Adrienne Millbank
Social Policy Group
5 September 2000
Contents
Major Issues
Introduction
The Refugee Convention
The UN Convention and the refugee
'burden'
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
EXCOM
Australia's refugee response
The on-shore refugee determination
system
The problems
The definition
Inconsistencies of interpretation and application
The migration channel
Non-departure
The exile basis
Government concerns and government hypocrisy
Inequities
Public reaction
Economic refugees
In summary
Options
Refugee advocates and NGOs
The UNHCR
A new international refugee regime
Models
Conclusion: Implications for
Australia
Withdraw
Reform
Endnotes
Table 1: Refugees and Others of Concern to UNHCR,
1999 Statistical Overview
Table 2: UN Member States: Signatories and
Nonsignatories to the UN Convention and Protocol Relating to the
Status of Refugees
References
Glossary
Asylum seeker
|
A person who enters or remains in a country
either legally, as a visitor or tourist or student, or illegally,
with no or with fraudulent documentation, and then claims refugee
status under the terms of the 1951 United Nations Convention
Relating to the Status of Refugees. (Description at page 3).
|
Convention refugees
|
People who have been found to engage protection
obligations, and are accorded refugee status, and thus the right to
remain within a signatory country, under the terms of the 1951
Refugee Convention.
|
Country of first asylum
|
The first, usually neighbouring country to which
a refugee flees. The world's refugee camps are in countries of
first asylum.
|
Humanitarian migration program
|
Part of Australia's immigration program.
Comprises people authorised to enter Australia for humanitarian
reasons under an annual numerical planning level.
|
Illegal immigrant
|
A person who enters or remains in a country
without a valid visa or travel authority, that is with no or with
fraudulent documentation. According to Australian migration law,
such people are 'unlawfully' or 'illegally' in Australia.
|
Immigrant
|
A person who moves to another country, having
met work or business or family reunion criteria, and having been
issued with a visa or residence permit which entitles them to
reside in that country.
|
Off-shore visas
|
Where visas authorising entry into a country are
issued to people in other countries, they are described as being
issued 'off-shore'.
|
On-shore visas
|
Where visas authorising stay in Australia are
issued to people after they have already arrived, legally or
illegally, in Australia, they are described as being issued
'on-shore'.
|
Refugees
|
The Macquarie dictionary definition of a refugee
is 'one who flees for refuge or safety, especially to a foreign
country, as in time of political upheaval, war etc'. According to
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in its 1999
Statistical Overview, refugees are persons recognised
under the 1951 Refugee Convention; persons recognised under the
1969 Organisation for African Unity Convention on Refugee Problems
in Africa (see endnote 17); persons granted humanitarian or
comparable status; and persons granted temporary protection.
|
Third country
|
Where refugees move from their countries of
first asylum to another country, such as Australia, that country is
described as a third country (the first being the home country, and
the second being the country of first asylum).
|
Major
Issues
The 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to
the Status of Refugees has created a system for providing
protection to people at risk of persecution in their own countries.
There are few countries willing to risk turning such people away.
However it is unlikely than many governments would sign up to the
Convention today. This paper aims to explain why. It argues that
the problem with the Convention is that it was developed in and for
a different era. Its focus is the resulting problems that have been
identified since the late 1980s with the operation of the
Convention in Western countries.
The recent wave of boat people has demonstrated
how options for dealing with 'illegal' arrivals are constrained by
Australia's obligations under the Convention. They have focussed
attention on the nature of these obligations, and on how on-shore
or 'Convention' refugees operate under a different system, legally
and obligation-wise, from refugees selected from overseas under the
off-shore humanitarian program, or from people provided temporary
protection under safe haven or extended visa arrangements. The use
by the boat people of people smugglers to circumvent visa and
border controls has prompted Australia to join other countries in
openly questioning the operation and continuing viability of the
Convention itself.
The Convention defines as a refugee a
person:
(who) 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.
Obligations come into effect after an asylum
seeker has entered a signatory country, and fall squarely on that
country. The core obligation is that of 'non-refoulement', not
sending someone back into a situation of possible persecution.
Another important obligation is not to penalise asylum seekers for
entering a country 'illegally'.
The problem with the Convention is that it was
designed in and for a different era. A number of resultant specific
problems in its implementation in today's very different world have
been identified by academics and researchers:
-
- the Convention definition of refugee is outdated, as is its
notion of exile as a solution to refugee problems
-
- it confers no right of assistance on refugees unless and until
they reach a signatory country, it imposes no obligation on
countries not to persecute or expel their citizens, and it imposes
no requirement for burden sharing between states
-
- the asylum channel is providing an avenue for irregular
migration and is linked with people smuggling and criminality
-
- the Convention takes no account of the impact (political,
financial, social) of large numbers of asylum seekers on receiving
countries
-
- there is inequity of outcomes between 'camp' and 'Convention'
refugees. Priority is given to those present, on the basis of their
mobility, rather than to those with the greatest need
-
- there is a gross disparity between what Western countries spend
on processing and supporting asylum seekers, and what they
contribute to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) for the world refugee effort
-
- asylum seekers do not elicit public sympathy in the way that
'obvious' (as seen on television) refugees do
-
- the Convention has fostered simplistic and unfortunate
characterisations of asylum seekers as either political and thus
'genuine' and deserving, or economic and thus 'abusive' and
undeserving.
While the Convention-based asylum system may
have operated well enough until the end of the Cold War, it was not
designed with today's mass refugee outflows or migratory movements
in mind. At a time of intense migration pressure and limited
opportunities, asylum systems in Western countries have come under
increasing strain through their use as a migration channel. An
estimated one million migrants were transported, worldwide, in
illegal operations worth up to USD20 billion in 1999. Since 1985
the number of asylum seekers in Europe has outnumbered all legally
admitted foreign workers.
Over the last decade, Australia's average intake
under its humanitarian migration program has averaged about
12 000; the highest per capita off-shore intake of refugees in
the world. The potential impact of 'Convention' refugees on this
program became apparent in February 2000, when processing of
off-shore humanitarian visas was suspended, following indications
that up to half the program allocation could be taken up by
successful on-shore asylum seekers.
The implementation of Convention obligations in
Western countries is distorting the international refugee effort.
By 1990 the European OECD states plus Canada were spending USD5
billion annually on the processing of refugee applications: ten
times the UNHCR budget in that year. This year one country, the UK,
is spending more on asylum seekers (BRP1.5 billion, equivalent to
USD2.2 billion) than the UNHCR budget of USD1.7 billion, which is
supposed to protect the world's 22 million refugees. Australia
spends as much each year ($14 million) on the Refugee Review
Tribunal (one level of the determination process) as it donates to
the world refugee effort through the UNHCR.
Asylum seekers are drawn to particular countries
by a range of obvious factors-proximity, family and ethnic
community networks, employment opportunities and wage levels,
generosity of welfare systems, levels of tolerance within existing
societies, and the accessibility of determination systems. In
Europe last year 70 per cent of asylum seekers sought protection in
just four countries-Germany, Britain, Switzerland and the
Netherlands. Acceptance rates are more revealing of a country's
political priorities, or its attitude to migration, or the weight
of numbers it has had to deal with, or its diplomatic relations
with 'sending' countries, than the genuineness of refugee
claims.
Australia is perhaps unique amongst Western
countries in its capacity and willingness to remove failed asylum
seekers; in other countries most failed asylum seekers simply
remain. Australia has however joined other countries in attempting
to discourage new applicants. The most minimal welfare payment,
special benefit, is provided to illegally arrived asylum seekers
even after they have been determined to be Convention refugees;
they are provided with temporary visas with no family reunion
entitlements; and they are denied access to settlement services
tailored for and provided free to off-shore refugees.
The UNHCR and other asylum seeker supporters,
while acknowledging that there are problems with the operation of
the Convention, are concerned that opening it up to review could
lead to restriction, rather than expansion, of refugee rights. They
argue that avenues for legal migration should be opened up to
insulate the Convention from migration pressures, and that
governments should work with the UNHCR to supplement, not supplant
the Convention, in response to the changed refugee context. Other
commentators argue that proposing expanded obligations for
governments on top of a Convention-based asylum system that is
already if not 'broke' then loudly creaking, is fruitless as such
proposals are politically impossible.
No country has a visa entry (and exit) control
and management system comparable to Australia's and no country
(Canada perhaps excepted) has invested as much in its managed
migration and resettlement programs. Australia has been built on
migration and there is concern amongst political leaders that
illegal entry of asylum seekers could undermine public support for
immigration and recent immigrants. It is likely that governments
will take whatever measures are necessary to maintain control over
who enters, including challenging the UNHCR and rethinking
obligations under the Refugee Convention.
Reforming the on-shore asylum system to bring
more transparency, equity and consistency into our refugee
responses is likely to win the support of at least the general
Australian public. If linked with a redirection of resources to
assist countries of first asylum, and support for reform in
international forums, it is likely also to win approval from the
international community.
Introduction
The 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to
the Status of Refugees has created a system for providing
protection to people at risk of persecution in their own countries.
There are few countries willing to risk turning such people away.
However it is unlikely than many governments would sign up to the
Convention today. This paper aims to explain why. It argues that
the problem with the Convention is that it was developed in and for
a different era. Its focus is the resulting problems that have been
identified since the late 1980s with the operation of the
Convention in Western countries.
