Special report | Migration

Looking for a home

The migrant crisis in Europe last year was only one part of a worldwide problem. The rich world must get better at managing refugees, says Tom Nuttall


LIKE COUNTLESS STUDENTS of German before him, Ahmed is struggling with his verb placement. Eager to learn, he listens patiently as the earnest volunteers from Über den Tellerrand kochen (Cook Outside the Box), a Berlin-based outfit that began by offering refugees a space to prepare food and has since branched out into language classes, explain the fiendish intricacies of the grammar. But before long they have moved on to the difference between Sie and Du, and Ahmed is floundering. “I love the German people,” he says later. “But I just can’t speak their language.”

That is not his only problem. Deposited by Germany’s refugee office in Hoppegarten, a distant suburb of the capital best known for horseracing, Ahmed, a 24-year-old Syrian refugee, cannot afford to commute to Berlin proper. Even if he could, he might still find it hard to get a job, though as a refugee he has full access to Germany’s labour market. A barman by training—he claims to mix a killer mojito—Ahmed would face a lot of competition in job-poor Berlin, and his lack of German is a handicap. It is also hindering his search for accommodation closer to town, which, within reason, the state would pay for. For now, it seems, he is stuck.

Ahmed arrived in Germany last November, joining hundreds of thousands of Syrians and other asylum-seekers on the migrant trail via Turkey, Greece and the Balkans. Like many of his compatriots, he had fled not Syria itself but Lebanon, where he and his family had been leading a clandestine life for years, safe from harm but struggling to get by and unable to return home. As his story suggests, Germany (along with several other European countries) faces a huge challenge integrating its newcomers, most of whom arrived with few language skills or qualifications, into its labour market and wider society. That will take time, resources and political capital. In some countries it will test assumptions about welfare, housing and employment.

But last year’s drama was also a sharp reminder to Europe that it cannot insulate itself from the troubles of its wider neighbourhood. For years Syrian refugees had been building up in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, not to mention the millions displaced inside the country itself. Of the estimated total of 13m displaced by the war (7m inside Syria, 6m outside), around 1m have gone to Europe. Lebanon now hosts 1.07m registered Syrians (the total number is closer to 1.5m), a staggering burden for a country of 4.5m. In Jordan 1.3m refugees swallow up one-quarter of public spending. Governments and officials in the Middle East had warned Europe about a wave of refugees. But without a robust system of international rules that could have eased the burden on the refugee-hosting countries, or any political interest in Europe in resolving the problem, it was left to Ahmed and many others like him to vote with their feet, bringing chaos in their wake. What was Lebanon’s problem is now Germany’s. Belatedly, the rich world has learned that the current system of international protection for refugees is broken. And Europe, which is where the global refugee regime began 65 years ago, and where its limits have now been most starkly exposed, will have to be the catalyst for change.

The 60m question

Thanks in part to the explosion of refugees from Syria, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN’s refugee body, now puts the world’s displaced population at a post-war record of 60m, of whom 20m are stranded outside their own countries (the map shows only registered refugees, for whom firm figures are available). Except for a couple of bright spots, such as the possible return of up to 6m internally displaced Colombians after a peace deal between the government and the guerrillas, the problem is getting worse. New conflicts in places like South Sudan are creating fresh refugee problems; older ones, such as Somalia’s, grind on with no solution in sight.

Still, there is no iron law that says the globally displaced must continue to rise in number. Conflicts can be resolved, just as they can break out. Perhaps more worrying is that a record 45% of the world’s refugees are now in “protracted situations” that have lasted five years or more. Syrians are the latest recruits to this wretched club, and the welcome is wearing thin in the countries to which most have fled. Indeed, dismal prospects in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon partly explain last year’s exodus to Europe.

Shocked to learn that they were legally obliged to help the people streaming across their borders, a growing number of European politicians and officials are pressing for revisions to the UN’s 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 protocol, which make up the main framework for international protection of people fleeing persecution and provide the basis for the work of the UNHCR. The convention is one of the most potent instruments of international law ever devised. The primary obligation that it places on signatories is the duty of non-refoulement, meaning they may not return people to countries where they are at risk.

