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Background Note
Refugees
and asylum seekers: a guide to key electronic resources
Online only 17 August 2009
Harriet
Spinks[1]
Social Policy Section
Contents
Introduction
The global number of
refugees reached an estimated 15.2 million persons at the end of 2008, according
to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) publication 2008 Global Trends: Refugees,
asylum-seekers, returnees, internally displaced and stateless persons. The
total population under UNHCR’s responsibility stood at 34.4 million at the end
of 2008. This figure includes refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced people
(IDPs), returned refugees and IDPs, stateless persons, and others of concern. This
represented an increase of 8.5 per cent from the end of 2007, when the figure
was 31.7 million.
Refugees from Afghanistan and Iraq account for almost half
of the total number of refugees under UNHCR’s responsibility worldwide. Most of
the world’s refugees (80 per cent) continue to be hosted by developing nations,
with Pakistan hosting the largest number (1.8 million) followed by the Syrian
Arab Republic (1.1 million) and the Islamic Republic of Iran (980 000). The
‘warehousing’ of refugees for many years in refugee camps or protracted
refugee situations continues to be an issue of concern. During 2008, 604 000
refugees were repatriated voluntarily to their countries of origin, the lowest
level since 2001 and the second lowest in the last 15 years. A total of 88 800
refugees were resettled in third countries in 2008, most of them in the United
States, Australia and Canada. This represented an 18 per cent increase from
2007, and was the highest number of resettled refugees since 2001.
In 2008 at least 839 000 claims for asylum were lodged with
governments or UNHCR offices worldwide. This represents a 28 per cent increase
compared to 2007 (653 800 claims). South Africa received by far the
highest number of asylum claims (207 000, compared to only 45 600 in
2007), followed by the United States (49 600) and France (35 400). Asylum
seekers 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 by many asylum receiving
countries.
This background note provides web 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 World War II; the majority of asylum claims worldwide are
lodged in Europe; and much of the policy development in the international
asylum system has happened in Europe. For this reason, there is a focus in this
paper on 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 October 2008, there were 144 States Parties to the
1951 convention and 144 to the 1967 Protocol. Australia ratified the
Convention on 22 January 1954 and the Protocol 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.
The two most widely known and applied articles in the
Convention are articles 1 and 33. Article
1 defines a refugee as a person who:
… owing to wellfounded 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
former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to
such fear, is unwilling to return to it.
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. Under certain circumstances it is also expected to assist groups of
people such as internally displaced people, asylum seekers and returnees
(refugees who have returned to their own countries). The current High
Commissioner is the former Portuguese Prime Minister, 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 Conclusions on International
Protection to provide guidance on refugee issues. The UNHCR is funded
through annual donations—donor
countries and donations are publicly listed. The USA is the largest donor
country, followed by Japan and Sweden.
General information and
statistics on refugees and the work of UNHCR
- Figures at a
glance
- News from
the UN refugee agency
- UNHCR Regional Office for
Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific includes
publications and media on refugee and asylum issues in the region
- UNHCR
Global Report (an assessment of the year in review)
- 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 people worldwide
- UNHCR
Statistical Online Population Database
- 2008 Global Trends:
Refugees, asylum-seekers, returnees, internally displaced and stateless persons provides more detailed statistics on refugees, asylum-seekers, internally
displaced people, stateless persons and other persons of concern to UNHCR
- Asylum levels and
trends in industrialized countries 2008: Statistical overview of asylum
applications lodged in Europe and selected non-European countries provides
statistics on asylum applications lodged in 51 industrialised countries,
including Australia
- Protecting
refugees and the role of UNHCR 2007–08 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 resettlement criteria. This includes country chapters
where the resettlement programs of different countries are described.
Internally Displaced People
The definition of ‘refugee’ in the 1951 Refugee Convention
does not cover internally displaced people (IDP), and the UNHCR’s original
mandate did not extend to IDPs. IDPs have traditionally attracted less
attention than international refugees, although their plight may often be worse.
