian Refugee
Council (NRC). The NRC estimates the global total of internally-displaced
people at the end of 2005 at 23.7 million.
The United States Committee for Refugees (USCR)
The United
States Committee for Refugees also provides an alternative (from the
UNHCR) source of information and estimates. The USCR, World
Refugee Survey 2006, put the total number of refugees and asylum seekers
in 2005 at 11.9 million, internally displaced people at 23.6 million,
and the total number of 'uprooted' people at 35.5 million. USCR Country Reports provide information
annually on refugee situations and issues in 131 countries. USCR also
publishes Refugee
Reports. The USCR was founded in 1958 to coordinate US
participation in the UN International Refugee Year (1959).
Developments in the international
asylum system
Following a decade of rapid increase in the number of asylum claims in
Western countries, the continuing viability of the 1951 Refugee Convention
has been questioned (a typical example is an
address given by Dr Alexander Casella, a former UNHCR regional director,
at a migration conference in Sydney, 2002).
The UNHCR organised a series of Global
Consultations on International Protection, culminating in a conference
in Geneva in December 2001 at which representatives of 156 governments,
including Australia, unanimously
reaffirmed the commitment of the international community to the 1951 Refugee
Convention.The Global Consultations process involving governments,
non-government organizations, other groups and experts continued into
subsequent years with an Agenda
for Protection - a series of activities designed to strengthen refugee protection
and adherence to the Convention.
Meanwhile, governments of Western countries
have imposed ever tougher restrictions to deter and discourage asylum
seekers. The Australian government attempted in 2005 to extend the off-shore
processing of asylum seekers through its Pacific
Solution, established in 2001.
Europe
Seventy five per cent of
asylum claims are lodged within European countries. Western European countries
have a long tradition of political asylum; the right to asylum is guaranteed
by the EU’s Charter
of Fundamental Rights. Over the last decade however commitment
to the Refugee Convention has co-existed with increasing determination
by governments to reduce the number of claims lodged within their territories.
The comments on 28 February 2006 of the Secretary of the UK Home Office
Tony McNulty illustrate this- Asylum
Applications at Lowest Level for More Than a Decade.
With the decline in the number
of asylum claims lodged, focus has shifted in a number of European countries
to increasing the number of removals of failed asylum seekers. For example
the UK government
in its Five Year Strategy of 7 February 2005 Controlling
our borders: making migration work for Britain set a target for the
monthly rate of removals to exceed the number of unfounded applications
by the end of 2005 (p.12 electronic version).
The Council of Europe
The
Council of Europe’s interest in the situation of refugees, asylum
seekers and displaced persons is reflected in the various treaties and
recommendations of the Committee of Ministers and of the Parliamentary
Assembly. Several of these texts are based on the case-law of the European
Court of Human Rights.
The Ad
Hoc Committee of Experts on the Legal Aspects of Territorial Asylum, Refugees
and Stateless Persons (CAHAR) works on the legal aspects of territorial
asylum, refugees and stateless persons ensuring European laws and practices
related to refugees and asylum seekers are co-ordinated. It drafts conventions
and recommendations which may be adopted by the Committee of Ministers.
CAHAR also aims towards the harmonisation of asylum policy in the Council
of Europe.
The European Commission
With freedom of movement within the European Union,
all EU countries are affected by the asylum policies and practices of
any one country, hence there are efforts to coordinate or ‘harmonise’
policies and practices. The European Commission has been specifically
tasked to develop a ‘Common
approach for a fair asylum policy’.
The EU Council of Ministers
agreed in Tampere,
Finland (October 1999) to harmonise European asylum policy and practice
‘based on the full application of the 1951 United Nations Geneva Convention
on the status of refugees’.
The European
Commission for Justice and Home Affairs, Reception of Asylum Seekers
work to date has focused on the development of minimum ‘reception’ standards
for asylum seekers.
The second stage of European Union
policy development towards a common European asylum system, formally adopted
in November 2004 as the ‘Hague
Programme’, is focussing on the more contentious issues of common
minimum standards and procedures for the granting of refugee status and
subsidiary protection (such as temporary humanitarian resident status).
