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RECENT SCHOLARSHIP

 How Long is Too Long?

In “How Long is Too Long? Questioning the Legality of Long-term Encampment through a Human Rights Lens," Sarah Deardorff considers the harmful effects of long-term warehousing, and argues for a limit to encampment:

The right to move and work are the most visibly violated in [long-term encampment, LTE].  The two are closely related, though one might argue that freedom of movement ought to be more urgent, as the right to work is an economic, cultural and social right.  Regardless, their restrictions enable the violations of a range of other rights, including the right to choose one’s residence, the right to adequate food and shelter, and freedom from discrimination.  In addition, one could argue that the right to adequate healthcare and education, access to courts, the right to cultural and religious practices, the right to security of person and arguably the right to a timely solution and due process (which also relates to obtaining access to other rights in a timely fashion) are also related and raise questions about the legality of LTE. …

States and other actors may have any number of reasons for continually categorizing a refugee influx as an emergency, not least because resources are needed, and donors are more likely to provide if a situation is labeled as such.  In some cases, they may have no choice but to continue to portray it that way to try to get what is needed.  Michael Van Bruaene writes of the Tindouf region in Algeria, “The inordinately low visibility and high donor weariness has produced a major funding shortfall…even for essential relief items…which reasonably should have been secured after 25 years of continuous crisis…The main priority…is still centered on emergency food supplies” (2001: 7-8).  This example shows that in some cases the emergency actually continues for years, particularly in cases where waves of violence send new groups of refugees year after year and supplies are not received.  However, many LTE situations, like those in Tanzania or Thailand, do phase out of the initial emergency phase.

 Human Rights Bodies Need to Scrutinize Refugee Situations Independently of UNHCR

In "Protracted refugee situations, human rights and civil society" in Protracted Refugee Situations: Political, Human Rights and Security Implications (Loescher, et al., eds., 2008), Elizabeth Ferris exposes the consequences of restrictions on refugees:

While international aw thus provides comprehensive human rights for refugees, the reality for those refugees living in protracted situations is quite different.  Many governments confine refugees to designated camps where there is neither freedom of movement nor freedom to choose one's residence.  Many governments do not provide access to education or permit refugees to be employed or self-employed.  There are still too many cases where children born in refugee camps do not have proper documentation or nationalities.  Violence against refugees, particularly against women, remains widespread.  …

Because refugees do not have access to the labour market, or the means to become self-reliant, they are forced to rely on humanitarian assistance, which does not meet their needs. … The pattern of humanitarian assistance has led to overwhelming dependency by the refugee population.  …  The parents have no income and the children have to fend for themselves.  Girls' bodies are the only currency they have left.  …  [S]exual and gender-based violence is common in situations where the basic needs of refugees are not met.  Violations of economic and social rights can thus lead to violations of civil rights. 

She also argues that deference to UNHCR may undermine independent human rights inquiries:

The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention … has not yet looked at restrictions on movement in protracted refugee situations.  …  [W]hen the Special Rapporteur [on torture] undertook a mission to Nepal (January 2006), he did not look into the situation of Bhutanese refugees…  [Were] the Human Rights Council to establish a special working group, or special representative, to examine protracted refugee situations[, t]his would have the advantage of highlighting the constellation of human rights abuses which occur in protracted refugee situations and could be a way of pressuring governments to lift some of the restrictions on refugees.  …

In fact, [the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights] defers to UNHCR in refugee settings.  As pointed out in its training manual, 'it would not generally be the role of a UN human rights operation to visit a refugee camp managed by the UNHCR to review camp conditions.  … However, the mandate and expertise of UN human rights operations can often be complementary to an HCR role, provided there is adequate coordination.'[c]…

One of the obstacles to both OHCHR and [national human rights institutions] becoming more engaged in addressing the human rights of refugees in protracted refugee situations is the dominant role played by UNHCR in refugee camps.  … [I]t is hard for human rights organizations to decide to devote additional resources to human rights violations which are understood to be under the mandate of UNHCR.  However, as we have seen, UNHCR has not been able to assure the human rights of refugees living in camps under its jurisdiction.  Moreover, none of the human rights actors has done an adequate job in assuring the human rights of refugees in protracted refugee situations.  …  [T]he dominance of UNHCR, particularly in camp settings, may have dissuaded human rights actors from closer scrutiny.

 “Pitch the Tents” in New Republic

In September 1994, i.e., 10 years before USCRI launched its campaign to end the human warehousing of refugees, Barbara Harrell-Bond published this piece outlining its consequences, antecedents, and alternatives.

 Warehousing Undermines Integration

The latest issue of Refuge from York University’s Centre for Refugee Studies in Canada includes Jim Hathaway’s “Refugee Solutions, or Solutions to Refugeehood” which he gave as an address at the Canadian Refugee Council’s International Refugee Rights conference in the summer of 2006, criticizing the concept of “voluntary repatriation” and focuses on durable solutions to the exclusion of refugee protection. 