The recent wave of boat people has provided a
very public demonstration of how options for dealing with 'illegal'
arrivals are constrained by our obligations under the Convention.
More than 3700 boat people arrived in 1999, up from 200 the year
before. Last financial year nearly 4200 arrived. Source countries
have shifted from China and countries in our region to Middle
Eastern countries. The boat people are coming, often via
neighbouring countries of first asylum, in boats via Indonesia.
Over 90 per cent of those from the war torn countries of Iraq and
Afghanistan have been granted refugee status. The latest wave of
arrivals has thus focussed attention on Australia's obligations
under the Refugee Convention, and on how the Convention fits in
with our humanitarian migration program.
The potential impact of 'Convention' refugees on
the humanitarian program became apparent in February 2000, when the
Immigration Minister indicated that processing of off-shore
humanitarian visas would be suspended, following indications that
up to half of the 12 000 overall program allocation could be
taken up by on-shore asylum seekers. Deterrent measures (temporary
visas with no family reunion rights in the first instance, minimal
welfare assistance and no access to job network or language
programs) have been controversial and are concerning, in that they
represent a departure from established practice and ethos.
Australia has hitherto portrayed itself as one of the world's most
generous refugee-receiving countries, with highly developed
settlement assistance programs aimed at getting people to
participate in mainstream life as soon as possible.
There would be few parliamentarians unaware of
the strength of public feeling directed against the recent boat
arrivals, or of the extent to which opinions are polarised on the
issue. The recent asylum seekers are either undeserving users of
the system, who would not qualify for places under our immigration
or refugee program criteria, or desperate refugees exercising their
right under international law to seek asylum. Refugee advocates and
commentators have blamed the Government, and the media, for the
outpouring of public hostility, citing choice of 'demonising'
labels such as 'queue jumpers' and 'illegals'. Parliamentarians
have in turn suggested that refugee advocates and non-government
organisations (NGOs) are out of touch with mainstream public
opinion.(1)
Some commentators have argued that the recent
increase in boat people numbers heralds our entry into, and thus
provides an opportunity to display our generosity and maturity
within, the global club of (mainly European Union) seasoned asylum
seeker receiving countries, which have been coping with greater
numbers for longer.(2) It is however a club that
Australian governments and most of the voting public might prefer
not to join. Asylum seekers, along with those who enter via family
reunion, have comprised the bulk of the sizeable immigrant intakes
into Western European countries in recent years. Asylum-driven
immigration ranks high among voter concerns, anti-foreigner
sentiment is widespread, and right-wing anti-immigration parties
are getting up to 30 per cent of voter support.(3)
Refugee advocates have also argued that the
Government should 'educate' the public about our obligations as
signatories to the Convention, and about the human rights
situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Educating people might make
them more familiar with Australia's obligations under international
law. However it is possible that the more people learn about the
Convention-based asylum system, the more likely they are to
conclude that it is neither a particularly effective or rational
basis for guiding Australia's refugee priorities, nor for
alleviating the plight of people displaced by conflict within Iraq
or Afghanistan.
Nearly 50 years after its adoption, the Refugee
Convention remains the only international instrument for the
protection of refugees, and the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR) is still exhorting Western governments to
respect and uphold it as the 'cornerstone' and 'foundation' of the
international refugee system. Doubt is increasingly being expressed
however as to its adequacy to meet that role. The crux of criticism
is that the Convention is obsolete and inappropriate to deal with
contemporary challenges. As at end-1999 the UNHCR had identified
22.3 million people 'of concern', including 11.7 million
'refugees', and 4 million 'internally displaced' (people who are
refugees in their own countries). (A statistical overview showing
how the UNHCR currently categorises refugees is provided at Table 1
on page 27.) According to the United States Committee for Refugees
(USCR), by the end of 1999 there were 14 million refugees ('people
displaced by persecution and conflict across an international
border'), and 21 million 'internally displaced'
people.(4) Nearly all of these refugees and displaced
people are in poor countries, compared with the 1.2 million asylum
seekers (as at end-1999) who were seeking refugee status in wealthy
countries.
The disparity between the costs and abuse of
developed asylum systems, and the level of attention paid to
refugee situations in poorer countries, has become increasingly
apparent. Also apparent is that many hundreds of people desperate
to enter Western countries are dying each year in the attempt to
circumvent increasingly tough border controls. The traffic in
illegal immigrants was graphically illustrated in June 2000 when 58
young Chinese people suffocated to death in the back of a tomato
truck after travelling to the southern British port of Dover from
Belgium.
While the international asylum system has been
under obvious pressure for the last 10 years, neither
governments nor refugee advocates have been willing to call for
review. NGOs have feared governments would seize the opportunity to
downsize their obligations, and governments have been reluctant to
invite censure, and fearful of incurring even greater obligations.
As well, most countries have invested heavily in their refugee
determination systems. Sizeable sections of public service
departments, entire organisations and careers at the national and
international level have been devoted to implementing and promoting
the Convention.
A resurgence in asylum seeker numbers in the
late 1990s, after a mid-decade lull, linked with the rapid
emergence of people smuggling as a global industry, would appear to
be tipping a number of governments, or at least parliamentarians,
over the edge. In 1998 the Austrian Presidency of the EU suggested
replacing the Convention with an EU asylum law 'which meets today's
requirements rather than those of a geopolitically outdated
situation'.(5) In the same year the General Secretary of
Germany's Liberal Party called in effect for default from the
Convention on the grounds that it was 'an invitation to abuse and
to unrestricted and unregulated migration'.(6) In April
this year the UK Home Secretary, Jack Straw, criticised the
Convention as 'too broad for conditions in the 21st
Century', and as 'no longer an adequate guide to policy in the age
of mass air travel and economic migration'.(7)
Conservative Party leader William Hague described the asylum system
as 'near collapse in today's utterly different
world'.(8) In March this year the Australian Immigration
Minister Philip Ruddock described the international asylum system
as open to exploitation and manipulation by non-refugees, saying it
should be toughened 'either administratively or by reviewing the
actual treaty document itself'.(9) And in August he
announced that the Government was reviewing the interpretation and
implementation of the Refugee Convention in
Australia.(10)
Tensions between governments of receiving
countries and the UNHCR and other asylum-seeker advocacy groups are
intensifying. UK writer Jeremy Harding, in his evocative
description of people smuggling, has observed that 'for a growing
list of governments the best interpretation of the Convention
Relating to the Status of Refugees can only be to run it through
the shredder'.(11) A recent UNHCR-commissioned analysis
of responses of European governments to people smuggling describes
people smugglers as 'the last resort of genuine refugees', and
concludes that current policy risks 'ending the right of asylum in
Europe', and that the 'current status quo is practically and
ethically bankrupt from all positions'.(12)
As the 1951 Refugee Convention approaches its
50th anniversary, debate as to whether it has reached
its use-by date will intensify. This Research Paper describes the
problems with the operation of the Convention that have been
identified by researchers and commentators over the last 10 years.
It also looks briefly at options for reforming the international
refugee regime, and suggests why Australia might take a lead in
rethinking its obligations under the Refugee Convention.
The Refugee
Convention
The United Nations ('Geneva') Convention
Relating to the Status of Refugees was adopted in December 1951,
following a resolution of the UN General Assembly in 1950, and
entered into effect in April 1954.
It defines as a refugee a person:
(who) 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.
The 'well-founded fear of persecution' had to
arise from events associated with the Second World War, in Europe,
until the 1967 Protocol extended coverage to refugees throughout
the world.
Obligations under the Convention fall squarely
onto the receiving state, and come into effect after the asylum
seeker has entered its territory and made a claim for refugee
status. The most basic principle, or core obligation, of signatory
states is that of 'non-refoulement', i.e. not sending someone back
to a situation where there they might face
persecution.(13) Another important obligation (and
source of increasing tension with the rise of people smuggling) is
not to penalise asylum seekers for entering a signatory country
'illegally'.(14)
While not spelled out as a requirement in the
Convention, Western signatory states have, under the guidance of
the UNHCR, established refugee determination processes. While
administrative and legal systems vary, the central features are the
same. Claims are assessed, on an individual basis, according to
whether there is a 'real' possibility the claimant would face
persecution, on a Convention ground, if returned. Decisions are
made on a credibility of story basis, assisted by 'country
information' gleaned from such sources as foreign affairs
officials, Amnesty International and the US Department of State.
For obvious reasons, low burdens of proof are required in refugee
decisions; attempts are not made to check stories with allegedly
persecutory governments. Also for obvious reasons-the possibly life
threatening consequences of getting it wrong-decisions are made on
a benefit of the doubt basis. While granting permanent resident
status is not required under the Convention, this has become
standard practice.
The UN Convention and the refugee
'burden'
Efforts of the UNHCR, to which Australia has
contributed, have expanded the number of signatory states in recent
years. Two thirds of all states, including all Western states, are
party to the Convention and/or Protocol. (Signatory and
non-signatory states are listed at Table 2 on page 28.) While many
poor and developing countries have become signatories, the flow of
asylum seekers has remained to wealthy Western countries, and in
its operation the Refugee Convention has developed, in the words of
the Immigration Minister, as 'essentially a standard that is being
imposed on developed countries'.(15) In fact, it is a
standard 'imposed' on Western countries. Japan in 1999 received 260
asylum applications, of which it approved 13. South Korea acceded
to the Convention in 1992. Since then it has received a total of 50
asylum applications, of which it has approved none.(16)
Singapore is not a signatory to the Convention or the Protocol.
