SOLUTION TO REFUGEE FLOWS LIES IN ATTACKING CAUSES -- OPPRESSION, CONFLICT, SAYS DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL IN OTTAWA ADDRESS
Press Release
DSG/SM/22
SOLUTION TO REFUGEE FLOWS LIES IN ATTACKING CAUSES -- OPPRESSION, CONFLICT, SAYS DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL IN OTTAWA ADDRESS
19981014 Following is the text of an address by Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette to the International Association of Refugee Law Judges in Ottawa, Canada, on 14 October:Allow me first of all to say how honoured I am to be among you, and also to emphasize how delighted I was to be invited to speak here today, in Canada, my own country.
There are times when the simple fact of being at home assumes a particular significance. Such is the case for me today, bearing in mind the theme of this conference. We are gathered here because for millions of human beings, scattered throughout the world, what I have called a "simple fact" has become an impossibility -- staying at home is no longer an option.
Persecuted on account of their race, their religion, their opinions or their membership of a particular social or ethnic group, men, women and children are forced to flee their homes, their villages and their countries. It was in order to secure for these uprooted and vulnerable beings the exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms that the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees was adopted in 1951. And it is because you mean to promote a better understanding of the obligations created by this Convention that you belong to or support the International Association of Refugee Law Judges.
Your participation in this Conference bears witness to this fact. You, who represent some 50 countries of the world have recognized both the international character of the problem and the need to share the heavy burdens which ensue. It is precisely from this angle that the United Nations views the question of refugees. It is why it is keen to associate itself with your work and why it strives, by myriad other means, to find international solutions to a problem which it knows can be settled only through cooperation and solidarity.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are in search of solutions. And I am sure all of us can agree that by far the best solution to refugee problems is to
prevent them from arising in the first place. Which means that we must attack the root causes of refugee flows -- oppression and conflict.
The classic refugee, the person the framers of the 1951 Convention had in mind, is an individual victim of oppression; someone whose individual rights have been directly violated. But the typical refugee or displaced person of today may not fall into that category. The massive flows we witness in so many parts of the world contain millions whose names may not even be known to the people they are fleeing from. You do not need to know someone's name in order to bomb his home or burn his village. In fact, it is probably easier to do that if you don't know his name.
That is one reason why the twin themes of human rights and conflict prevention have moved constantly up the agenda of the United Nations during the course of this decade. I say "twin themes", because our experience has made us ever more aware of the intimate connection between the two.
The vast majority of refugee flows in the world today arise from intra-State conflict. And I would defy you to find me an example of intra-State conflict anywhere which is not caused, at least in part, by human rights violations -- especially when you remember that human rights, as defined in the Universal Declaration, include the right to education and to an adequate standard of living.
Of course, there are many other sources of tension and disagreement between people of different ethnic or religious identity, or different economic interest or political ideology. But, such tension and disagreements do not necessarily result in violent conflict. There are other ways of dealing with them. When they do lead to violent conflict it is almost always because people cease to treat each other as human beings and to respect each other's human rights.
So, human rights violations are both direct and, through their role in generating conflict, indirect producers of refugees. In other words, if human rights has become the cross-cutting theme of all United Nations activities, that is not so much the product of some ideological parti pris, or of the triumph of one camp over another in the cold war, but for a very practical reason.
We have found in practice that human rights are not a purely internal affair, to be left to the discretion of individual Member States, but an issue of international concern. Where human rights violations occur on a large scale, you can be sure that not far behind will come problems which the international community is forced to address, often at enormous cost. Among those problems the flow of refugees is often the most immediate and the most acute.
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I do not need to tell you where to look for those problems, any more than I had to tell the Security Council a few days ago, when I presented to them the Secretary-General's report on "The Protection of Humanitarian Assistance to Refugees and Others in Conflict Situations". Just look at the conflicts which have figured on the Council's agenda in recent weeks -- Afghanistan, Kosovo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to name but a few. These are places where the pitiless slaughter of civilians and the destruction of their means of survival has become almost banal. And it follows, as night follows day, that they are places where the United Nations is struggling to provide food and shelter for thousands upon thousands of miserable, uprooted people.
Humanitarian action has been the great growth industry of our Organization during the decade. Yet, I fear we have not kept pace with the growth of human misery. We know, all too well, that humanitarian action is called on to fill the gaps where political action has failed. And we are acutely conscious of its limitations.
How can humanitarian action be an adequate response, when the killing, maiming and displacement of civilians is not an incidental element in the political or military strategy of warring parties, but its major objective? Humanitarian action is not designed or equipped to stop the slaughter and deliberate displacement of civilians. Which is why we in the United Nations Secretariat are now working with the Security Council to rethink what is meant by "humanitarian action" in today's war zones and to reformulate our understanding of what it requires.
Increasingly, relief agencies have to confront not only violence directed against those they are trying to help, but deliberate obstruction of their work and even violence against relief workers themselves. As the number of civilian casualties rises, so too does the number of workers who have been killed, wounded, kidnapped and assaulted while trying to carry out their humanitarian task.