Another by two Canadian government officials, “The Resettlement Challenge:  Integration of Refugees from Protracted Refugee Situations,” calls for resettling warehoused refugees but also addresses the effects of warehousing on post-resettlement integration.  Some excerpts:

More and more refugees find themselves “warehoused” [c] in refugee camps for years…  Not only are refugees unable to return to their country of origin voluntarily, but, in many of these cases, refugees languish in refugee camps, dependent on humanitarian assistance and food aid, with limited  or no opportunities for self-reliance or local integration.  Densely populated refugee camps with limited opportunities become the home and community of those who have been forcibly displaced for decades.  As a result, a significant portion of today’s refugees have sever psychosocial and physical health concerns, limited or no labour market skills, little or no formal education, and, for children, greater developmental challenges.[c]  This in itself can be a disincentive for States hosting large refugee populations to provide for local integration  and for other states to engage in resettlement of refugees with high needs.

 1980s Central American Refugee Initiative Compared with Warehousing Campaign

Alexander Betts, in his January 2006 “Comprehensive Plans of Action: Insights from CIREFCA and the Indochinese CPA” (UNHCR, New Issues in Refugee Research, Working Paper No. 120), points out that

The initial [planning] meeting [for the International Conference on Central American Refugees (CIREFCA) in Geneva in May 1987] set-out a clear delineation of the problems and potential solutions, discussing, for example, the legacy of the Cartagena Declaration, and the implications for the peace process and root causes of the initial Esquipulas Declaration.  It focused on the need to overcome long-term encampment through the promotion of self-sufficiency and voluntary repatriation.  [Fn:  Indeed, in terms of the language, much of what was argued by UNHCR had parallels with USCRI’s current ‘anti-warehousing’ campaign.  The summary of the meeting notes, “los campamentos son por definicion transitorios y no deben perpetuarse” [the camps are by definition transitory and not to be perpetuated] and that “despues de un tiempo razonable, este tipo de campamentos deberen gradualmente abrirse a reubicarse para pasar a otro esquena de inserción local mas apropiado” [after a reasonable time, this type of camp should gradually be transformed into another scheme of more appropriate local integration].  S. Vieira de Mello to High Commissioner, ‘25-27 May 1987: Consultative Group on Central American Refugees’, 29/5/87, UNHCR Fonds 11, Series 3, 391.86A.]

Two of the greatest challenges currently facing the global refugee regime concern the issues of protracted refugee situations and the asylum-migration nexus.  In the first instance … [s]uch situations very often have serious implications for human rights [fn: Smith, M (2004), ‘Warehousing Refugees: A Denial of Rights, a Waste of Humanity’, World Refugee Survey, pp. 40-1] and security.

 Make International Responsibility Sharing Binding, Rights-Based

Leading refugee law scholar and USCRI board member, Prof. James Hathaway has an article in the upcoming (Summer 2007) Melbourne Journal of International Law, “Why Refugee Law Still Matters,” calling for turning international responsibility sharing for refugee protection from a charitable platitude to a binding commitment linked to refugees enjoying their rights.  Excerpts (citations omitted):

In rough terms, less than US$1 per day is available to look after each one of the approximately 4.4 million refugees under direct UNHCR care in poorer states.  Furthermore, not even that tiny budget is guaranteed, but has to be garnered each year from voluntary contributions to the UNHCR of a small number of wealthier countries — there is no formula-based funding arrangement.  …  [R]eallocation … needs to be both much more significant and, most fundamentally, binding.  Countries in regions of origin rightly protest that they cannot be expected to admit massive numbers of refugees — to whom they thus become legally obligated — on the basis of no more than discretionary grants which ebb and flow with the political, budgetary, and other preferences of wealthier governments.  More fundamentally still, the rights of refugees in the less developed world are in no sense meaningfully vindicated by dollars sent to run UNHCR or other refugee camps, where rights abuse is common and opportunities for self-reliance usually nonexistent.  Indeed, the mandatory encampment policies pursued in much of the less developed world are themselves in flagrant breach of both the Refugee Convention and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (‘ICCPR’).  Yet those camps are increasingly sustained and funded by us in the name of vindicating refugee rights in regions of origin.  If the transfer of resources is to be meaningful, it must absolutely be based on verifiable respect for refugee law obligations in the destination states.  But to this point, we seem content to throw money at the less developed world as a sop to our consciences for the harsh treatment of refugees in our midst, even as we know that such resources do not dependably accrue to the real benefit of promoting the goals of refugee safety, autonomy, and self-reliance at the heart of the Refugee Convention.   [D]ifferentiated responsibilities should encompass a major, binding, and practically enforceable obligation — not just rhetoric — to shift protection dollars to the places where most protection needs to happen…  a truly binding system of resource redistribution that would dedicate at least the same quantum of funds now spent on refugee protection in wealthier countries to the poorer regions where most refugees are today, and will remain. 