While a number of African countries (including
Angola, Mozambique, Liberia, Zambia) are signatories, it has always
been obvious that the Convention is of limited use for dealing with
the refugee situation in Africa. In 1969 the Organisation for
African Unity (OAU) adopted a Convention on Refugee Problems in
Africa which encompasses a broader refugee concept. It includes
people displaced from their countries by external aggression or
occupation or 'events seriously disturbing public
order'.(17) In 1984 Latin American countries adopted the
'Cartagena Declaration' which incorporates a similarly broad
refugee definition. For countries like China or Cambodia being a
signatory state amounts to permitting asylum applicants to remain
in their countries while determinations regarding resettlement
needs are made by the UNHCR.
Regardless of their Convention status, or
whether the Convention even registers in their scheme of
priorities, it is the poorer countries of the Middle East, Asia,
Africa, and Eastern Europe that are carrying the bulk of the
world's refugee burden. At the end of 1999, Iran was hosting 1.8
million refugees (including 1.3 Afghans and 500 000 Iraqis).
There were 1.5 million refugees in Jordan, 1.2 million in Pakistan,
and over 300 000 in India. There were 900 000 'internally
displaced' people in Iraq, and a further 129 000 refugees.
Closer to our region, at the end of 1999 there were 160 000
(mainly Burmese) refugees in Thailand, and 45 000 (Filipino
Muslims) in Malaysia.(18) Sizeable displacements have
and are occurring this year within and around Indonesia. None of
these countries is a party to the Convention.
Likewise, Convention status, and the extent to
which the Convention is utilised or is operational within a
country, bears little relation to its financial contribution to the
international refugee effort. The USA, which is not a signatory
(although it acceded to the Protocol in 1968 which entails
essentially the same obligations), and has largely pursued its own
refugee agenda, was the top donor to the UNHCR in 1999 with USD283
million. The second largest donor was Japan, with USD119 million.
South Korea donated USD900 000.(19)
The United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees
The office of the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency
mandated to 'lead and coordinate international action for the
worldwide protection of refugees' was established in 1950,
following a UN General Assembly Resolution in 1949. It was
originally established for two years, on the assumption that the
post-War refugee situation would be quickly resolved. It is
currently on a five year mandate.
The UNHCR's founding mandate defines refugees in
terms virtually identical to the Convention as expanded by the
Protocol. It describes its most important function as
'international protection-trying to ensure that no refugee is
returned involuntarily to a country where he or she has reason to
fear persecution'. It describes as 'other' its more recently
developed functions:
Help during major emergencies involving the
movement of large numbers of refugees; regular programs in such
fields as education, health and shelter; assistance to promote
self-sufficiency of refugees and their integration in host
countries; voluntary repatriation; and resettlement in third
countries for refugees who cannot return to their homes and who
face protection problems in the country where they first sought
asylum.(20)
The UNHCR has been concerned to preserve a link
between the term 'refugee' and the Convention definition, thus
reinforcing the notion of state obligations. The result has been
some confusing official categorisations like 'people of concern',
and 'people in refugee-like situations'. It now also, along with
the rest of the world, uses the term 'refugee' in its broader and
more commonly understood and obvious (as seen on television and
defined in the dictionary) sense of being displaced, usually but
not necessarily across a border. Thus the figure of 22 million is
widely used to describe the number of refugees in the world.
While much of its rhetoric is directed at
Western countries in the form of exhortations to honour their
Convention obligations, the bulk of UNHCR activity, resources and
material assistance is in fact directed to assisting with
situations of mass refugee outflows. Its activities in recent years
have increasingly involved groups for whom it actually has no
mandate, the 'internally displaced', for example the Kurds or the
Timorese. The solutions that have come to be accepted by the UNHCR
and the international community to deal with mass displacements
are: repatriation as soon as possible in conditions of safety and
dignity; longer term settlement in the (usually neighbouring)
country of first asylum; and resettlement where these are not
possible in a third country. It is from this latter group, on the
advice of the UNHCR, that Australia draws refugees for resettlement
under its off-shore humanitarian migration program. Relatively
small (compared to the world refugee population) numbers of
refugees are identified by the UNHCR as in need of resettlement in
third countries: in the mid-1990s, fewer than 60 000.
EXCOM
The UNHCR is guided in its activities by an
executive committee, currently comprising 57 countries. EXCOM
countries are elected by the UN General Assembly's Economic and
Social Committee on the basis of their involvement in refugee
situations; they are not necessarily signatories of the Refugee
Convention. India for example, an outspoken critic of the operation
of the Convention because it does not address situations of mass
outflows, is a member. EXCOM produces its conclusions and decisions
as 'notes on international protection'. These provide a description
of the current state of international protection of refugees. While
they are non-binding on states, they are also intended to provide a
developing body of guidance to receiving states on the operation of
the Convention.(21)
Australia's refugee response
Australia's major contribution to the system of
international protection has been the resettlement of refugees
(people identified by the UNHCR as in need of resettlement in a
third country) from refugee camps. Over the last 50 years,
Australia has resettled about 600 000 refugees. Over the last
decade, the annual intake has averaged about 12 000; the
highest per capita off-shore intake in the world. Besides refugees
selected under the advice of the UNHCR, the humanitarian program
includes components for people in need who have connections in
Australia. Australia's core contribution to the international
refugee effort, on which its international reputation is based,
thus has little to do with the operation of the Refugee
Convention.
The on-shore refugee
determination system
Australia acceded to the Convention in 1954, and
to the 1967 Protocol in 1973. The Convention has been incorporated
but not interpreted in domestic legislation; section 36 of the
Migration Act defines as a criterion for a protection visa
that 'the applicant is a non-citizen in Australia to whom Australia
has protection obligations under the Refugees Convention as amended
by the Refugees Protocol'. The on-shore refugee determination
system only began to be developed in Australia after the arrival of
Indo-Chinese boat people from the late 1970s. (The 'defection' of
the few people who sought asylum from communist countries in the
1950s and 1960s was arranged through foreign affairs, rather than
immigration officials.) It was not until the numbers of asylum
seekers grew rapidly in the 1990s that a comprehensive refugee
determination system was developed within the immigration
portfolio. This comprises initial decision-making by Department of
Immigration officials, access to merits review by an independent
Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT), and access on matters of law to the
Federal Court.(22)
The problems
The essence of criticism of the 1951 UN refugee
Convention is that it is anachronistic. The treaty was developed in
and for a different era. While Western countries' asylum systems
might have coped well enough until the end of the Cold War, they
were not designed with today's mass refugee outflows and migratory
movements in mind. This section summarises the resulting problems
with the operation of the Convention that have been identified by
researchers and commentators over the last 10 years.(23)
Statistics, unless otherwise indicated, are from the UNHCR or the
USCR.
The definition
The 1951 Refugee Convention is a product of the
Cold War environment, and it reflects both European experience of
Nazi war-time persecutions and Western political interests as these
were perceived at the time.(24) Immediate post-war
European displacements had been dealt with on an ad hoc and group
basis. Exit restrictions in communist countries meant numbers were
low. The Convention criteria could be applied on a case-by-case
basis, and ideological kudos gained by providing sanctuary to
'defectors' to the 'free world'. Most asylum seekers are now from
the poorer countries of the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Eastern
Europe, rather than Western Europe. They are less welcome. There is
no longer a need for unskilled labour in developed countries, and
no longer any ideological or strategic advantage attached to
conferring asylum. With rapidly increasing numbers of asylum
seekers since the late 1980s, governments have therefore not been
inclined towards expansion of the outdated Convention grounds and
criteria.
The Convention definition of refugee has made
less sense as the nature of refugee flows has changed and as
numbers have risen. Since 1980, refugee movements have been more
likely to be the result of civil wars, ethnic and communal
conflicts and generalised violence, or natural disasters or
famine-usually in combinations-than individually targeted
persecution by an oppressive regime. The world refugee and
internally displaced population has risen dramatically following
the end of the Cold War: from 10 million in 1985, to 35 million now
according to USCR estimates, and 22 million according to the UNHCR.
The plight and need of these people is obvious. However only a
minority could demonstrate a personal 'well-founded fear of
persecution' on a Convention ground. Case-by-case assessments would
in any event be pointless: humanitarian and group-directed
assistance is obviously what is needed.
While the Convention's criteria are limited and
outdated, as to be expected with an international treaty, its
wording is vague. A common pattern in Western countries has been
for 'creative interpretation and expansion' of Convention grounds
by the judiciary, attempting to include modern day people and
situations under its protection, alternating with governments
(alarmed at potential expansion of numbers) legislating to enforce
more restricted definitions. People unable to return home for
serious but not Convention reasons are deemed not to be refugees
and are reliant on government discretion to confer (usually
inferior and temporary) humanitarian status. International refugee
law has rapidly become both highly developed and highly
contentious. However as a result of the changed refugee context,
international refugee law does not mirror the responsibilities of
the UNHCR and is arguably not based on refugee realities.
Inconsistencies of interpretation and
application
The Convention was not designed to be a burden-sharing
mechanism. Asylum seekers are drawn to particular countries by a
range of obvious factors-proximity, family and ethnic community
networks, employment opportunities and wage levels, generosity of
welfare systems, levels of tolerance within existing societies, and
the accessibility of determination systems. In Europe last year 70
per cent of asylum seekers sought protection in just four
countries-Germany, Britain, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
Western governments have invested heavily in their determination
systems, and defend their processes as fair and just. However
interpretation of the Convention's vaguely worded grounds and
criteria varies widely. Governments are required to be agents or
complicit in persecution in Germany and France, but not in the UK.