But as James Hathaway, an expert on refugee law at the University of Michigan, points out, it has also proved to be an extremely versatile device. Over the decades regional and international law has built on the convention’s foundations, extending the scope of protection beyond the original definition of a refugee as someone who faces a “well-founded fear of being persecuted”. Notably, many parts of the world now offer protection to those fleeing war-torn countries like Syria.

And yet the politicians who established the refugee regime in the early 1950s, with the horrors of the second world war still fresh in the mind, had modest ambitions. The convention covered only Europeans who had been displaced before 1951, including millions during the war and many more in post-war ethnic cleansing. (The UNHCR had no role in helping the millions displaced by India’s partition, or the Arab-Israeli war of 1948.) By 1950 resettlement and repatriation efforts had reduced Europe’s refugee population to less than half a million. The UNHCR was small, poor and feeble. Few expected it to last for long.

However, it turned out to be a rather useful adjunct to Western foreign policy, particularly for refugees fleeing communist or Soviet-backed states. In 1956 the high commissioner used his good offices to help hundreds of thousands of Hungarians who fled the Soviet tanks, even though they were not covered by the convention. Many were resettled in America or other countries outside Europe. The UNHCR helped victims of fighting in Africa and Asia in the 1950s and 1960s, and the 1967 protocol to the convention removed its geographical and temporal limits. Agreements in Africa and Asia extended the scope of protection. Later, the European Union created new forms of protection that fell short of full refugee status, to help victims of war and other forms of violence that did not meet the convention’s strict definition. The result was an international mesh of laws and institutions to help displaced people around the globe.

Magic number

In time the UNHCR identified three “durable solutions” for refugees beyond providing immediate sanctuary: voluntary repatriation, integration in the country that offered asylum and resettlement to another country, usually in the rich world. All are now floundering. Most refugees would dearly love to return home, but that would require resolution of the conflicts they fled in the first place, and there is little sign of that for Somalis, Syrians or Afghans. Returns are at their lowest since 1983, according to UNHCR figures.

That leaves integration and resettlement. Western governments can play a crucial role in both. To promote integration in countries that may be resistant to opening their labour markets or overburdening public services, they can provide financial and logistical support. For the Syrian refugees in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, that can mean anything from cheap loans to the creation of special economic zones to assistance for overburdened towns and villages. In parts of Africa, this report will show, there are glimmers of a new approach that may offer refugees an alternative to mouldering in camps.

But today’s politics has turned against resettlement, in which vulnerable refugees are moved to rich countries that volunteer to accept them, usually with the help of the UNHCR. Too often such rich countries, having clamped down on irregular flows, promise generous resettlement to compensate but fail to follow through. Australia, for example, is often accused of not living up to its vow to increase its resettlement quotas now that it has more or less eliminated spontaneous arrivals of asylum-seekers by turning them back at sea. There are worrying signs that the EU may follow suit. Vague promises of mass resettlement of refugees from Turkey to Europe have not materialised. America, which traditionally takes a large share of resettled refugees, has slightly increased its quotas but has been deterred by probably ill-founded security concerns since last November’s terrorist attacks in Paris. Canada’s new prime minister, Justin Trudeau, speedily made good (at great expense) on an election promise to resettle 25,000 Syrians, and then promised to take more. But this alone is a drop in the ocean.

As Peter Sutherland, the UN’s special migration representative, notes, it seems unfair for a country’s proximity to war zones to define its responsibility to refugees. To ward off this danger, the 1951 convention calls on signatories to act in a “spirit of international co-operation”, but places no specific obligations on countries and regions not faced with a refugee influx. Last year’s crisis in Europe revealed the weaknesses of the global refugee regime. Europe learned that its carefully constructed asylum and border rules were no match for migrants who flouted them en masse. But it also found that the arrival of modest numbers of uninvited foreigners quickly upset its comfortable political and economic balance. To keep them out, in March the EU signed a deal with Turkey that skates close to the edge of international law by obliging asylum-seekers who reach Greece to return to Turkey, where some may face inadequate protection or even refoulement.