 Campbell:  Refugees in Nairobi Not a Burden

The September 2006 Journal of Refugee Studies includes Elizabeth Campbell’s “Urban Refugees in Nairobi: Problems of Protection, Mechanisms of Survival, and Possibilities for Integration” (abstract).  Excerpts:

While they have become for all practical purposes independent from UNHCR and impressively self-sufficient, urban refugees are particularly vulnerable to chronic police abuse and arrest; they are unable to work legally in the city and therefore cannot access positions in the formal economy, and are subjected to pervasive xenophobic attitudes from the local Kenyan population.  …

Official statements ordering urban refugees to return to the camps or face the consequences are also often found posted in public spaces in Eastleigh.  These threats, sometimes followed up by police sweeps and mass arrests of refugees, often come in reaction to key events, such as the US Embassy bombing in 1998 or other global security threats [c].  Over 600 people, predominately Somalis and Ethiopians, were seized in Eastleigh in 1999 in a ‘major crime crackdown’ following the 1998 US Embassy bombing [c].  At the beginning of 2002, more than 1,000 ‘illegal immigrants’ were ‘seized as part of a countrywide crackdown on crime’ [c].  Later in the same year, some 800 ‘illegal foreigners’ were arrested in a police swoop in Eastleigh [c].  Another police swoop in Eastleigh occurred in June 2003 when more than 100 Somalis were taken in for questioning after the Americans temporarily closed their Embassy due to threats of terrorist activity [c].  …

Contrary to the official position of the Government, urban refugees are not an economic burden on the city but rather have proven to be self-sufficient.

Somali Refugee Livelihoods in Nairobi 

The vast majority of Nairobi's urban refugees live in Eastleigh, a densely-populated low-income area of Nairobi, where the informal economy is flourishing. Eastleigh is popularly referred to as ‘Little Mogadishu’ and is dominated by Somalis and other African refugees and immigrants. Throughout the 1990s Eastleigh was transformed, largely by Somali businessmen, from a residential community to the commercial centre of the Eastlands area, and increasingly much of Nairobi. These refugees bought up residential blocs and turned many of them into multi-million shilling retail malls and commercial enterprises. The economic transformation of Eastleigh has indeed brought tremendous competition to the marketplace, pushing out many Asian retailers, who had hitherto controlled the business. According to Narayan Mehta, owner of a city centre hardware store, ‘Most Asians don’t like to admit it, but the Somalis are really cutting into our businesses. They are willing to live and work in Eastlands, areas where most Asians won't even visit' (interview 2004).

The cornerstone of this development, the famous ‘Garissa Lodge’, serves today as a symbol of refugee businesses in Eastleigh [c].  Many Somalis resided in this former guest house before its transformation into a modern retail shopping mall, officially renamed Little Dubai but popularly referred to as Garissa.  From small scale informal market trading in hotel rooms, today Garissa houses 58 stalls in which everything from designer clothing to electronics is sold for some of the lowest prices in Nairobi.  …  With their businesses deeply entrenched in the informal economy, they benefited from trade liberalization because they were able to move goods across the borders more easily and sell them openly.  …

Many entrepreneurs in the informal economy have experienced great success, turning their jua kali businesses into contemporary shopping malls like Garissa Lodge, Amal Shopping Plaza with 160 stalls and a supermarket, Liban Shopping Complex, Baraka Baxaar, Shariff Shopping Complex, and Sunrise Shopping Complex.  These discount malls now draw Kenyans from throughout Eastlands and from all over Nairobi.  The refugees have capitalized on and strengthened existing trade networks as well as forging new ones in light of state retrenchment and deregulation of many industries.

In addition to individual consumers, larger commercial businesses and medium-sized traders also rely on retailers in Eastleigh to purchase a wide variety of items at cheaper costs. From hardware stores to fruit and vegetable stands, the merchandise and produce is increasingly purchased from refugees in Eastleigh.  At ten electronics stores on two main thoroughfares in Nairobi, Tom Mboya Street and Moi Avenue, each business owner stated that the vast majority of the merchandise being sold, including radios, televisions, VCRs, DVD players, cameras, and stereos, was purchased from dealers in Eastleigh.  …

Somalis also own several matatus (mini-buses), the main form of public transportation.  Matatus began as an illegal, informal mode of transportation in Nairobi, but due to their popularity were officially permitted a decade after independence (Lee-Smith 1988).  …

[C]ontrary to the official position and the popular local perception, that urban refugees are not an economic burden to the state or its citizens.  On the contrary some of them are responsible for large-scale infrastructural development and retail growth in Eastleigh.  Others have even provided jobs to local Kenyans.  …

Kenya is indeed suffering from massive economic stagnation and decline; however, this study reveals that most urban refugees are not contributing to this process.  On the contrary, these refugees are largely responsible for generating large-scale commercial growth and profitable trade networks.  …

[A] written urban refugee policy that clearly outlines the necessary requirements urban refugees must meet to reside and work legally in the city … would formally recognize, for the first time, the undeniable reality of a permanent urban refugee presence, take into consideration the human security of those living in the hosting area, and address the specific concerns of the state.  After all, if urban refugees were formally recognized and registered, the Government of Kenya would have much greater knowledge of the composition of its population and would even be able, in theory, to collect taxes from some of the prosperous refugee business owners.  An urban refugee policy might also help reduce the numbers of refugees arrested for lack of work permits and identification by allowing them to reside lawfully in the city.