People 'persecuted' under China's one child policy are taken to
form a 'particular social group' for the purposes of the Convention
in the USA and Canada, but not in Australia.
Acceptance rates are more revealing of a
country's political priorities, or its attitude to migration, or
the weight of numbers it has had to deal with, or its diplomatic
relations with 'sending' countries, than the 'genuineness' of
refugee claims. In the mid-1990s Canada accepted 70 per cent of
on-shore asylum claims, compared with Finland's 0.2 per cent. In
1996 Canada accepted 81 per cent of Somalis and 82 per cent of Sri
Lankans as refugees; the UK accepted 0.4 per cent of Somalis and
0.2 per cent of claims from Sri Lankans. Overall acceptance rates
in EU countries in the 1990s have been in the order of 10-15 per
cent, compared with Australia's 30 per cent. The rate of acceptance
of Afghani asylum seekers in August 2000 was about 90 per cent in
Australia, and 30 per cent in the UK.(25)
Acceptance rates have in any event become
largely irrelevant to outcomes in a number of countries. While most
asylum seekers are deemed not to meet Convention criteria, the
humanitarian needs of many are obvious, and increasing numbers have
been given alternative, usually temporary, resident status. The
number of asylum claims in Europe resulting in Convention status
has actually been overtaken since 1992 by the number given some
sort of resident status on a discretionary basis, e.g. in the UK
'exceptional leave to remain', or in Germany 'tolerated'
status.
The migration channel
Since the late 1980s, asylum systems in Western
(and particularly Western European) countries have come under
increasing-perhaps terminal-strain through their use as a migration
channel. Migration pressures are acute at a time when
opportunities, except for the highly skilled, business investors,
or close family members, even in traditional immigration countries
like Australia, are virtually non-existent. The UN has estimated
that 125 million people are, at any given time, outside their
homeland in search of a more secure political environment or better
economic future.(26) Increasing disparities in wealth
and life opportunities (income differentials between the richest
and poorest countries are currently in the order of
70:1(27)) provide compelling motivation to migrate; the
spread of information, information technology, the accessibility of
air travel and the services of people smugglers provide the means.
And asylum channels provide an avenue. Since 1985 the number of
asylum seekers in Europe has outnumbered all legally admitted
foreign workers.(28)
The Convention gives people the right to arrive
by whatever means and request refugee status. Even where claims are
clearly 'abusive', receiving states are required to go through
determination of status procedures.(29) Consideration of
requests takes time. Telling refugees and migrants apart is
difficult: both use people smugglers, have fraudulent or no
documents, and have similar stories. And even though only a small
minority of asylum seekers gain recognition in Western European
countries (the rate of recognition in EU countries in the 1990s was
in the order of 10-15 per cent), only a minority of failed asylum
seekers ever actually leave.
The UNHCR has acknowledged the need for
restrictive measures and speeded up determination processes, while
simultaneously criticising governments for blocking access to
possibly genuine refugees. The UK Government in a White Paper
tabled in 1998 promised 'fairer, faster, and firmer' determination
of refugee status.(30) The backlog of asylum seekers in
the UK in July 2000 was over 100 000, and the system was being
described in the British press as in crisis. Supporters of the
asylum system in Australia have advocated putting more resources
into refugee determination, especially the Refugee Review Tribunal,
in order to enhance capacity to detect increasingly sophisticated
fraudulent claims.(31) Australia already spends as much
each year on the RRT ($14 million) as it donates to the
international refugee effort through the UNHCR. Solving the problem
of irregular migration may be incompatible with upholding
Convention obligations as they currently stand.
An Austrian EU Presidency paper on immigration
and asylum in 1998 bluntly acknowledged that decade-long objectives
of 'tightening up' and 'speeding up' procedures sufficiently to
prevent asylum systems being a draw for migrants have never been
managed anywhere in Europe. It concluded that a revision of the
Convention was in order.(32)
An estimated one million migrants were
transported, worldwide, in illegal operations worth up to USD20
billion in 1999.(33)
Non-departure
The length of stay involved in the refugee
determination process makes removal of people at the end of it
difficult. (The average processing time within the UK's 'fairer,
faster, firmer' system in July 2000 was 13 months.(34))
During this time asylum seekers establish themselves in the
country.
Australia is perhaps unique amongst Western
countries in its capacity and willingness to remove failed asylum
seekers (although they comprise a growing proportion of our illegal
visa 'overstayer' population). Mandatory detention of illegal
arrivals has made routine, if sometimes difficult and
controversial, the removal of boat people (the most high profile
asylum seekers) refused refugee status. In other countries, only a
minority of failed asylum seekers actually ever leave, voluntarily
or otherwise. The UK Home Office has acknowledged that up to
two-thirds of those refused asylum simply 'vanish'. In 1999 the UK
received 71 160 applications; in 1999 fewer than 8000 failed
applicants were either deported or known to have left
voluntarily.(35) Large-scale removals may simply not be
possible under liberal democracies.(36) Without the
possibility of such deportations, however, the entire process of
asylum determination is, while costly, somewhat pointless.
The exile basis
It is the principle of non-refoulement rather
than a general obligation to refugees, wherever they are, that is
at the core of the Refugee Convention. Rather than asserting the
right of individuals to stay home or to return home and enjoy basic
human rights, the Convention has thus institutionalised the notion
of exile as a solution to refugee problems. Exile is an
inappropriate solution to modern refugee problems and in an age of
globalisation and regionalisation. The UNHCR advocates resettlement
in third countries such as Australia only in those cases where
people cannot be repatriated, or cannot be settled in their
(usually neighbouring) country of first asylum.
The fact that the only solution envisaged for
refugees under the Convention is exile is attributed to its
judgemental and polemic Cold War origins, and the notion of
irredeemably oppressive regimes. The perspective of the
international community today is very different. It is more
interested in restoring the preparedness and capacity of countries
of origin to protect their citizens, and in stabilising these
countries politically, than scoring ideological points. The
depiction under the Convention of governments as persecutors, or as
complicit bystanders in the persecution of their citizens, can make
the return of refugees difficult, even when conditions have
changed. The fact that refugees are a source of political
embarrassment, and its exile basis, are reasons why Asian
countries, whether or not they are signatories, have kept their
distance from the operation of the Convention.
Rapid return of rejected asylum seekers is the
most-perhaps only-effective counter to people smuggling. China has
openly criticised Canada and the USA for granting refugee status to
Chinese boat people it describes as 'economic migrants', and has
been unwilling to accept incomplete batches of returnees. It claims
that it is their granting of permanent residence status, as
comparatively wealthy countries, rather than its persecution of its
citizens, that is encouraging irregular migration and people
smuggling.(37)
Government concerns and government
hypocrisy
The core 'non-refoulement' obligation of the
Convention takes no account of potential impact (financial, social,
political) on receiving countries. Full legal responsibility is
assigned to whatever state asylum seekers are able to reach, and no
cap or limit can be set on the number of people who can apply or
who must be accepted. Refugee settlement is
expensive.(38) (In the case of Australia's off-shore
humanitarian program, the costs of refugees are offset by
revenue-generating skilled and business migration intakes.)
Setting a price on refugees is anathema to
asylum seeker advocates and NGOs, as is treating asylum seekers as
numbers in an annual migration control regime. They view the
Convention's empowerment of individual asylum seekers over states
as its chief strength. According to other commentators the failure
of the Convention to take account of state needs is a serious
problem: what a state can do is shaped, ultimately, by the
possibilities afforded by its domestic political environment, not
by international treaties.
If countries believed in the Convention, they
would assist, or at least not impede people most likely to need its
protection from reaching their determination systems. Rather,
Western governments have been squeezed, between the pressures of a
largely hostile public on the one hand, and their Convention
obligations on the other, into awkward positions. Lip service is
paid to honouring Convention obligations and the right to seek
asylum, while increasingly large amounts of money are spent on
keeping asylum seekers out. In response to increased boat arrivals
in Australia last year, virtually all of whom have been given
Convention refugee status, the Government allocated an extra $124
million to border protection.
The best example of what has been described as
government hypocrisy in this area is provided by
Canada.(39) Canada has maintained the highest
'Convention' refugee recognition rate in the world (currently in
the order of 40-50 per cent,(40) down from 70 per cent
in the mid-1990s and 85 per cent in the early 1990s). In a reverse
of the situation that has pertained in Australia, Canada's
humanitarian program has for some years comprised three times as
many on-shore refugees as refugees from UNHCR camps. 'Maintaining
our refugee determination system' is at the top of Canada's refugee
strategy, compared with Australia's working with the UNHCR. Canada,
along with Australia and other Western countries has also:
-
- placed visa controls on refugee producing countries
-
- pressured sending countries to impose exit controls
-
- enacted safe third country legislation
-
- imposed hefty sanctions on airlines carrying unauthorised
passengers
-
- posted immigration officers at high risk airports overseas to
detect fraudulent documents
-
- extended its use of detention for illegally arrived asylum
seekers.