It is important to remember that the great majority of refugees and displaced persons in the world remain in their regions of origin. Only a small minority reach the countries of Western Europe and North America, which are most heavily represented in your association. Understandably perhaps, governments in industrialized countries would on the whole prefer to keep things that way. And there are some good arguments for trying to do that.
Many refugees prefer to remain as close to their homes as possible. In some ways it may be easier to care for them in climatic or socio-economic conditions similar to those they are used to, and they may then be more easily reintegrated into their countries of origin, if and when political conditions permit their safe return.
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But, we should be under no illusion that countries adjoining zones of conflict -- many of which are themselves struggling with acute problems of economic development or transition -- find it easier to accommodate large inflows of refugees than wealthier or more highly developed societies would do. On the contrary, the latter are, in most respects, much better placed to handle the problem.
At the very least, therefore, industrialized countries are under an obligation to assist those who have to handle much larger refugee flows, with much more slender resources than they do. But, that assistance does not exhaust, and cannot replace, their direct legal and moral obligation to protect those refugees who do seek asylum on their territory.
We all know, of course, that not all those who seek asylum are entitled to it. There are people who are not bona fide refugees, but have other reasons for wishing to enter, or settle in, industrialized countries and who seek to abuse the asylum system for that purpose. States have the right to fix their own immigration policies and to ensure, as best they can, that asylum procedures are not so abused as to make nonsense of those policies.
But, they should also be careful to ensure that the measures they take to prevent such abuse do not cause them to default on their obligation, both moral and legal, to protect genuine refugees.
When I spoke earlier about the importance of preventing refugee problems I did not mean that people in fear of their lives should be prevented from leaving their countries or from reaching another country in which they could feel safe. Unhappily, that is the effect of measures taken by some States to reduce the number of asylum seekers reaching their territory, ostensibly in order to prevent abuse of the asylum system.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and indeed the United Nations system as a whole, is deeply worried by the trend we notice in some States to move away from a law-based approach to refugee protection. It is not as though existing refugee law was static or entrenched. On the contrary it has shown, over half a century, a remarkable ability to develop and respond to new situations. And it has always contained important safeguards and exceptions to protect State interests.
Yet, increasingly we hear calls for less binding options to deal with new influxes. Sometimes these even extend to proposals that States should have unfettered political and administrative discretion to refuse admission, or to expel new arrivals without due process. I am sure I do not have to tell this audience that such proposals constitute a direct attack on the very essence of refugee law.
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We are also deeply concerned at continued reports of refoulement or expulsion of asylum-seekers to dangerous situations in various regions and at the trend in many western countries to use detention of asylum-seekers as part of a standard, almost routine response. Although this policy is presented to the public as a way of ensuring that "bogus" refugees do not abscond before they can be removed, it is clear that the real objective is often to deter misuse of the system, and even to deter bona fide asylum seekers from approaching the country in question at all.
That is certainly a breach of the spirit, if not the letter, of the 1951 Convention. It cannot be too often repeated that asylum seekers have the same right to liberty as anyone else. No one should be detained against his or her will without due judicial process.
A related point is that asylum seekers are entitled to due process, with review, before being removed from any State. That should not mean prolonged delays or endless legal appeals for undeserving cases. There should be a trade-off between the fairness and transparency of the determination process and the speed and efficacy with which those found not to be entitled to protection are actually removed.
Speaking here in Canada, and as a Canadian, I am glad to be able to add that Canada gives us less concern on these points than many other countries. Indeed, the Canadian refugee determination system is seen by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees - and, I understand, by officials of your Association - as a model of fairness and thoroughness.
What is clear in any case is that all of you, as judges and other quasi-judicial decision makers called upon to operate the immigration and asylum laws of your respective countries, have a very grave responsibility. There can be few tasks more challenging, or more important, than that of deciding whether an individual asylum seeker is a bona fide refugee, entitled to protection or not.
I note with satisfaction that you take this responsibility very seriously and that you have understood the usefulness of pooling your knowledge and experience. It is why, before concluding, I should like to reiterate how much the United Nations values your efforts. Aware of the limitations of large international institutions and the difficulties which concerted action by the international community often entails, the United Nations welcomes the constantly growing number of voluntary associations, such as yours, where the specialized knowledge and skills of eminent experts go hand in hand with the will to make a difference.
It can only applaud those individuals who, like you, have joined forces in order to serve more effectively and to seek together answers to the major questions of our time. Like the United Nations, your vocation is to promote
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progress in developing international cooperation. And you, undeniably, have the power to do so.
You have the power to share information, disseminate better practices, publicize the most innovative initiatives adopted in your field of expertise. The power to help your respective countries to determine the status of refugee candidates in the fairest and most efficient way possible. The power, above all, to improve the lot of individuals in distress whom you refuse to see deprived of their dignity and their fundamental rights, their last remaining possessions.
On behalf of all those to whom you devote your time, your energy and your talent, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. I thank you for your attention and wish you every success in your work.
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