  IJRL Reviews Rights in Exile

The June 2006 edition of the International Journal of Refugee Law carries a review (subscription required) of Rights in Exile: Janus-Faced Humanitarianism by Guglielmo Verdirame and Barbara Harrell-Bond.  Excerpts:

Rights in Exile is a critical and controversial work that examines refugee protection failures in Kenya and Uganda by identifying and cataloguing human rights violations perpetrated by host states, NGO contractors and the UNHCR itself.  …

Encampment restricts freedom of movement, access to employment, health care, food, physical security, attempted self-sufficiency and long-term stability.  Moreover, it frequently makes refugees easy targets for forced recruitment or other harm by home-grown or foreign militia groups, state agent persecutors or corrupt local law enforcement.  UNHCR's inability to safeguard the physical security of refugees within the largest camps raises troubling questions about the viability of the encampment policy.  …

In chapter one, the authors' examination of the transfer of refugee protection responsibility from host states to UNHCR brings to light several unresolved issues.  The authors' findings tend to indicate that both host states and UNHCR view such a transfer favourably.  The host states consider their legal protection burden shifted to UNHCR, while UNHCR enjoys greater freedom and manoeuvrability in implementing protection policies and services due to the reduced role of the state.  As the authors point out, however, such an arrangement cripples UNHCR's key supervisory authority by eliminating any justification for its watchdog role over the state.  With UNHCR now providing the bulk of refugee protection services in Kenya and Uganda, refugees are left with little or no recourse when protection breakdowns occur due to incompetence, corruption or violence.  …

Right to life violations detail the prevalence of extra-judicial killings of refugees, both as a result of rebel incursions into camps and infiltration by undercover security squad members posing as refugees.  State actors, as well as UNHCR and its contracting NGO personnel, all figure prominently in violations of freedom from torture and inhuman treatment in prisons and in refugee camps.  On the encampment theme, Rights in Exile offers ample evidence that encampment greatly increases refugees' risk of exposure to harms ranging from sexual violence, generalised violence, forced recruitment of child soldiers and shocking rates of malnutrition.  …

This is a book that should stir some response from UNHCR for greater accountability, improved service provision and increased control over its NGO partners.  It also directly objects to UNHCR's accepted policy of encampment, and challenges the UNHCR to consider alternatives to a policy that the authors judge an outright failure.

  De Vriese: Closed Camps Not Good Places to Promote Livelihoods

Machtelt De Vriese’s February 2006,“Refugee Livelihoods: A Review of the Evidence,”  examines existing research on refugee livelihoods.  Excerpts:

15. … The dependency-syndrome puts people in a trap that makes it unable for people to break free from reliance on external assistance. This is often caused because by basic rights and essential economic, social and psychological needs remaining unfulfilled after years in exile.

 28. There has traditionally been a tendency amongst humanitarian organizations to approach the issue of livelihoods and self-reliance from a technical perspective, focusing on the effective design and implementation of initiatives such as incomegenerating projects, micro-credit programmes, agriculture, and vocational training programmes. While this technical perspective is important – as is the question of financial resources – there is also a need to link the question of livelihoods with the issues of rights and protection (Crisp, 2003).

 31. However, research (Jacobsen, 2002) has shown that many refugees cannot establish or maintain their livelihoods because they cannot exercise the rights to which they are entitled under international human rights, humanitarian law, and/or refugee law. Often, refugees suffer from the absence of civil, social and economic rights including freedom of movement and residence, freedom of speech and assembly, fair trial, property rights, the right to engage in wage labour, self-employment and the conclusion of valid contracts, access to school education, access to credit; protection against physical and sexual abuse, harassment, unlawful detention and deportation.

 38. Research inside Kakuma and Dadaab refugee camps (Kenya) (Jamal, 2000) reveals that refugees enjoy neither basic freedoms available to nationals nor the rights enshrined in the 1951 Convention. Their right to asylum in Kenya is premised upon complying with certain restrictive conditions. Refugees have limited freedom of movement, difficulty getting permission to work, no access to land for agricultural production, and no access to the credit or saving sector. Essentially, the refugee are confined to the camp areas. Further research by Horst (2001), on the situation of Somali refugees in Dadaab, states that the search for a livelihood is mainly complicated by the following two factors. First, Somali refugees are forced into the “informal sector” because their economic activities are considered illegal given the fact that they are not granted work permits. Second, the location of the Dadaab refugee camp further complicates attempts to secure a livelihood because the camp is located in an ecologically marginal area where refugees can hardly fall back on available natural resources.

 140. Livelihoods can be further hindered by placing refugees in remote and unfamiliar environments. For example closed camps may not be the ideal places to promote refugee livelihoods and more success could be booked if refugees were to have access to markets and employment opportunities.

 176. UNHCR needs to create the right environment and has an important role to play at the political level (advocacy for protection of refugee rights including the productive/economic rights) and fundraising (more or additional funds shall initially be needed, though this should be regarded as an investment in durable solutions instead of solely sponsoring of survival and life-sustaining activities).

   Isherwood:  Follow the Money?