Considerable resources have also been spent by
Western governments-especially in the EU in recent years-on
promoting the economic and social integration of their growing
ethnic communities. At the same time, anxious not to appear more
attractive than each other, welfare for asylum seekers has been
reduced. Germany and the UK now provide support to destitute asylum
seekers in the form of food vouchers, rather than cash. The
temporary humanitarian status increasingly provided instead of
Convention status excludes family reunion provisions. Australia
provides the most minimal welfare payment, special benefit, to
illegally arrived asylum seekers even after they have been
determined to be Convention refugees, and they are denied access to
settlement services (English tuition and initial accommodation)
tailored for and provided free to off-shore refugees.
Considerable resources are also being spent on
countering people smuggling, including through information
campaigns warning potential 'victims' against using 'criminal'
organisers. Such campaigns might be effective in discouraging
movements such as those from China to Australia, where people can
be informed that if they survive the boat trip in all likelihood
they will be quickly sent home. In the case of recent boat arrivals
from the Middle East, few are able to be returned, the large
majority are being granted refugee status, and the people smugglers
are providing a demonstrably effective service. Information
campaigns based on the 'harsh' conditions asylum seekers from the
Middle East (most of whom have been living for years in refugee
camps in countries like Iran or Jordan) may have to endure before
they get resident status in Australia, are more likely to be
counterproductive than effective. Such initiatives have been
described as political posturing on the part of liberal democratic
governments unwilling to challenge the Convention regime, unable to
adopt the (perhaps impossibly) harsh measures required to stop
asylum seeker inflows, but needing to placate public anxiety and
expectations.(41)
Inequities
The discrepancy between what Western countries
spend on their asylum systems, and what is spent on refugees in
camps, has reached the point where it is raising fundamental
questions about the West's responsibilities. What is spent on the
world's 1.2 million asylum seekers is clearly many times the UNHCR
budget, which is supposed to meet the needs of its identified (as
at end-1999) 22.3 million people of concern. By 1990 the European
OECD states plus Canada were spending USD5 billion annually on the
processing of refugee applications: ten times the UNHCR budget in
that year.(42) The budget of the UNHCR this year is
USD1.7 billion, including extra funding for Kosovo. This year the
UK alone is spending BRP1.5 billion (following an injection of a
further BRP600 million in July to process its backlog) on
processing and providing social support to asylum seekers. The UK's
contribution to the UNHCR is BRP15 million. Canada currently spends
CAD500 million on asylum seekers, and donates CAD14 million to the
UNHCR. In 1999-2000 the cost of illegal arrivals alone in Australia
was in the order of $200 million.(43) A rough estimate
of the cost of processing and supporting asylum seekers puts this
at about $370 million.(44) Australia's core contribution
to the UNHCR was $14 million.
In principle, refugees should receive equal
protection, wherever they are, from the international community.
The reality is that there are very different expectations and
outcomes for 'camp' and 'Convention' refugees. Australia's Iraqi
and Afghani asylum seekers, if they had not taken matters into
their own hands, would have had a greater chance of being returned
home than being resettled in another country. The focus of the
UNHCR in refugee camps in neighbouring countries is on
repatriation; less than 30 per cent of people are assessed as
requiring resettlement in a third country. The acceptance rate for
Iraqis and Afghanis in Australia has been over 90 per cent.
According to the Department of Immigration, this is because
Australia is too far from the Middle East for risks to the
individuals involved to be reliably assessed. Any returns following
individuals' claims for political asylum would unavoidably be more
'high profile' than the UNHCR's group returns, and would bring the
returned person to the attention of supposedly persecutory (and
further incensed) authorities.(45) Besides which
Australia has yet to establish return agreements with current
sending or transit countries.
The Convention-based system, as it currently
operates, gives priority to those present, on the basis of their
mobility (and capacity to pay), not to those with the greatest
need. Women and children predominate in refugee camp populations,
suffer most human rights abuses, and are most vulnerable in refugee
situations. Men, mostly young, predominated amongst asylum seekers
(75-80 per cent of Australia's current boat people are male). This
is partly the result of husbands leaving their families to follow
later, in safety. It is also the result of the datedness of the
Convention, couched in terms that still fit the male experience (as
individual political activists) in many refugee-producing
countries. As well, women, especially those caring for children,
are less mobile and less able to organise international travel in
many refugee producing countries. Once in a signatory country,
Convention-based asylum systems give priority to people who are
able to access legal assistance. In the USA, 80 per cent of
applicants assisted by lawyers are successful, compared with only
about 20 per cent who are not assisted by
lawyers.(46)
James Hathaway has advocated replacing the
Convention with a more equitable model of international refugee
law, which:
... would allow more good to be done for more
refugees than is possible under the present regime. The small
minority of refugees who presently find solid protection in
developed states may see a reduction of its relative privileges
under such a system, but a reduction in the Cadillacs of the few
could, I believe, provide bicycles for the many.(47)
Public reaction
The majority of refugees are fleeing to equally
poor countries and the media is full of images of people who have
obviously been driven from their homes and who are clearly in need
of assistance. When asylum seekers journey to Western countries,
people become suspicious of their motives. In Australia, asylum
seekers with resources to pay smugglers have not elicited public
sympathy in the way that more obvious refugees, for example the
Kosovars who were accorded temporary protection, have
done.(48) When, as in Europe, acceptance rates are low
(11 per cent of refugee applications were recognised in EU
countries last year), the public concludes that most people seeking
asylum are doing so for economic and social reasons. Even where
acceptance rates are high, as in Canada or in the case of recent
boat arrivals in Australia, use of the Convention would appear to
elicit as much cynicism as public support.
The fact that countries deal with asylum seekers
as an issue of migration control, and of domestic politics, is
anathema to many people who sympathise with their situations. That
racism and xenophobia are now commonly described as 'rampant' in
European countries supporters of asylum seekers attribute to
unreasonably high rejection rates, and 'human deterrence' measures
of detention, and reduced welfare and other measures of social
exclusion. Other commentators focus on the fact that public
hostility to asylum driven migration has weakened the capacity of
Western European governments to develop managed migration programs
at a time when these are needed to fill skills shortages. This is
particularly a problem in 'heroically overextended' Germany, which
now needs to attract information technology workers from overseas.
German Interior Minister Otto Schily has said recently that abuse
of asylum rules is 'limiting the scope for an active immigration
policy'.(49) Polls in EU countries consistently reveal a
majority opinion in favour of curtailing asylum seeker rights and
against further immigration.(50)
Economic refugees
The Convention-based asylum regime has fostered
characterisations of asylum seekers as either political and thus
'genuine' and 'legitimate' and 'deserving', or economic and thus
'abusive' and 'illegitimate' and 'undeserving'. Public debates on
asylum seekers are often based on the assumption that such
clear-cut distinctions actually exist. Most asylum seekers however
come from countries where economic failure and political
instability and persecution and poverty are inextricably mixed. And
despite the either/or nature of determinations, distinctions
between individual asylum seekers can rarely be established with
any degree of certainty. There is rarely documentary evidence of
persecution. It is well established in the literature that, with
the advent of people smuggling, credible stories are purchased
along with the journey.
Public debates are also often based on the
assumption that such distinctions are right and proper.
Commentators have however begun to question the morality of
distinguishing between people impelled to flee from persecution,
and people impelled to flee from poverty and lack of opportunity.
In the words of Jeremy Harding 'the order of difficulty that
prevails in some parts of the world is akin to persecution. It is
the political predicament of those migrating away from misery and
grinding attrition, not their opinions, that puts them in danger'.
The fact that asylum seekers are generally not the poorest but the
younger and more enterprising from their home countries does not
necessarily negate this perspective. In 1989 the International
Monetary Fund estimated that USD65 billion was transferred out of
host countries by migrants in remittances; this figure exceeded by
about USD20 billion all official donor assistance. Harding thus
describes 'economic refugees' in Western countries as the
'ferrymen' of development for their countries, and their use of
asylum systems to access much higher earnings as rational and
intelligent as well as predictable. (51)
Defenders of the Convention are arguing that
migration restrictions in Western countries must be lifted in order
to ease the pressure on and thus maintain the 'integrity' of the
asylum system. The EU has concluded that asylum-driven migration
can only be controlled through development, and through forging
agreements with governments of sending countries on aid and trade
and training and temporary (and controlled) migration
opportunities. While Australia is targeting some of its aid to
preventing refugee movements, its immigration programs have been
developed with domestic (if arguably sometimes sectoral) interests
firmly in mind. The notion of immigration (as distinct from our
humanitarian intake) being linked with our regional aid and other
objectives, or linked in with the relations we are building with
refugee sending or transit countries, has not been considered in
recent decades.
In summary
The problem with the 1951 'Geneva' refugee
Convention, the basic instrument of refugee protection, is that it
offers neither a comprehensive nor a flexible response to the
diversity and complexity of forced population movements that are
occurring today. It is distorting the responses, and diverting the
resources of Western countries from developing coherent and ethical
responses to these movements.
The problem with the Convention can also be
summarised in simpler terms, of what it doesn't include. It doesn't
confer any right of assistance on refugees unless and until they
reach a signatory country. It confers no right of assistance on the
'internally displaced' at all. It imposes no obligation on
governments not to persecute their citizens, or to guarantee their
safe return. It imposes no mechanism for preventing mass outflows,
for burden sharing between states, for ensuring speedy assistance
for those most in need, or for maximising the effectiveness of
international resources. And it takes no account of the capacity of
receiving states.