The UNHCR does now provide assistance
to IDPs, but those under its protection account for only just over half of
the total number of IDPs worldwide (14.4 million out of an estimated 26 million
worldwide).
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 (IDMC) interactive Global
IDP Database, maintained by the Norwegian
Refugee Council (NRC). The IDMC publication Internal
Displacement: Global Overview of Trends and Developments in 2008 estimates
the global total of internally displaced people at the end of 2008 at 26
million, the highest level since the early 1990s.
The United States Committee for
Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI)
The United States
Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) also provides an alternative
(from the UNHCR) source of information and estimates on refugee numbers
worldwide. The USCRI was founded in 1958 to coordinate US participation in the
UN International Refugee Year (1959). The USCRI World
Refugee Survey 2009 put the total number of refugees and asylum seekers at the
end of 2008 at 13.6 million. USCRI counts not only people officially recognised
as refugees (until a durable solution is available) but also asylum seekers
awaiting initial determinations, beneficiaries of more general forms of
protection granted for similar reasons, and others in refugee-like situations. USCRI Country
Reports provide information on refugee situations and issues in individual
countries. USCRI also publishes Refugee
Reports.
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 in recent years (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 organisations,
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.
Europe
More asylum claims are lodged within European countries than
in any other part of the world, and asylum law and policy in European nations
and the EU influences the development of such laws and policies in many other
countries. Western European countries have a long tradition of providing political
asylum; the right to seek 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.
A number of European countries (such as the UK, Norway and
Denmark) have begun employing accelerated
asylum processing, whereby people arriving at the border claiming asylum
are held at the border and given a very short period of time (from 24 hours to
several days) in which to prove their identity and their claim for asylum. If
it is decided that their claims are manifestly unfounded, or their identity
cannot be proved, their claim is denied and they are sent home. In many countries
accelerated asylum processes are applied to nationals of particular states
which are deemed to be ‘safe’. In these cases, asylum claims from nationals of
those countries are assumed to be unfounded unless the claimant can prove
otherwise in the short time permitted.
These kinds of accelerated procedures have been widely
criticised by human rights and refugee advocacy groups. An analysis of
accelerated asylum procedures in the EU can be found in the 2007 paper Accelerated
Procedures for Asylum in the European Union: Fairness versus Efficiency by
Sharon Oakley from the University of Sussex.
The
Council of Europe’s interest in the situation of refugees, asylum seekers
and displaced people 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 to ensure that 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 to harmonise asylum policy in the Council of Europe.
With freedom of movement within the EU, all EU countries are
affected by the asylum policies and practices of any other country, hence there
are efforts to coordinate or ‘harmonise’ policies and practices. The European
Commission has been specifically tasked to develop a Policy
towards a Common European Asylum System. 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 work of the European
Commission for Justice and Home Affairs, Reception of Asylum Seekers to
date has focused on the development of minimum ‘reception’ standards for asylum
seekers. In April 2001, the European Commission tabled a proposal for a Council
directive laying down minimum standards on the reception of asylum applicants
in Member States. The Council adopted Directive
2003/9/EC on 27 January 2003.
On 18 February 2003, the EU Council of Ministers adopted Directive 343/2003/EC establishing a
series of criteria which, in general, allocate responsibility for examining an
asylum application to the member state that permitted the applicant to enter or
to reside in the territories of the member states of the EU. That member state
is responsible for examining the application according to its national law and
is obliged to take back applicants who are irregularly in another member state.
This is known as the Dublin
Regulation.