We’ve estimated that something on the order of half a billion dollars is spent yearly on refugee care and maintenance in rights deprived situations, i.e., warehousing. But to see how rough (and likely low) that estimate is, please see Thomas A. Isherwood’s April 2005 paper, “Camps: At What Price?”

Jeff Crisp [argued] that ‘humanitarian evaluations have now become big business… attracting unprecedented levels of donor funding and agency commitment, as well as public and political interest’ (Crisp 2000).  … Evaluation and accountability concerning finances, ‘big business’ or not, seem to be observed primarily in the breach. …

There is often a leadership vacuum among organizations in refugee camps. Ideally, host governments would take on the task of coordination, since camps are on their land and they have the power to decide which NGOs can work in their country. In most cases, however, UNHCR assumes a coordinating role. …

Without any coordination on financial accounting between actors, no one keeps track of how much in total is spent in camps. …

The line between humanitarianism and development becomes even more blurred when refugee camps move beyond a crisis phase to a ‘care and maintenance’ phase. This makes the task of assessing costs for a refugee camp more difficult because development expenditures, which vastly outnumber humanitarian expenditures, have to be examined as possible sources of aid spent in camps.

[A]mbivalence towards cost data is especially prevalent regarding long term infrastructure put in place in refugee camps. In fact, out of UNHCR’s $250 million assets in 1993, ‘only 20 per cent was recorded at headquarters leaving 80 per cent of assets unaccounted for’ [c]. This organizational attitude has been changing recently with the creation of asset management boards within UNHCR; however, this information is still not publicly available. ..

Host governments acting in refugee camps have the same accountability problem as aid organizations: they are not accountable to the people they are helping. Aid organizations are accountable to their donors and host governments are accountable to their citizens. …

Corruption in accounting [within UNHCR] led to ‘between 25 and 30 per cent in “hidden” administrative costs’ and the inclusion of large amounts in official accounts that were never actually received. Specifically relevant to this paper was the failure of UNHCR to ‘[ensure] both transparency of information about income and expenditure and efficient use of resources’ [c]. NGOs are not above suspect either. The same Financial Times report found that local NGOs working with UNHCR in the Ivory Coast did not account for 50 per cent of the aid provided to refugees. All of these problems combine to make any estimate of the costs of refugee camps potentially inaccurate.  ..

[Some] camps have an immense amount of infrastructure. In Kakuma alone there is a 90 bed hospital, four clinics, 21 primary schools, 2 high schools, 2 technical colleges, one market with 70 stalls, and another market with 120 stalls, video clubs, hardware stores, a post office, and coffee shops [c].  Finally, De Montclos and Kagwanja contend that if these camps are shut down, the most likely outcome is one similar to the camps that were in Mombasa: the refugees will not leave and the infrastructure will have to be bulldozed [c]. …

The problems that can be immediately tackled are the quality of data collection and the willingness of organizations to disclose this information. … [O]pening financial data to the public is necessary. Almost twenty years ago Harrell-Bond argued that:

The only way in which public accountability could be approached would be through independent research which would monitor agency programmes: sound research, which would break the monopoly and control of information that the humanitarian agencies presently enjoy [c].

This ‘independent’ research can only happen if humanitarian actors are more transparent. NGOs are right to criticize governments for a lack of fiscal transparency that is ‘rotting [them] from the inside’ as Doug Steinberg, the outgoing director of CARE’s programs in Angola recently put it, but they should waste no time in turning the same critical eye on their own finances [c]. This scrutiny needs to start at the top. In the resolutions of the Executive Committee of UNHCR the word ‘accountability’ only shows up three times since 1975. Refugees themselves should also be made aware of financial information. …

These changes are also in the interest of the humanitarians. When financial accountability is overlooked it can ‘lead to funds and aid going missing with a corresponding loss of confidence in the NGO on the part of the beneficiaries and eventually on the part of the donor community’ [c]. Better accountability would improve donor relations, policy evaluation and, most importantly, the quality of refugee assistance.

  Goodwin-Gill:  History of Refugee Rights and their Protection

Dr. Guy Goodwin-Gill gave three lectures on international refugee protection in 2005 in Australia for the Kenneth Rivett Orations.  They were posted recently in three installments.  Following are warehousing-relevant excerpts with emphasis added and links to the entire lectures.

"Refugees - we’d like to help, but …"

Posted February 3, 2006

Dr. Goodwin-Gill’s analysis goes back to 1922,

when the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross wrote to the Council of the League of Nations, calling attention to the plight of some 800,000 Russian refugees still adrift in post-first world war Europe.

The League moved promptly, appointing the Norwegian polar explorer and humanitarian, Fridtjof Nansen, as the first High Commissioner for Refugees.

Nansen was charged with defining the legal status of refugees; organising their repatriation or “allocation” to potential resettlement countries; and, together with private organisations, providing legal and political protection to Russian refugees no longer enjoying the protection of their own or former government.

Within a year Nansen had proposed and secured agreement on an arrangement to issue identify certificates to Russian refugees. Nansen certificates were increasingly accepted de facto as “passports” to work, self-sufficiency, and integration in countries of first refuge - and then literally as passports and travel documents accepted for onward movement to other states in need of migrant labour.