The problem with reforming the international
refugee regime is in what the Convention does provide: a system for
providing protection to people at risk of persecution in their own
countries. No matter how lost they may become amongst mass claims
and backlogs, there are few countries willing to risk turning such
people away.
Options
Refugee advocates and NGOs
The UK Commissioner for Racial Equality recently
declared, perhaps somewhat surprisingly given acceptance rates and
press reports to the contrary, that 'the vast majority' of asylum
seekers in the UK are genuine.(52) As have church and
other support groups in Australia, he describes as 'unfortunate'
the way that asylum seekers have been publicly vilified as
'spongers', bogus or even criminal, and used in the domestic
political arena. The Convention and the asylum system are as
relevant today as ever. The weaknesses and problems evident with
the system are political, the fault of governments, not conceptual.
Standards for determining refugee status should be set by
international law, not by a reactive public or parliament. Courts
need to be 'bold' in upholding human rights.(53)
Pressure must be applied on governments to respond with generosity
and compassion.(54)
Other NGOs and refugee advocates acknowledge
that there are problems arising from the datedness of the
Convention, notably its inadequacy from a protection perspective.
Most, however, are under no illusion that, in the current climate,
governments would not seize the opportunity afforded by wholesale
review to restrict rather than expand their obligations, or to
exchange an obligatory for a discretionary regime.(55)
The Convention provides the sole legal basis for the protection of
refugees worldwide. It codifies as a fundamental human right the
right to seek asylum from persecution. Nothing, certainly not
irregular migration, or processing or settlement costs, is more
important that the lives of people fleeing persecution. Reforms put
forward by advocates are therefore based on preserving while
broadening the Convention grounds and criteria, to include modern
day types of persecution, and on insulating the Convention from
migration pressures by requiring governments to provide
opportunities for legal migration.
In the case of Australia, refugee determination
should be removed from the Department of Immigration with its
'control mentality' to Foreign Affairs, or Attorney-General's. The
fact that no cap or limit can be placed on Convention refugees is
no excuse for capping humanitarian program entrants; the two
streams operate under different systems and the integrity of each
must be maintained. Illegal arrivals and people smuggling should be
addressed by posting more migration officers to process more people
overseas, including from refugee camps in the Middle East, so that
refugees can enter legally under the (presumably much expanded)
off-shore humanitarian program.(56)
Other academics and commentators argue that
proposing expanded obligations for governments on top of a
Convention-based asylum system that is already creaking, is
fruitless. Such proposals are unrealistic in the current climate
because they are politically impossible. To refuse to balance the
claims of refugees with those of receiving states is simply to
invite continuation of an already degraded system, whereby access
is blocked to an increasing number of people, and asylum seekers
are treated with increasing harshness.
The UNHCR
The UNHCR's position that the 1951 Refugee
Convention remains as relevant as ever as the foundation and
cornerstone of refugee protection has become increasingly strained
as criticism of the asylum system and pressure for review have
mounted. At the European Commission 'Lisbon' conference 15-16 June
2000 the UNHCR declared that the Convention provides 'a truly
universal framework within which States can cooperate and share the
burden resulting from forced displacement'. It is 'ethical' in that
'it is a unique declaration by the 139 States Parties of their
commitment to uphold and protect the rights of some of the world's
most vulnerable and disadvantaged'. It is 'the one truly universal
instrument setting out the baseline principles on which the
international protection of refugees has to be built'. Elsewhere
the UNHCR acknowledges that the Convention does not cover
contemporary refugee situations:
The main international instrument of refugee law
is a 45-year-old treaty whose only protocol came into force nearly
three decades ago. During that time, the causes of many refugee
movements have shifted; in recent years, the primary causes have
been civil wars and ethnic, tribal and religious
violence.(57)
The UNHCR acknowledges the pressure that Western
governments are under through the use of the asylum channel for
migration, while simultaneously berating them for blaming the
Convention for their 'inability' to manage their migration inflows
and for adopting restrictive measures such as safe third country
provisions and carrier sanctions. It exhorts governments to be
generous and flexible in its interpretation of the Convention and
in granting refugee status and family reunion rights, while the
focus of its own activities in refugee camps is on
repatriation.(58)
Obviously at the forefront of UNHCR perspective
is that the 1951 Refugee Convention is the only universal refugee
instrument. It places responsibility for protecting refugees
squarely on host states. However obvious their problems and however
loudly creaking the asylum system, like other supporters the UNHCR
sees challenging the Convention as a threat to the international
protection framework that it has built up over the last 50 years.
'Governments should work, together with the UNHCR, to
supplement-and not supplant-the Convention so that the protection
of refugees and asylum seekers can be strengthened on the basis of
already existing and widely recognised Convention
principles'.(59)
It is perhaps politically naïve to think
that money not required for asylum seeker processing and support
would be redirected to help the world's refugees. Australian
politicians for example might have other priorities for the
estimated $370 million that might (theoretically) be freed up by
redefining or disengaging from Convention obligations.
Pressures on the UNHCR would however appear to
be increasing, with governments openly critical of it for taking on
an advocacy cum prosecuting judge role, rather than assisting
states to cope with the changed refugee context. Some countries are
looking for a change in UNHCR leadership.(60) The
developing countries that are protecting the bulk of the world's
refugees remain apparently uninterested in, or, in the case of
India, openly dismissive of, the Convention.(61) Those
supporting large refugee populations, like Iran, have however
become increasingly critical and vocal over the lack of progress
through the UNHCR on burden sharing. Academics and commentators are
arguing that it is time for a new international refugee
organisation, or at least time for a new mandate for the UNHCR.
A new international refugee
regime
It is unlikely that many governments would sign
up to the 1951 Refugee Convention today. It is also fairly obvious
what a refugee regime designed for the 21st century
would comprise. It would redefine the notion of refugee to
encompass contemporary displacements. It would formalise commitment
to and strengthen the world response (which has far exceeded the
non-refoulement obligations of the Convention) that has developed
over the last 20 years to refugee situations, namely emergency
assistance in safe havens, temporary protection, repatriation,
local integration and resettlement. It would focus on groups, not
individuals, and on the provision of humanitarian assistance rather
than on definition of the quality of persecution. It would hold
countries responsible and accountable for displacements and impose
sanctions as well as provide support for reconstruction and
reintegration. It would guarantee rights for displaced persons and
direct resources to where they are most needed. It would oblige
states to contribute and particularly to assist countries of first
asylum, while allowing for flexibility of approach to different
situations and from different countries. (Canada and Australia
might resettle refugees while Japan might contribute more in direct
funds.)
Models
A number of models (listed at page 32) have been
developed in recent years with a common set of objectives. Firstly,
to exchange Convention obligations with a new set of obligations
that populations will accept and governments will be able and
willing to implement in a more principled manner, thereby freeing
up resources. Secondly, to direct resources to improve the quality
of protection especially in countries and regions of first asylum.
Thirdly, to untie the refugee regime from migration, thus allowing
states to insulate their refugee protection policies from migration
pressures, and to ease public concern over asylum-driven migration
and people smuggling. These models are based on notions of safe
havens, temporary protection, international, regional and bilateral
cooperation in accordance with established principles, and burden
sharing. They are based also on the notion that the needs of people
and the facts of their cases can best be determined close to where
they live.
The UNHCR and other supporters of the existing
system claim that disengagement from the Convention would undermine
the international framework for protecting and assisting refugees
worldwide. The producers of alternative models argue that
disengagement from the Convention is a necessary part of developing
a better international refugee framework. They see the issue as not
whether asylum provides an adequate response to modern day refugee
situations-it clearly does not-but whether the political will
exists to move outside the scope of the Convention.
People smuggling represents a particularly
challenging affront to notions of state sovereignty, and may be
providing the extra pressure that pushes governments towards reform
of the Convention-based system. UK Home Secretary Jack Straw has
proposed strengthening protection in the refugee producing region
and the lodging of asylum applications from abroad to stop asylum
seekers from purchasing organised illegal entry into European
countries. He has also proposed the notion of quotas of refugees
from high-risk regions, in order to share the burden more
equitably, and to enable planned intakes and
settlement.(62) Australian Immigration Minister Philip
Ruddock has suggested that receiving countries have a collective
interest in lightening the burden of care in countries such as
Iran, and in making it easier for refugees to stay in those
countries pending resolution of their
situations.(63)
Conclusion: Implications for
Australia
Australia's on-shore refugee determination
system is operating within a totally different world from the one
in which the UN Refugee Convention was designed in 1951.
Those opposed to review (leading to possible
restriction) of the Convention system have described Australia's
asylum seeker problem as 'trivial' compared with numbers that have
been received over a sustained period in countries like Germany.
However per capita comparisons suggest otherwise. In calendar year
1999 Australia received 9525 claims; on a per capita basis fewer
than Germany or the UK or Canada, but roughly as many as France and
Italy, and over three times as many as the USA.(64) In
1999-2000 Australia received 12 713 asylum claims. In any
event, as a Sydney Morning Herald editorial has argued,
the fact that pressure may be less than on some destinations does
not disentitle Australia from acting to maintain the 'integrity' of
its migration programs.(65) Indeed, the scale of the
problem in other countries provides an impetus.
No country has a visa entry (and exit) control
and management system comparable to Australia's, and no country
(Canada perhaps excepted) has invested as much in its managed
migration and resettlement programs. The off-shore refugee
(humanitarian) migration program has always received widespread
public support. On-shore asylum seekers have not. While opinion on
the boat people is polarised, the weight of public opinion would
appear to remain unconvinced that different laws and entitlements
should apply for people who arrive illegally, and unconvinced that
they should be given the benefit of the doubt. There would also
appear to be a high level of public expectation that the Government
should and will control illegal entry.
