Syria’s refugees: A failure to protect
Contributed by Amali Tower, a refugee rights advocate with NGO and UNHCR experience in Africa, the Middle East, and the US. Amali holds a Masters of International Affairs focused in human rights from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.
In perhaps the latest signal of the worsening Syrian refugee crisis, this month UNHCR reported an uptick in Syrian refugees returning to Syria from Jordan in a desperate quest to travel to Europe via Turkey.
Many factors contribute to this unthinkable journey: desperation, increasing restrictions in countries of asylum, decreased aid, and fledgling support, which have caused the World Food Programme to lower its food aid or completely halt in some cases, affecting tens of thousands Syrians.
While the harrowing journey from northern Jordan into Syria is fraught with risk of attack by Syrian government forces and the Islamic State, another overlooked risk is one that could endanger refugee status.
The 1951 Refugee Convention stipulates that a ‘refugee is someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.’ Returning to Syria then, although understood as an act of desperation, could undermine future asylum claims resettlement countries adjudicate, simply because it weakens the fear of persecution and also potentially serve as a way for States to limit the huge number of applicable cases.
States have some responsibility to bear in aiding this recent journey to Europe via Syria. Jordan, reportedly, provides military transport to Syrians from Zaatari refugee camp to the Syrian border, while increased border restrictions in Europe add to the urgency and desperation to flee while one still can.
Yet, if States fulfilled their responsibilities to provide safe passage and asylum to those fleeing persecution and war, many lives would be saved.
In 2005 the world came together at the United Nations World Summit to recognise its responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity, and adopt the concepts behind the doctrine of ‘Responsibility to Protect (R2P).’
These very concepts and the protections afforded by asylum were analysed in 2008 by UNHCR and legal scholars who stated that ‘there may be no easier way for the international community to meet its responsibility to protect than by providing asylum and other international protection on adequate terms.’
They specified actions States could take to protect refugees, such as open borders, develop legal processes to hear asylum claims, increase resettlement, give aid to receiving States, support temporary protection mechanisms, create public messaging, advocate for increased protections and asylum, and address the unique protection needs of women and girls.
UNHCR bears the mandate to protect refugees, but it is the responsibility of States to ultimately protect refugees. The international community, including UNHCR on behalf of refugees, should not shy away from stressing the point in the face of the worst refugee crisis the world has seen since World War II.
With 59.5 million people forcibly displaced worldwide, it’s time to see the crisis outside of the responsibility of UNHCR, receiving States or as simply a new crisis on European shores. The crisis is global, and the responsibility to protect must be shared.
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