These initiatives were the beginning of a system of international protection, marking the first formal recognition by states of the need to co-operate in the face of flight. They also marked the recognition of the fact that refugee movements are inescapably international in character.

In 1933, a conference took place in Geneva

to draft a convention on the legal status of the refugee, and to promote the principle of equal treatment with nationals. …

Non-refoulement - the now familiar principle that no state should return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to where he or she may face persecution - was mentioned for the first time in an international agreement.

Limitations on the power of expulsion were also mooted, for example, where the only reason was destitution, and where destitution in turn was consequential on the state itself having prohibited employment.

The interlinkage of responses and consequences began to be seen and understood: access to education was readily identified as an essential condition of equality but also a resource of potential benefit to the asylum state, should the refugees it trained ever be able to return home.

At the 1951 Conference that drafted the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees,

Australia’s representative recalled that the purpose of the Convention was not so much to prescribe mutual obligations between states as to accord certain rights to refugees. …

These two moments in history … reveal recognition of the constancy of refugee movements, rather than their temporariness. They disclose acceptance of the need for refugees to be protected, and eventual acceptance of the necessity for international obligations - most readily in regard to standards of treatment, but also in the matter of basic principles, such as non-return.

"Beyond self-interest: Australia’s post-Tampa choices", Posted February 17, 2006

Dr. Goodwin-Gill criticized Australia’s non-entry policies, noting

The denial of access to procedures and to recognition as a refugee in appropriate cases - and thereafter to the rights of a refugee - is thus tantamount to a rejection of the system of international protection as a whole - a system which is premised on the acceptance of responsibilities, within the rule of law, and on a commitment to work co-operatively in pursuit of solutions

In 1982, when it was a major donor to refugee needs generally and a leading country of resettlement for Indochinese refugees, Australia promoted Executive Committee Conclusion No. 22 on Temporary Refuge, precisely because it feared being abandoned by other states in the case of a mass influx of refugees and asylum seekers.

Paragraph II(B)(2)(b) of that Conclusion provided that even asylum seekers in mass influxes “should enjoy the fundamental civil rights internationally recognized, in particular those set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

"The refugee problem - time for a 'new order'", Posted March 3, 2006

The notion of responsibility to protect … suggests humanitarian relief operations could take the place of refugee protection, with the present rights-based approach being substituted by something else that is more discretionary or “political”. Experience tells us this approach can’t be trusted.

Humanitarian need is not the only characteristic of the refugee who is - in a very direct sense - searching for his or her rights to be protected against violations …

A “law-based” approach to international protection already exists, beginning with the 1951 Convention and other relevant treaties. And while protection is often wider than rights, it still begins with rights which ought to permeate the whole.

It is here, on the solid foundation of rights, that a truly protecting agency must make its stand and prove its worth.

The responsibility-to-protect approach should surely galvanise the international community to recognise the gaps in the UN’s humanitarian response system, but it cannot substitute for the rights-base of the present international protection regime. …

If there is indeed any future for international protection, then the issues of coordination and collaboration must also be revisited. The protection of fundamental rights should never again be subordinated to woolly thinking about humanitarian action, and lives no longer jeopardised in the name of pragmatism. …

Some refugee operations in recent years were seriously compromised by failing to adhere to the protection mandate laid down by the UN General Assembly and backed by international law. Consequently, refugee lives were lost and rights violated.

That experience, however, also confirms the inherent strength and value of a prescribed, universal mandate, while serving as a warning against the compromises that inevitably follow from trespassing outside agency competence and authority. …

The natural partner on behalf of those displaced within their own lands by conflict is the International Committee of the Red Cross. On the other hand, the natural partner in migration-related matters has yet to be determined - the International Organisation for Migration has neither a protection mandate nor enough independence.

[A]ppropriate investment must be made in building national capacities to offset the expatriate bias of the existing system. …

[C]ommunity-based organisations have a critical role to play now, as they did in the past, in reminding political leaders that they too may be held accountable. …

The refugee problem is a human rights problem - first and foremost for refugees themselves. But it is also a human rights problem for us so far as the demand for protection within our borders truly tests the mettle of our commitment - and the strength of our acceptance of the principle that everyone has an equal right to dignity and worth.

  Loescher and Milner:  New Thinking on Refugees

Jim Pollard’s “Movement on the border,” in the March 2 Nation of Thailand, reports on Gil Loescher and James Milner’s recent visit to the refugee camps in Thailand:

“Conceptually, there has been a shift in approach – from a care and maintenance approach to a new approach, focused on the long-term objective of finding solutions. There seems to be broad consensus on the need to allow refugees to lead more productive lives which would, in turn, better equip them for the challenges of either return to their home country or starting a new life in resettlement countries,” [Loescher] said.   …

Some of the biggest concerns about prolonged encampment of refugees are restrictions on employment and their freedom of movement, they said. This prevents long-staying refugees from leading normal lives and being productive members of their new societies. It traps the refugees in lives of poverty, frustration and unrealised potential.  …

[Loescher and Milner] suggested several moves that have proved successful with refugees elsewhere: …

Common markets were opened in Tanzania so refugees and local people could meet and trade in a designated area. They were outside the camps, but refugees with valid registration numbers and identity cards were allowed to conduct business there.