It is perhaps politically unrealistic to argue
that refugee numbers should be increased simply because more people
are able to reach Australia and make a claim for refugee status.
There is concern in both major political parties that asylum
seekers could undermine support for migration programs. Australian
political leadership has always been sensitive to the potential for
anti-immigration and anti-immigrant movements. More than any
country in the world (Israel perhaps excluded) Australia has been
built on immigration. Twenty three per cent of the population were
born overseas, and 42 per cent were either born overseas or have at
least one parent born overseas. It seems likely that Australian
governments will take whatever measures are necessary to curtail
illegal entry and rising numbers of asylum seekers, including
challenging the UNHCR and rethinking our obligations under the
Refugee Convention.
Withdraw
There are no practical obstacles to withdrawing
from the Convention. Article 44 (2) states that any contracting
state can denounce or withdraw, with one year's notice. Such a move
would be unprecedented-no state has ever withdrawn. The threat of
instant international pariah status is however less compelling at a
time when the asylum system is widely seen as 'broke'. Australia's
credentials on refugees and managed migration are unsurpassed, and
it has played above its demographic weight in international forums
on migration and refugee issues. Australia could stay within EXCOM.
In theory, withdrawal from the Convention would free up a
considerable amount of money which could be redirected to countries
of first asylum. It would also enable Australia to recommit to a
sizeable offshore refugee resettlement program. While Australia is
obviously not a large enough player to lead the world, it could
thus provide an impetus for reform.
Withdrawal might not however provide an
immediate practical solution. Asylum from political persecution and
the principle of non-refoulement have become part of international
customary law; the government and the judiciary would still have to
process and deal with claims. As well, Australia is party to other
treaties which prevent people being sent back into situations of
danger, or gross violation of their civil rights, namely the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and
the Convention Against Torture and Other Degrading and Inhuman
Treatment (CAT).
Withdrawal from the Refugee Convention would
however enable Australia to develop and regularise, on its own
terms, more transparent and understandable criteria and provisions
for dealing with on-shore asylum seekers.
Reform
Withdrawal from the Convention could be
portrayed as Australia rejecting international standards, and as
inconsiderately directing the asylum seeker burden elsewhere.
Staying in the system could arguably make it easier for Australia
to retain its influence in international forums and to play a role
in reshaping the international protection framework.
A logical first step towards reform would be to
interpret the Convention in legislation for Australia's purposes.
Importantly, permanent residence and subsequent family reunion are
not required under the Convention: Article 1(c) provides that
refugee status can cease where circumstances in connection with
refugee status have ceased to exist.
At present, people seeking asylum under the
terms of the Convention are treated as a different group legally
and obligation wise from people provided protection in Australia
under 'safe haven' legislation, and people granted temporary
extensions of stay because it is dangerous to return home.
Reforming the on-shore asylum system to bring more transparency,
equity and consistency into our refugee responses is likely to win
the support of at least the general Australian public. If linked
with a redirection of resources to assist countries of first
asylum, and support for reform in international forums, it is
likely also to win approval from the international community.
Endnotes
-
- See discussion in Joint Committee on Treaties, Reference:
Convention on the Status of Refugees, Debates, Hearing
Monday 10 April 2000, pp. 22-23.
- For example Mary Crock in Immigration and Refugee Law in
Australia, Federation Press, Sydney, 1998.
- Political parties in France, Switzerland, Belgium and Austria
in particular have mobilised the anti-immigration vote.
- USCR, 7 million people forced to flee last year; refugee
total rises for first time in 7 years, http://www.refugees.org/news/press_releases/2000/061300a.htm.
- EU Presidency, Strategy paper on immigration and
asylum, Brussels, 1 July 1998. www.proasyl.de/texte/europe/eu-a-o.htm.
- Quoted in Jeremy Harding, 'The Uninvited', London Review of
Books, 3 February 2000.
- Quoted in 'UN Convention on asylum seekers is weak, says
Straw', The Telegraph (UK), 12 March 2000.
- William Hague, 'Common Sense on Asylum Seekers', Guardian
Unlimited (UK), 18 April 2000.
- 'Toughen UN Convention: Ruddock', Sydney Morning
Herald, 22 March 2000.
- Hon. Philip Ruddock MP, MPS 088/2000, 29 August 2000.
- Jeremy Harding, op. cit, and in book form The Uninvited:
Refugees at the Rich Man's Gate, Profile Books, London, 2000.
- John Morrison, The trafficking and smuggling of refugees:
the end game in European asylum policy? UNHCR, Geneva, July
2000, http://www.unhcr.ch/evaluate/reports/traffick.pdf.
- Article 33 states that 'No Contracting State shall expel or
return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of
territories where this life or freedom would be threatened on
account of his race, nationality, political opinion or membership
of a particular social group'.
- Article 31 states that 'The Contracting State shall not impose
penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on
refugees...provided they present themselves without delay to the
authorities'.
- Quoted in Shaun Anthony, 'Plan to alter refugee law', The
West Australian Online, 15 June 2000.
- USCR figures, South Korea
http://www.refugees.org/world/countryrpt/easia_pacific/south_korea.htm
and Japan http://www.refugees.org/world/countryrpt/easia_pacific/japan.htm.
- The OAU defines as a refugee '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'.
See
http://www.unhcr.ch/refworld/refworld/legal/instrume/asylum/ref_afre.htm.
- Statistics from USCR web-site.
Country Report: Iran http://www.refugees.org/world/countryrpt/mideast/iran.htm;
Country Report: Jordan http://www.refugees.org/world/countryrpt/mideast/jordan.htm;
Country Report: Pakistan http://www.refugees.org/world/countryrpt/scasia/pakistan.htm;
Country Report: India http://www.refugees.org/world/countryrpt/scasia/india.htm;
Country Report: Iraq http://www.refugees.org/world/countryrpt/mideast/iraq.htm;
Country Report: Thailand
http://www.refugees.org/world/countryrpt/easia_pacific/thailand.htm;
Country Report: Malaysia
http://www.refugees.org/world/countryrpt/easia_pacific/malaysia.htm;
Country Report: Indonesia
http://www.refugees.org/world/countryrpt/easia_pacific/indonesia.htm.
- UNHCR web-site, http://www.unhcr.ch.
- UNHCR, UNHCR by numbers, http://www.unhcr.ch/un&ref/numbers/table2.htm.
- EXCOM Notes on international protection are on the
UNHCR web-site at
http://www.unhcr.ch/refworld/refworld/unhcr/excom/menu.htm.
- Australia's on-shore refugee determination processes are
critically examined in the report of the Senate Legal and
Constitutional References Committee, A Sanctuary under
Review, June 2000.
- It has drawn particularly from the work of James Hathaway,
Osgood Law School and Centre for Refugee Studies, York University,
Toronto; Matthew Gibney, Refugees Studies Program, Oxford; Sarah
Collinson, Royal Institute of International Affairs, UK; Jeremy
Harding, UK author; Jonas Widgren, International Centre for
Migration Policy Development, Vienna; and Mary Crock, School of
Law, Sydney University. It is also drawn from meetings and
discussions on migration and asylum issues with government
officials and with international organisations including the Inter
Governmental Consultations on Asylum, Refugee and Migration
Policies in Europe, North America and Australia (IGC), the
International Organisation for Migration (IOM), and the UNHCR, in
the UK, Europe and North America May-August 1999.
- A good description of the background to the Convention and its
early years of operation is in Sarah Collinson, Beyond Borders:
West European Migration Policy Towards the 21st
Century, Royal Institute of International Affairs, London,
1993.
- BBC World News, National Radio PNN, 27 July 2000.
- Marion Jimenez, National Post, 31 March 2000.
- Christopher DeMuth, speaking at CIS conference 18 May
2000,
http://www.cis.org.au/main%20pages/DeMuth%20EDIT.htm.
- Gil Loescher, The Asylum Dilemma in the West,
Pennsylvania State University Press, Pennsylvania, 1992.
- Enactment of safe third country legislation has speeded up
applications in and from some countries but has been criticised by
the UNHCR.
- The UK Government's Fairer, Faster and Firmer White
Paper was tabled in the House of Commons 27 July 1998.
- Discussion with Dr Gary Klintworth, former RRT Member, July
2000.
- EU Presidency, 1998, op. cit.
- UN report cited by Nick Hopkins in The Guardian (UK),
6 July 2000.
- Alan Travis, '600 million to end asylum backlog', The
Guardian (UK), 24 July 2000.
- Staff and agencies, 'More asylum seekers to be deported',
Guardian Unlimited (UK), 7 June 2000.
- Professor Georges Tapinos, Institut d'etudes politiques de
Paris, & OECD consultant, in OECD, Trends in International
Migration OECD, Paris, 1999.
- 'Criminals win if repatriation of illegal Chinese isn't
hastened', CISNEWS, 26 April 2000.
- See costings given by the Hon. Philip Ruddock, House of
Representatives, Debates, 7 March 2000. See also
Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia (LSIA)
data.
- Margaret Young, Canada's refugee status determination
system, Library of Parliament, Research Branch, Canada, 1997.
- Depending on whether drop-outs are counted.
- Jeremy Harding, op.cit.