The target date for adoption is 2010. EU countries, in cooperation
with the UNHCR, are presenting the ‘Hague Programme’ as a significant
reform of the international asylum system, because of its ‘external dimensions’
and goal of reducing ‘spontaneous movements’ to European countries. The
‘Hague Programme’ will focus on strengthening capacity to protect and
process asylum seekers in their regions of origin, or in transit countries
(such as Libya or Morocco
in North Africa).
Recent international commentary
- Guy Goodwin-Gill,
The
refuge problem – time for a ‘new order’, ON LINE opinion,
March 2006
- Helen O’Nions, The
Erosion of the Right to Seek Asylum, Web Journal of Current
Legal Issues, no.2, 2006
- Stephen Castles, Global
Perspectives on Forced Migration, Asia and Pacific
Journal, January 2006
- Erika Feller, Asylum,
migration and refugee protection: realities, myths and the promise of
things to come, International Journal of Refugee Law, September
2006, v.18 (3-4), pp. 509-536
- Claudia Tazreiter,
Between
state sovereignty and invisibility: monitoring the human rights of returned
asylum seekers, Australian Journal of Human Rights, December
2006, vol. 12 (1), pp. 7-25
- Khalis Kosher, Refugees,
transnationalism and the state, Journal of Ethnic and Migration
Studies, March 2007, vol. 33 (2), pp. 233-25
- Joanne Van Selm and
Betsy Cooper, The
new boat people. Ensuring safety and determining status, Migration
Policy Institute, 2005. Includes appendices on policies and practices
around the world
Sources on asylum in Europe
- Jens Vedsted-Hansen,
Common EU standards on asylum – Optional harmonization and exclusive
procedures?, European Journal of Migration and Law, vol. 7, no.
4, March 2006, pp. 369-376
- Professor Roger Zetter et al, An
assessment of the impact of asylum policies in Europe 1990-2000,
Home Office Research Study 259, Development and Statistics Directorate,
June 2003
- Tim Hatton, The
Rise (and Fall?) of Asylum Seekers, 2005, and Seeking
asylum in Europe, 2004, examines and attempts to explain
the numbers seeking asylum, over time and across the EU, and the effects
of deterrence policies
- Tim Hatton, European
Asylum Policy, National Institute Economic Review No. 194,
2005, examines the development of the Common European Asylum System
- Catherine Phuong, Controlling
asylum migration to the enlarged EU: The Impact of EU Accession on Asylum
and Immigration Policies in Central and Eastern Europe,
from Poverty, international migration and asylum, chapter
18, edited by George J. Borias and Jeff Crisp, NewYork, Palgrave, Macmillan,
2005. The article looks at how the countries which have recently joined
the EU are responding to increasing asylum migration.
- European Council on Refugees and Exiles, Guidelines on
the treatment of Iraqi Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Europe,
March 2006, examines the return (voluntary and forced) of asylum seekers
to Iraq.
- The
human cost of 'Fortress Europe': asylum seekers unfairly detained and
unfairly expelled, Amnesty International reports on UK, Spain,
Italy. Monday 20 June 2005
- María-Teresa Gil-Bazo,
The Practice
of Mediterranean States in the context of the European Union's Justice
and Home Affairs External Dimension. The Safe Third Country Concept
Revisited, International Journal of Refugee Law, 2006, 18,
(3-4), pp. 571-600
- Elspeth Guild, The Europeanisation
of Europe's asylum policy, International Journal of Refugee
Law, 2006, 18, (3-4), pp.630-651
- Torun Dewan and Eiko
R. Thieleman, The
myth of free-riding: refugee protection and implicit burden-sharing,
Western European Politics, March 2006, Vol. 29 (2), pp. 351-369
Developments in the European
Commission can be followed through these websites
International resources
- The Migration Policy Institution, an independent
think tank based in Washington, tracks developments
in ‘thinking, law and practice in the realm of refugee protection’ through
its website pages on Refugee Protection
and International Humanitarian Response
- EurAsylum
Ltd, provides research, evaluation and consulting services dedicated
solely to issues of immigration control and asylum policy in Europe
and internationally
- The Centre for Immigration Studies, also based
in Washington, provides a comprehensive international
news service and produces reports and articles on refugee and asylum
seeker issues as well as immigration
- The International Journal
of Refugee Law contains analytical articles on refugee and asylum
seeker legal issues and case law
- AsylumSupport.info
is a UK based non-government
organisation that provides a directory of online resources relating
to asylum and refugees
Refugee advocate organisations
Country links
Country profiles
Australia
Parliamentary Inquiries
Commonwealth Ombudsman
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC):
Parliamentary Library publications
- Migration
Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006, Bills
Digest, no. 138, 2005-06
- Australia’s
settlement services for refugees and migrants, E-brief, 2006
- Recent
developments in refugee and immigration law, E-brief, 2005
- Excising
Australia: Are we really shrinking? Research Note, no. 5
2005-06
- Australia’s
humanitarian program Research Note no. 9, 2005-06
- Temporary
Protection Visas Research Note no. 51, 2003–04
- Protecting
Australia's Borders Research Note no. 22, 2003–04
- Children
in Detention, E-brief, 2003
- Australia
and Refugees, 1901-2002: Annotated Chronology Based on Official Sources.
