Following his briefing to the United Nations Security Council, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi speaks with the press on November 2, 2017. Albin Lohr-Jones/ Press Association. All rights reserved. Every minute, 20 people are forced to flee their homes somewhere around the globe, half of them are children. In New York and Geneva another clock is ticking, as state leaders are struggling to negotiate a new global agreement for refugees. The Global Compact for Refugees – as the agreement is formally called – must be finalized by September next year, which is the two-year deadline states gave themselves at the world’s first UN summit dedicated to refugees and migration last year.
The new deal places governments and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees – who is leading the negotiation process – in a bind. On the one hand, the compact is the principal response of the UN to the growing refugee crisis and it is essential to get broad agreement. On the other hand, with xenophobia and populism on the rise in many countries, the political appetite to enter into new commitments and seriously reform the existing system is at an all-time low. In other words, aim too high and several of the 193 countries who signed on to the 19 September 2016 New York Declaration risk dropping out; aim too low and the compact is likely to become nothing but a paper tiger.
No roadmap
That the global refugee regime is in need of reform is hardly in dispute. Along with rising numbers of refugees, the responsibility for providing protection is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. More than 80% of all Syrian refugees are currently hosted by just five countries – Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. Meanwhile, developed states have spent the last two decades developing ways to block or deter refugees from arriving at their territory – from extended border controls on the high seas to various deals with neighboring countries to prevent onwards movement and ensure expeditious returns. The result is a world where refugee rights are reserved for the few lucky enough to evade the sophisticated deterrence regime, while the vast majority of the world’s refugees are referred to a life in semi-permanent limbo, with no prospects for integration and intimately dependent on constantly underfunded humanitarian aid.
