Refugees, Fairness and Taking up Slack (original) (raw)
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Refugees and responsibilities of justice
This essay develops, within the terms of the recent New York Declaration, an account of the shared responsibility of states to refugees and of how the character of that responsibility effects the ways in which it can be fairly shared. However, it also moves beyond the question of the general obligations that states owe to refugees to consider ways in which refugee choices and refugee voice can be given appropriate standing with the global governance of refuge. It offers an argument for the normative significance of refugee's reasons for choosing states of asylum and linked this to consideration of a refugee matching system and to refugee quota trading conceived as responsibility-trading, before turning to the issue of the inclusion of refugee voice in relation to the justification of the norms of refugee governance and in relation to the institutions and practices of refugee governance through which those norms are given practical expression. " We commit to a more equitable sharing of the burden and responsibility for hosting and supporting the world's refugees. "
This paper was written while I was a Marie Curie Fellow at the Migration Research Center Mirekoc and the Department of International Relations at Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey. I am grateful to the Director of the Center, Ahmed Icduygu, and the colleagues from the Center for their support. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 316796 The recent Syrian refugee crisis opened a debate on the under-theorized issue of migration law regarding the status and the rights of refugees and asylum seekers. According to UNHCR estimates, Turkey has, since the conflict in Syria begun, accommodated within its jurisdictional boundaries the most conspicuous number of refugees (around two million), but none of them have been recognized legally as refugees. Turkey, one of the signatory states of the 1951 Geneva Convention, still applies “geographical limitations”; that is, it does not grant refugee status to non-European to- be refugees, but rather extends to the latter a status of ‘temporary protection’. The paradox is that Turkey grants legal refugee status to European applicants (consider the very trivial number of applicants in need of refuge from Europe after 1951), whereas millions of non-European ‘proper’ refugees, including those currently in the country will not be granted refugee status. What can we learn philosophically from this law and practice? Most philosophers concur with granting refugees a fundamental human right, in line with the Kantian hospitality principle, to sojourn in other territories temporarily and also more permanently, including a lifetime. The principle is incorporated in the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees, as the principle of “non-refoulement” (United Nations, 1951), obliging signatory states not to forcibly return refugees and asylum seekers to their countries of origin, if doing so would endanger their lives. Furthermore, asylum seekers’ and refugees’ claims to admission and more broadly to human rights protection are legally incorporated in the international human rights regime, and subsequently accepted by states (Benhabib, 2004). The fundamental human right to admission regards the admission of the asylee and refugee, and not that of immigrants whose admission remains “a privilege”, in the sense that it is up to the sovereign to grant such a “contract of beneficence” (Benhabib 2004). David Miller argues that when it comes to protecting human rights, states’ actions should reflect primarily the ‘terms’ of states, as they see fit: “your human right to food could at most impose on me an obligation to provide adequate food in the form that is most convenient to me (i.e. it costs me the least labour to produce), not an obligation to provide food in the form that you happen to prefer”; furthermore, states do not have a duty to automatically admit refugees, if for example, other similarly well off states can admit them, and the principle of non-refoulement is fulfilled (Miller, 2013). Miller rules out the theoretical possibility of human rights violations, in claiming that a state can deny entry to refugees, only if they are not returned to the country of origin and third countries where their human rights will be violated, and provided that some other state would take charge of them. Miller’s state-centrist view, assuming the point of view of states primarily, and second, wrongly assuming that the only theoretically salient feature is when refugees do not receive admission, as a result of which their human rights are violated, has pernicious implications. As an alternative, I argue that human rights are possible primarily when we view their defence as a primary moral concern, rather than instrumental and contingent upon what states see fit. I propose instead a philosophical view that genuinely assumes and acts upon the needs of refugees primarily, in both being admitted and rejected to sojourn in new territories. Very little effort has so far been expended by migration theorists to explain the character of a just distribution of refugees between states. Most studies instead have offered ample explanations regarding why refugees and migrants move to some states rather than others (Gibney, 2009). Since an adequate baseline from which to judge the justice of the distribution of refugees between states is still lacking, any new patterns of movement we might advocate creates possibilities for new unjust distribution patterns, a normative scrutiny that takes into consideration justice to refugees (besides justice between states) is of paramount importance. In this paper I analyse few of the main proposals of refugee distribution among states from a perspective of justice and argue in favour of the burden-sharing model that prioritizes justice to refugees. Specifically, I briefly analyse the “Syrian refugee crises” and I conceptualize it as an “engineered regionalism”, according to which the most conspicuous number of refugees end up seeking refuge in the region of their origin. In the second section, I explain why engineered regionalism is problematic from a justice perspective, and therefore explore alternatives we commonly think of in the literature as burden-sharing options. In the third section I argue that the respective alternatives are also morally unsatisfactory. They are all based on the presupposition that a right to free movement is what will entitle the refugee to (re)- settle to the country of one’s choosing, whereas this right is grounded on a philosophically informed principle of non-refoulement (as the ‘fire’ illustration proves). I attempt in the last section to propose a new model that is informed by the latter principle.