“Skills developed by the refugees through vocational training – such as bicycle repair and tailoring – were offered to the local population. In exchange, the refugees were able to buy fresh produce and non-food items traded by the local population. Such an approach may be considered in Thailand,” Milner said.

“The establishment of such economic centres would benefit the local population while providing refugees with the opportunity to work, apply the skills they learn in the camp, and develop additional skills, especially entrepreneurial skills. Offering such opportunities could reduce pressures on resettlement as refugees will be able to engage in meaningful and productive activities while awaiting a durable solution.”  …

The prolonged presence of refugees could cause burdens on the host state and local community, but it could also bring a number of benefits. Build on the benefits and try to reduce the burdens, the professors suggested.

Provincial governors and district officers would be key players in finding solutions, they said. But there is also “a need for education within the local population on the question of refugees and the reasons for their prolonged stay in Thailand”.

Loescher and Milner addressed the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand February 1 on “Protracted Refugee Situations in Thailand: Towards solutions,” where they spoke more generally:

An increasing number of host states respond to protracted refugee situations by pursuing policies of containing refugees in isolated and insecure refugee camps, typically in border regions. This trend, recently termed the ‘warehousing’ of refugees, has significant human rights and economic implications.

More generally, the prolonged encampment of refugee populations has led to the violation of a number of rights contained in the 1951 Refugee Convention, including freedom of movement and the right to seek wage-earning employment.  Restrictions on employment and on the right to move beyond the confines of the camps deprive long-staying refugees of the freedom to pursue normal lives and to become productive members of their new societies.  Faced with these restrictions, refugees become dependent on subsistence-level assistance, or less, and lead lives of poverty, frustration and unrealized potential.

Containing refugees in camps prevents their presence from contributing to regional development and state-building.  Our research and that of others reveal that in cases where refugees have been allowed to engage in the local economy, it has been found that refugees can “have a positive impact on the [local] economy by contributing to agricultural production, providing cheap labour and increasing local vendors’ income from the sale of essential foodstuffs.” When prohibited from working outside the camps, refugees cannot make such contributions.

  Pallis:  The Operation of UNHCR’s Accountability Mechanisms

Abstract:

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is mandated to provide protection to the worlds’ refugees.  Amongst its activities, it decides who is entitled to protection and runs refugee camps.  These take place on a massive scale and affect the lives of millions: UNHCR single-handedly conducts refugee status determination in 80 countries worldwide and during 2004 it had at least 75,000 asylum applications to deal with, making it the largest single status determination body in the world.  In 2002 the total number of people in camps administered by UNHCR was well over four million, with UNHCR exercising or superintending many administrative, judicial, or quasi-judicial powers in these camps.  Its work has helped millions.  But during refugee status determination, appeal rights and other elements of due process are often limited, and in UNHCR camps, numerous violations of the human rights of refugees have occurred, including sexual abuses, collective punishments, inhuman or degrading treatment, and coercive limits on freedom of expression.  This paper examines UNHCR’s existing accountability mechanisms and proposes substantial improvements, including a rights based focus.

The full paper is online here.

  Konyndyk:  "Toward a new model for post-emergency refugee assistance"

“Toward a new model for post-emergency refugee assistance.” Jeremy Konyndyk of American Refugee Committee, Guinea has a new article on p. 42 of the September 2005 Humanitarian Exchange showing how warehousing impedes durable solutions. His recommendations include:

Increase efforts to advocate with the government and host populations with regard to economic opportunities for refugees
Humanitarian actors should greatly increase efforts to persuade governments and host populations to allow refugees fuller access to economic opportunities in the country of asylum. …

Balance levels of assistance for refugees and for the host population …
One form that this could take would be the provision of health services through existing local health structures. Assistance could be structured to increase local capacity to handle the additional caseload, in conjunction with programmes to enhance the quality of services. This would provide tangible benefits to the host community, ensure a comparable level of services for Refugees and the host population, and avoid the need to construct a costly and unsustainable parallel health system for the refugees.

  Slaughter:  “UNHCR as Catalyst Rather than Sovereign - Host Governments as Primary Agents of Protection Rather than ‘Implementing Partners’”

Excerpts from Amy Slaughter’s “Ending Refugee Warehousing.” The paper was originally prepared for the North-South Civil Society Conference on Refugee Warehousing, and appears in the latest EMM [Episcopal Migration Ministries]Messenger (Winter 2005, No. 8):

Breathing life into the Convention in terms of actual state practice requires political will and sufficient resources and infrastructure. Whether the rights in question ask that states actively provide something or refrain from certain actions (so-called “positive” vs. “negative” rights), there are clearly both political and financial costs for the host states that must be acknowledged, without backing off of advocacy for a fuller deployment of refugee rights.  …

[A] paradigm shift is needed, namely a return to an emphasis on the host state as the primary agent of protection. This is not to back away from burden-sharing, but rather to more clearly identify what role each party can most productively play, among the host state, donor states and UNHCR. Particularly muddled is the division of responsibility between host states and UNHCR in many refugee-hosting areas.