All this shows up a glaring difference in the treatment of refugees between the rich and the poor world. In Europe, asylum-seekers are treated generously by global standards, even if some countries have tightened their rules. In most EU countries they can work before they obtain refugee status (or some lesser protection), and certainly afterwards. They are promised housing, freedom of movement and protection from official harassment. Public services generally work well and benefits are adequate. After five years refugees in EU states can usually become permanent residents (which gives them freedom of movement throughout the EU), and in some cases full citizens. And even those whose bids for asylum fail are often granted some of these privileges, partly because governments find it so hard to send them back.

Fortune favours the brave

Unwilling to unwind these protections, European governments have simply made it harder for asylum-seekers to reach their borders in the first place. The overall effect has been something akin to a dystopian television game show: the refugees must brave untold hardships to reach their destination, but a glittering prize awaits them once they arrive.

It seems unfair that proximity to war zones should define responsibility to refugees

For the 86% of the world’s refugees who fetch up in the developing world, the reverse applies: the journey is often (though not always) less arduous, but conditions are likely to be far worse. By accidents of geography countries that border war zones, such as Lebanon, Jordan and Kenya, find themselves the involuntary hosts of millions of refugees, some languishing in camps, others scratching a meagre existence on the fringes of cities. Some of these countries, particularly in the Middle East, never signed the 1951 convention. Others, mainly in Africa, simply ignore its provisions, denying refugees the right to work or travel, sometimes for decades at a stretch. This leaves the hard-working but largely unaccountable (and often underfunded) humanitarian organisations that care for them, including the UNHCR, to serve as surrogate states, a role for which they are rarely suited. The effect of this approach can be seen in places like Dadaab, a collection of five camps near Kenya’s border with Somalia described later in this special report (and now threatened with closure). There, a second and third generation of refugees is growing up entirely dependent on the rations, sanitation services and schooling provided by NGOs.

Europe’s dilemma

This special report will argue that the Refugee Convention, and the further protections embodied in regional agreements, should be retained. But it will also show that fresh thinking is desperately needed to make them work, especially for refugees in protracted situations. Developing countries will continue to host the lion’s share of the world’s refugees, and that need not spell disaster: Syrians may have a better chance of economic and social integration in Lebanon or Jordan than in Europe, and will be more likely to return home if peace is made. Such countries can also usually host refugees at a small fraction of the cost in Europe or America. But they cannot be left to cope with the problem alone, and when their limits are breached others will feel the consequences, as Europe learned last year.

A new compact between rich and poor world is therefore needed. Europe will be the Petri dish. Other regions, including North America and Australasia but also wealthier parts of the Middle East, Asia and even Latin America, may follow. A UN refugee summit in New York in September, devoted to exploring fresh avenues for international protection, offers a chance to start the conversation.

But it will be hard for rich countries to extend more help to refugees when their own voters are fretting about a loss of control. For European governments in particular, that means two things. First, they must ensure that the integration of refugees like Ahmed proceeds as smoothly as possible, which is harder than many suggest. Second, they need to restore confidence in border management and their ability to control irregular migratory flows. Europe’s response to last year’s crisis was improvised, chaotic, divisive and expensive. The damage was immense, and the loss of confidence will be hard to repair.

Western governments have been muddying the waters on migration for decades, pretending that the “guest workers” they had imported to ease labour shortages would return home; relying on armies of undocumented migrant workers; and making unrealistic promises about their ability to control borders. This has fostered distrust, allowing anti-immigrant populists to flourish, and shrunk the political space for sensible and compassionate policies. It has exposed the West to charges of hypocrisy, not always unwarranted. The hope must be that Europe’s troubles last year will jolt politicians into taking a more far-sighted approach towards refugee management, including better co-operation among themselves and more help for the poor countries that bear the heaviest load. The fear is that, by spooking voters and polluting politics, it will do the opposite.

This article appeared in the Special report section of the print edition under the headline "Looking for a home"

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