The international politics of refugee protection
2006
This article shows that the refugee burdens among Western states are also very unequally distributed and that this constitutes a problem not only for individual states, but also for the EU as whole. It argues that despite many obstacles, the development of regional or international burdensharing regimes is indeed desirable. Attempts to explain or justify steps towards such a system do not have to rely solely on notions of solidarity but can be justified by more traditional interest-based motivations. However, it suggests that the EU’s main burden-sharing initiatives which rely largely on policy harmonisation will not achieve the Union’s objectives in this area. It will be argued that market-based burden-sharing mechanisms need to be explored further and that such market driven policies when combined with policy harmonisation and quota-based initiatives are likely to contribute to a more equitable, efficient and effective refugee burden-sharing system. Paper prepared for the conferen...
Völkerrechtsblog, 2019
In December 2018, the Global Compact on Refugees was adopted. Especially over the last year, its drafting and negotiations could appear in odd contrast to the surrounding world, in which conditions for seeking asylum continued to harshen. Is the compact a step towards countering these conditions, or mere window-dressing without much effect on refugees' rights? The compact is non-binding and one widely shared view is that all will depend on how states build on it (see analyses here and here). Yet something has happened already. Over the course of the last two
Burden-sharing: the international politics of refugee protection
2006
This article shows that the refugee burdens among Western states are also very unequally distributed and that this constitutes a problem not only for individual states, but also for the EU as whole. It argues that despite many obstacles, the development of regional or international burdensharing regimes is indeed desirable. Attempts to explain or justify steps towards such a system do not have to rely solely on notions of solidarity but can be justified by more traditional interest-based motivations. However, it suggests that the EU’s main burden-sharing initiatives which rely largely on policy harmonisation will not achieve the Union’s objectives in this area. It will be argued that market-based burden-sharing mechanisms need to be explored further and that such market driven policies when combined with policy harmonisation and quota-based initiatives are likely to contribute to a more equitable, efficient and effective refugee burden-sharing system.
GroJIL 9(1), 2021
The global refugee protection system is founded on two core values, assuring a safe and dignified life away from violent regimes and conflicts: the right to asylum and the non-refoulement rule. While there are no internationally agreed definitions for these concepts, their fragmentation affects the equitable and predictable burden- and responsibility-sharing, and subsequently, successful international cooperation in refugee matters. By analysing the right to asylum in legal theory and examining its application in the jurisprudence of international human rights monitoring bodies, this article seeks to explore the complexity of heterogeneous approaches with regard to refugees. Furthermore, the impediments to the functioning of the current refugee protection regime is identified by analysing the complicated nature of its umbrella maxim - the non-refoulement rule. The article examines how the lack of clarity on the contents of the right to asylum and the non-refoulement rule causes different, sometimes contradictory, approaches regarding the corresponding international obligations of states. It further explores how the diversified understanding of these foundational principles makes it difficult to identify common protection needs and the responsibilities of states with regard to international cooperation and burden- and responsibility-sharing on refugee matters. Eventually, the fragmentation of these core values threatens their unequivocal application and results in failing refugee protection regimes. Consequently, this article argues that a common understanding on the right to asylum and non-refoulement rule represents a condicio sine qua non for securing equitable and predictable burden- and responsibility-sharing mechanism in refugee matters.
Justice in waiting: The harms and wrongs of temporary refugee protection
European Journal of Political Theory
Temporariness has become the norm in contemporary refugee protection. Many refugees face extended periods of time waiting for permanent status, either in camps or living among citizens in their state of asylum. Whilst this practice of keeping refugees waiting is of benefit to states, I argue that not only is it harmful to refugees but it also constitutes an injustice. First, I outline the prevalence of temporary assistance in the refugee protection regime. Second, I outline the orthodox view on temporary refugee protection – it is acceptable as long as it is not indefinite. I then spend the remainder of the article considering four arguments against temporary refugee protection: the plan argument, the reciprocity argument, the domination argument, and the compounding injustice argument. I contend that the first two arguments, which already feature in the literature, merely show that temporary protection is harmful to refugees. My own arguments on domination and compounding injustice...