Therefore, as a precursor to any approach to end refugee warehousing, it is necessary to strike a better balance between UNHCR and host state responsibility. This would involve reversing the trend that has placed UNHCR in the role traditionally played by host states as the primary agent of protection, and has cast host states in an increasingly minor supporting role.  …

The presence of UNHCR in countries of first asylum, though vitally important and often indispensable, can inadvertently serve to buffer refugees from a direct experience of their local hosts, allowing misunderstanding and mistrust to foment between the two. Ultimately, this can hinder integration opportunities, as refugees and their hosts view one another with suspicion rather than finding commonalities and converging interests. …

When refugees can avoid dealing with their host government directly, they often will, for many reasons, both political and of convenience. This undermines possibilities for local integration and keeps refugees segregated during their stay in exile. If instead refugees were encouraged to learn the local language and customs, it is likely that options outside of the refugee camps would organically present themselves. …

[A]mong other factors, warehousing is both a result and symptom of UNHCR’s increasing protection role in many host states, and the move away from state responsibility and national ownership (to borrow a development term). In order to reverse this trend, the incentive structures will need to be revised, as the current incentives clearly perpetuate the status quo: namely, protracted camp-based protection.

  Betts:  International Cooperation Between North and South to Enhance Refugee Protection in Regions of Origin

Alexander Betts' July 2005  “International Cooperation Between North and South to Enhance Refugee Protection in Regions of Origin,” Refugee Studies Centre Working Paper No. 25, contains a thorough and cautiously optimistic analysis of the historical antecedents, theoretical underpinnings, and political machinations surrounding inter-governmental efforts on "protracted refugee situations" (aka warehousing), including this:

In terms of incorporating the perspective of the global south, it is the U.S. Committee for Refugees’ (USCR) campaign of refugee ‘warehousing’ that has had the most impact on the terms of the debate on overcoming protracted situations. USCR has formed a coalition of support incorporating a wide range of NGOs and prominent academics from both north and south who have contributed to making the case against ‘warehousing’. The campaign has raised awareness of protracted refugee situations and has attracted prominent political support. Most significantly, it has changed the discourse of the debate with ‘warehousing’ (and its connotations) now being widely used as a synonym for ‘protracted situations’. USCR will host a The North-South Civil Society Summit on Refugee Warehousing scheduled for 25-26 September, 2005 in order to build on the achievements of the campaign and establish a clear basis for collective transnational advocacy. The influence that non-state actors have had and potentially have in shaping the terms of the debate on protracted refugee situations highlights the limitations of any purely state-centric perspective in analysing the refugee regime. These examples highlight that the perspectives of such actors exist not only alongside those of states but can be constitutive of states’ policies and perceived interests. North-south collaboration on a civil society level may thereby be a route to collaboration on an inter-state level.

 Resettlement Study Addresses Warehousing

In his July 28, 2004, The United States Refugee Admissions Program: Reforms for a New Era of Refugee Resettlement, commissioned by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, Prof. David A. Martin writes,

Recommendation I-1: The US Refugee Program should be explicitly based on a broad perspective about the use of resettlement.  [U.S. officials] should make it abundantly clear that the USRP is not limited to rescue from grave life-threatening dangers, but will work actively to rescue displaced individuals and groups who face a wider range of harms, including the wastage of human potential that can result from protracted stay in a refugee camp.  [p. xiv and 29]

[T]he United States should actively consider resettlement, for example, for populations that have spent many years of stay in a refugee camp, particularly if the conditions are severe and provide little productive activity for the refugees, limited educational opportunities for their children, or other features that betoken a lingering and profound waste of human potential.  [cite to World Refugee Survey 2004: Warehousing Issue]  …  Such initiatives … should be designed to augment, not to overcome, the possibilities for improved camp life and even local integration.  …

In particular, when camp life is little better than human warehousing, and where it has persisted in this mode for several years, resettlement must enter the picture as a potential durable solution.  In interviews for this project, proponents of this view often recalled their own experiences visiting bleak refugee camps years after the initial flight and coming face-to-face with the profound wastage of human lives represented by such an enforced existence, particularly for the children forced to grow up under such conditions.  They argued that this approach is simply a different species of rescue saving people from a prolonged strangling of their life chances and not just from fast-working dangers.  Bill Frelick describes the need in these terms:

Millions of refugees worldwide have been relegated to a limbo existence, warehoused in camps or settlements with no prospects for voluntary repatriation or local integration.  Children born and raised within the confines of camps often never see normal life outside the fences.  These populations often become dependent and despondent, with predictably negative social consequences.  [cite to World Refugee Survey 2002.] [pp. 20-21]

Once the focus is expanded beyond immediate rescue, a great many refugee situations come into view as good candidates for possible resettlement, with real humanitarian gains to be realized by offering thousands of men, women and children, who lack any reasonable prospect of voluntary repatriation, the chance to escape from human warehousing.  When such a valuable humanitarian resource, determined by the President and supported by Congress, is available, refugees should not be left either in immediately dangerous situations or in multi-year idleness and privation in a refugee camp.  [p. 37]