The second stage of EU policy development towards a common
European asylum system, formally adopted in November 2004 as the Hague
Programme, is focused on the issues of common minimum standards and
procedures for the granting of refugee status and subsidiary protection (such
as temporary humanitarian resident status). In April 2004, the Council adopted Directive 2004/83/EC on minimum
standards for the qualification and status of third-country nationals or
stateless persons as refugees or as persons who otherwise need international
protection and the content of the protection granted. This Directive sets out
the two separate but complementary statuses of international protection, namely
refugee status and subsidiary protection status. In December 2005, the Council adopted Directive 2005/85/EC on minimum standards
on procedures in member states for granting and withdrawing refugee status.
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 focuses 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). The target
date for adoption is 2010. Latest updates on work under the Hague Programme can
be found on the European Commission’s web site for the Policy
towards a Common European Asylum System.
Sources
on Developments in the European Commission
- European
Migration Network includes annual policy reports on asylum and migration in
many countries
- UNHCR, European
Union Asylum Law and Policy web page provides links to commentary and
analysis from UNHCR on developments in asylum law and policy in the EU
- UNHCR, Asylum in
the European Union: A study of the implementation of the qualification directive,
November 2007
- EU, Studies
in asylum policy in the EU, 2007
- J Hyndman and A Mountz, ‘Another brick in the wall? Neo-refoulment and the externalization
of asylum in Australia and Europe’, Government
and Opposition, vol. 33, no. 2, March 2008, pp. 249–69
- S Oakley, Accelerated
procedures for asylum in the European Union: Fairness versus efficiency,
Sussex Migration Working Paper No. 43, Sussex Centre for Migration Research,
University of Sussex, n.p., April 2007
- J 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. 369-76
- T Hatton, ‘European
asylum policy’, National Institute Economic Review, no. 194, 2005, pp.
106–19
- T Hatton, 'The
rise (and fall?) of asylum seeking', from T Hatton and J Williamson, Global
Migration and the World Economy, chapter 13, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2005,
pp. 265–88, and ‘Seeking
asylum in Europe’, Economic Policy, vol. 19, no. 38, 2004, pp. 7–62.
Both examine and attempt to explain the numbers seeking asylum, over time and
across the EU, and the effects of deterrence policies
- C Phuong, ‘Controlling
asylum migration to the enlarged EU: The impact of EU accession on asylum and immigration
policies in Central and Eastern Europe’ from G Borias and J Crisp, Poverty,
international migration and asylum, chapter 18, Palgrave Macmillan, New
York, 2005, looks at how newly-admitted members of 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
- M 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
- E Guild, ‘The
Europeanisation of Europe's asylum policy’, International Journal
of Refugee Law, 2006, 18, (3-4), pp. 630–51
- T Dewan and E Thieleman, ‘The
myth of free-riding: refugee protection and implicit burden-sharing’, Western
European Politics, March 2006, Vol. 29 (2), pp. 351–69
- Amnesty International, The
human cost of 'Fortress Europe': asylum seekers unfairly detained and unfairly
expelled, reports on UK, Spain and Italy, June 2005
- R Zetter, D Griffiths, S Ferretti and M Pearl, An assessment of
the impact of asylum policies in Europe 1990-2000, Home Office Research
Study 259, Development and Statistics Directorate, June 2003.
International resources
- EurAsylum
Ltd, provides research, evaluation and consulting services dedicated solely
to issues of immigration control and asylum policy in Europe and
internationally
- the Migration Policy Institute, 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
- Forced Migration Online provides access to a wide variety of online resources dealing with the
situation of forced migrants and displaced people worldwide. It is coordinated
by the University of Oxford’s Department of International Development
- 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.