- Jonas Widgren, 'International migration and regional stability,
International Affairs, vol. 66, no. 4, October 1990.
- Andrew Metcalf, DIMA, in hearing of Joint Committee on
Treaties, Hansard, op. cit., p. 48.
- According to the Immigration Department, the average cost of a
non-detained asylum seeker, up until they are either granted
refugee status or removed from the country, is $20 000. The
ANAO has estimated the average cost of a boat person who enters the
refugee system to be $50 000.
- Advice provided by Refugee and Humanitarian Division, DIMA,
June 2000.
- Molly McDonough, 'A Web Site for Asylum Seekers',
CISNEWS, March 2000.
- James Hathaway, Can international Refugee Law Be Made
Relevant Again? USCR article, http://www.refugees.org/world/articles/intl_law_wrs96.htm.
- The External Reference Group set up in Australia last year to
advise on boat people measures advised that asylum seekers with
resources to pay smugglers do not elicit public sympathy in the way
that refugees, for example the Kosovars who were accorded temporary
protection, do.
- Ralph Atkins, 'Panel launched to plan overhaul of German
immigration and asylum rules', Financial Times (London),
13 July 2000.
- In a Forsa poll published July 2000 the majority of
Germans indicated that they wanted rights to asylum limited, and
that they considered there were 'too many foreigners' in the
country. In a Eurobarometer survey commissioned by the EU several
years ago one third of respondents openly described themselves as
'racist', and only a minority considered immigration would bring
their country any real benefits. Described in Jeffrey Smith,
'Europe Bids Immigrants Unwelcome', Washington Post Foreign
Service, 23 July 2000.
- Jeremy Harding, op. cit.
- Gurbux Singh, quoted in Philip Webster, 'Most refugees are
genuine, says race watchdog', The Times (UK), 11 May 2000.
- Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, Hordes or human
beings?, The Commission, Melbourne, 2000.
- Erica Feller, UNHCR, Asylum and protection: The Convention
under scrutiny, presentation to European Conference on Asylum,
15-16 June 2000, Lisbon.
http://www.unhcr.ch/issues/asylum/lisbon.htm.
- Des Hogan, Amnesty International, at hearing of Joint Committee
on Treaties, 10 April 2000.
- William Maley, Associate Professor Politics, ADFA, speaking at
a Racial Respect forum on Boat People, Smuggled People, Queue
Jumpers or Refugees?, Canberra, 16 March 2000.
- UNHCR, Who is a refugee?, http://www.unhcr.ch/un&ref/who/whois.htm.
- UNHCR EXCOM Note on International Protection, 7 July
1999,
http://www.unhcr.ch/refworld/unhcr/excom/reports/914e.htm.
- UNHCR, The 1951 Convention: Lasting Cornerstone of Refugee
Protection, http://www.unhcr.ch/issues/asylum/qa000615.htm.
- Immigration Minister the Hon. Philip Ruddock, at Paris
conference on people smuggling, July 2000.
- USCR, Country Report: India, http://www.refugees.org/world/countryrpt/scasia/india.htm.
See also Nirupama Subramanian, 'An Insightful Study',
Frontline, September 1, 2000.
- Jack Straw, UK Home Secretary, Towards a common asylum
procedure, Speech to European Conference on Asylum, Lisbon, 16
June 2000.
- The Hon. Philip Ruddock, An international approach to
combating people smuggling and the illegal movement of people,
Speech delivered at Paris conference on people smuggling, 20 July
2000.
- USCR statistics.
- 22 November 1999.
Table 1: Refugees and Others of
Concern to UNHCR, 1999 Statistical Overview
Region of
asylum/ residence
|
Refugees1
|
Asylum
seekers2
|
Returned refugees3
|
Others of Concern
|
Total population
of concern
|
Internally
displaced4
|
Returned IDPs5
|
Various6
|
Africa
|
3 523 250
|
61 110
|
933 890
|
640 600
|
1 054 700
|
36 990
|
6 250 540
|
Asia
|
4 781 750
|
24 750
|
617 620
|
1 724 800
|
10 590
|
149 350
|
7 308 860
|
Europe
|
2 608 380
|
473 060
|
952 060
|
1 603 300
|
370 000
|
1 279 000
|
7 285 800
|
Latin America
and Caribbean
|
61 200
|
1 510
|
6 260
|
-
|
-
|
21 200
|
90 170
|
Northern America
|
636 300
|
605 630
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
1 241 930
|
Oceania
|
64 500
|
15 540
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
80 040
|
Total
|
11 675 380
|
1 181 600
|
2 509 830
|
3 968 700
|
1 435 290
|
1 486 540
|
22 257 340
|
Notes:
1. Persons recognised as refugees under the 1951 Convention, the
1969 OAU Convention, in accordance with the UNHCR Statute, persons
granted a humanitarian or comparable status and those granted
temporary protection.
2. Persons whose application for refugee status is pending in the
asylum procedure or who are otherwise registered as
asylum-seekers.
3. Refugees who have returned to their place of origin during the
past two years.
4. Persons who are displaced within their country and to whom the
UNHCR extends protection and/or assistance in pursuance to a
special request by a competent organ of the United Nations.
5. IDPs who have returned to their place of origin during the past
two years.
6. Other groups of concern to UNHCR. Source: UNHCR
Table 2: UN Member States: Signatories
and Nonsignatories to the UN Convention and Protocol Relating to
the Status of Refugees
Signatories
|
Albania
|
Finland
|
Nigeria
|
Algeria
|
France
|
Norway
|
Angola
|
Gabon
|
Panama
|
Antigua and Barbuda
|
Gambia
|
Papua New Guinea
|
Argentina
|
Georgia
|
Paraguay
|
Armenia
|
Germany
|
Peru
|
Australia
|
Ghana
|
Philippines
|
Austria
|
Greece
|
Poland
|
Azerbaijan
|
Guatemala
|
Portugal
|
Bahamas
|
Guinea
|
Romania
|
Belgium
|
Guinea-Bissau
|
Russian Federation
|
Belize
|
Haiti
|
Rwanda
|
Benin
|
Honduras
|
St Vincent and the Grenadines (C)
|
Bolivia
|
Hungary
|
Samoa
|
Bosnia and Hercegovina
|
Iceland
|
Sao Tome and Principe
|
Botswana
|
Iran
|
Senegal
|
Brazil
|
Ireland
|
Seychelles
|
Bulgaria
|
Israel
|
Sierra Leone
|
Burkina Faso
|
Italy
|
Slovak Republic
|
Burundi
|
Jamaica
|
Slovenia
|
Cambodia
|
Japan
|
Solomon Islands
|
Cameroon
|
Kazakhstan
|
Somalia
|
Canada
|
Kenya
|
South Africa
|
Cape Verde (P)
|
Korea (South)
|
Spain
|
Central African Republic
|
Kyrgyzstan
|
Sudan
|
Chad
|
Latvia
|
Suriname
|
Chile
|
Lesotho
|
Swaziland (P)
|
China
|
Liberia
|
Sweden
|
Colombia
|
Liechtenstein
|
Tajikistan
|
Congo
|
Lithuania
|
Tanzania
|
Costa Rica
|
Luxembourg
|
Togo
|
Côte d'Ivoire
|
Macedonia
|
Tunisia
|
Croatia
|
Madagascar (C)
|
Turkey
|
Cyprus
|
Malawi
|
Turkmenistan
|
Czech Republic
|
Mali
|
Uganda
|
Denmark
|
Malta
|
United Kingdom
|
Djibouti
|
Mauritania
|
United States (P)
|
Dominica
|
Mexico
|
Uruguay
|
Dominican Republic
|
Monaco (C)
|
Venezuela (P)
|
Ecuador
|
Morocco
|
Yemen
|
Egypt
|
Mozambique
|
Yugoslavia
|
El Salvador
|
Namibia (C)
|
Zaire
|
Equatorial Guinea
|
Netherlands
|
Zambia
|
Estonia
|
New Zealand
|
Zimbabwe
|
Ethiopia
|
Nicaragua
|
|
Fiji
|
Niger
|
|
Nonsignatories
|
Afghanistan
|
Jordan
|
Qatar
|
Andorra
|
Korea (North)
|
St. Kitts & Nevis
|
Bahrain
|
Kuwait
|
St. Lucia
|
Bangladesh
|
Laos
|
San Marino
|
Barbados
|
Lebanon
|
Saudi Arabia
|
Belarus
|
Libya
|
Singapore
|
Bhutan
|
Malaysia
|
Sri Lanka
|
Brunei
|
Maldives
|
Syria
|
Burma (Myanmar)
|
Marshall Islands
|
Thailand
|
Comoros
|
Mauritius
|
Trinidad and Tobago
|
Cuba
|
Micronesia
|
Ukraine
|
Eritrea
|
Moldova
|
United Arab Emirates
|
Grenada
|
Mongolia
|
Uzbekistan
|
Guyana
|
Nepal
|
Vanuatu
|
India
|
Oman
|
Vietnam
|
Indonesia
|
Pakistan
|
|
Iraq
|
Palau
|
|
Note: Non-UN members Switzerland, Tuvalu, and
the Holy See have also signed the Refugee Convention and
Protocol.
Source: USCR, http://refugees.org/world/statistics/wrs97_unmembers.htm
and UNHCR,
http://www.unhcr.ch/refworld/refworld/legal/instrume/asylum/51engsp.htm.
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