A summary
is also available (Chronology no. 2, 2002–03)
- The East
Timorese asylum seekers: legal issues and policy implications ten years
on, Current Issues Brief no. 17, 2002–03
- Refugee
law: recent legislative developments, Current Issues Brief
no. 5, 2001–02
- The detention
of boat people, Current Issues Brief no. 8, 2000–01
- The problem
with the 1951 Refugee Convention, Research Paper no. 5, 2000–01
- Boat
people, illegal migration and asylum seekers: in perspective, Current
Issues Brief no. 13, 1999–2000
Refugee advocate groups
Belgium
Canada
France
Germany
Italy
Netherlands
Denmark
Finland
New Zealand
Norway
Sweden
United Kingdom
- Immigration and Nationality Directorate,
Latest press releases, asylum statistics, news including legislative
changes
- Research Development
Statistics on Immigration and Asylum
- Home Office Statistical Bulletin,
Asylum Statistics United Kingdom 2005 14/06, 22 August 2006
- Applying for Asylum
- Country
specific asylum policy
- Refugee
integration
- Immigration
Law
- Home Office, Full
and Equal Citizens: A Strategy for the Integration of Refugees into
the United Kingdom, 2000
- Secure
borders, safe haven: integration with diversity in modern Britain, White
Paper, February 2002
- Immigration & Nationality Directorate, UK
immigration controls move to France to curb illegal immigration,
01 February 2004
- An assessment of the
impact of asylum policies in Europe 1990-2000. Findings 168, Home
Office, 2003
- An assessment
of the impact of asylum policies in Europe 1990-2000. Home
Office Research Study 259, Home Office Research, Development and
Statistics Directorate, June 2003, Parts 1 and 2
Other UK Sources
- UK
Visas, Foreign and Commonwealth Office
- Asylum and Immigration Tribunal
- BBC News Key
stories on asylum including measures to cut
down on asylum and asylum child care
plan
- Asylum support crisis
response website includes country data, trafficking and human rights
links
- Free English
lessons for adult asylum seekers to be axed, December 28,
2006
- Amnesty International, United
Kingdom: Seeking asylum is not a crime: Detention of people who have
sought asylum, 20 June 2005 EUR 45/015/2005
- Policy
focus: immigration, House magazine (London), vol. 31 (1174),
8 May 2006
- Guardian Special Report Refugees,
Immigration, Asylum and Refugees news
- BBC
Asylum news
United States
- U.S. Department of State
- U.S.Department of State, Oversight Of U.S. Refugee
Admissions And Policy, September 27 2006
- U.S. Department of Justice.
Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration
- U.S.Department of Homeland Security. 2005
Yearbook of Immigration statistics, November 2006 which includes
refugee statistics
- U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services
- U.S. Department of Homeland
Security
- National
Immigration Forum background to the US
asylum system, events, statistics
- U.S. Committee for Refugees, World Refugee
Information. The World Refugee Survey reports on conditions for
refugees and internally displaced persons in 120 countries
- Congressional Research Service (CRS), Library
of Congress, Alison Siskin,
Immigration-related
detention: current legislative issues
, April 28, 2004
- CRS, Refugee
Admissions and Resettlement Policy, updated January 2006
- The
National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) is a national
organization composed of local coalitions and immigrant, refugee, community,
religious, civil rights and labor organizations and activists
Country profiles
International AidAgencies
For copyright reasons some linked items are only available to
Members of Parliament.
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