- N van Hear, ‘The
rise of refugee diasporas’, Current History, vol. 108, no. 717,
April 2009, pp. 180–5
- N Kelley, ‘International
refugee protection challenges and opportunities’, International Journal
of Refugee Law, vol. 19, no. 3, October 2007, pp. 401–39
- K Koser, ‘Refugees,
transnationalism and the state’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration
Studies, vol. 33, no. 2, March 2007, pp. 233–54
- C Tazreiter,‘Between
state sovereignty and invisibility: monitoring the human rights of returned
asylum seekers’, Australian Journal of Human Rights, vol. 12, no. 1,
December 2006, pp. 7–25
- E Feller, ‘Asylum,
migration and refugee protection: realities, myths and the promise of things to
come’, International Journal of Refugee Law, vol. 18 no. 3–4, September
2006, pp. 509–36
- G Goodwin-Gill, ‘The
refuge problem – time for a ‘new order’, ON LINE opinion, March 2006,
p. 5
- H O’Nions, ‘The
erosion of the right to seek asylum’, Web Journal of Current Legal
Issues, vol. 2, 2006, p. 25
- S Castles, ‘Global
perspectives on forced migration’, Asia and Pacific Journal, vol.
15, no. 1, January 2006, pp. 7–28.
Refugee advocate
organisations
Country links
- Joint Standing Committee on Migration, Immigration
Detention in Australia, 2008–09
- Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, Provisions
of the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006,
June 2006
- Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, Provisions
of the Litigation Reform Bill 2005, May 2005
- Senate
Select Committee for an inquiry into a certain maritime incident, October
2002
- Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, Report
on visits to immigration detention centres, June 2001
- Joint Standing Committee on Migration, Not
the Hilton: Immigration Detention Centres: Inspection Report, September 2000
- Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, A
Sanctuary under Review: an examination of Australia’s Refugee and Humanitarian
Determination Processes, June 2000
- J Phillips and H Spinks, Boat
arrivals in Australia since 1976, Background Note, 2009–10
- H Spinks, Australia’s
settlement services for migrants and refugees, Research Paper no.
29, 2008–09
- A Millbank, Asylum seekers
on Bridging Visa E, Research Brief no. 13, 2006–07
- S Harris Rimmer, Migration
Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006, Bills Digest,
no. 138, 2005–06
- J Phillips and A Millbank, The
detention and removal of asylum seekers, E-brief, 2005
- S Harris Rimmer, Recent
developments in refugee and immigration law, E-brief, 2005
- M Coombs, Excising
Australia: Are we really shrinking?, Research Note no. 5, 2005–06
- J Phillips, Australia’s
humanitarian program, Research Note no. 9, 2005–06
- J Phillips, Temporary
Protection Visas, Research Note no. 51, 2003–04
- J Phillips and A Millbank, Protecting
Australia's borders, Research Note no. 22, 2003–04
- J Phillips and C Lorimer, Children
in detention, E-brief, 2003
- B York, Australia
and refugees, 1901–2002: Annotated chronology based on official sources. A summary is also available (Chronology no. 2, 2002–03)
- K Carrington, S Sherlock and N Hancock, The East
Timorese asylum seekers: legal issues and policy implications ten years on, Current Issues Brief no. 17, 2002–03
- N Hancock, Refugee law:
recent legislative developments, Current Issues Brief no. 5, 2001–02
- A Millbank, The detention
of boat people, Current Issues Brief no. 8, 2000–01
- A Millbank, The problem
with the 1951 Refugee Convention, Research Paper no. 5, 2000–01
- A Millbank, Boat
people, illegal migration and asylum seekers: in perspective, Current
Issues Brief no. 13, 1999–2000
- Department of State, Bureau
of Population, Refugees and Migration
- Department of State, Country
Background Notes
- Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices, includes information on protection of refugees
- Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration Fact Sheets
- Department of State, Framework for the cooperation
between the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the
Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, U.S. Department of State, for
the Year 2009
- Department of State, Refugee
Statistics 2008
- Citizenship and
Immigration Services
- Department
of Homeland Security
- Department of Homeland Security, Refugees
and Asylees 2008 provides statistics on persons admitted to the US as
refugees or granted asylum in the US in 2008
- US Committee for Refugees and
Immigrants
- The
National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR), a national
organisation composed of local coalitions and immigrant, refugee, community,
religious, civil rights and labour organisations and activists.
For copyright reasons some linked items are only available to members of Parliament.
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