Ensuring Refugee Rights

by Tim Wichert
May 15, 2003
Refugee Assistance

At the UN's Commission on Human Rights in Geneva this year, there was significant progress made on extending rights to refugees. I attended the meetings in April, on behalf of the Canadian Council of Churches and the Mennonite Central Committee.

The Commission is arguably the most important international human rights forum. Granted, many of the debates and resolutions are overtly political, which means that some countries like Zimbabwe are able to muster enough support to avoid censure. But for the most part, important progress is made on a range of human rights, and the Commission manages to be fairly transparent and participatory.

Well over 1000 NGO representatives from around the world join hundreds of UN personnel, along with diplomats from over 150 countries. Officially, 53 of these countries are elected as members of the Commission on a regional and rotating basis, and are the ones which actually vote on contentious issues (especially country-specific situations).

Refugee rights should not really be contentious, since refugees are clearly linked to human rights. Most refugees are forced to flee because of human rights violations. They have the right to seek and enjoy asylum from persecution, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Durable solutions for refugees, whether in their country of asylum or country of origin, are dependant on respect for human rights and the prevention of future violations.

But despite this clear linkage between refugees and human rights, the Commission has been reluctant to clearly address refugee rights. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, governments are usually reluctant to extend rights to people when it means they will be responsible for ensuring these rights. In particular, while governments have been prepared to acknowledge that human rights abuses sometimes cause refugees, they have been hesitant to acknowledge that refugees themselves should be entitled to human rights.

Secondly, governments believe that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is better placed to deal with all aspects of refugees. Indeed, the UNHCR itself is opposed to the clear articulation of refugee rights at the Commission on Human Rights, preferring the friendlier confines of the UNHCR Executive Committee (EXCOM) which is considered to be less political. Ironically, this bolsters government arguments which suggest that refugee issues should be dealt with as humanitarian problems rather than as human rights problems.

For the past 20 years, the Commission has had a resolution on "Human Rights and Mass Exoduses", which has focused on the human rights violations in countries of origin which give rise to the mass exodus of people. In recent years, Canadian NGO's have been trying to focus this resolution more specifically on refugees, and to recognize that refugees and asylum-seekers also have human rights which must be protected after they flee. Part of this advocacy has been to urge that the resolution itself be renamed "Human Rights and Refugees".

This year, there was a much more concerted effort amongst NGO's to introduce refugee language into this resolution. In addition to Canadian NGO's like the Canadian Council of Churches and the Mennonite Central Committee, others promoting refugee rights included Amnesty International, B'nai B'rith, Human Rights Watch, Quaker UN Office, Jesuit Refugee Service and International Catholic Migration Commission.

Specific issues raised in both written and oral statements to the Commission included: the abuse of human rights in refugee camps (including sexual exploitation and violence, the lack of food, access to education and health care), increasing restrictions on the right to asylum, interdiction policies which prevent asylum seekers from seeking asylum, and more stringent detention policies which include indefinite, mandatory or arbitrary asylum.

Prior to the Commission - which meets for 6 weeks in March and April - NGO's were trying to get support from a handful of governments to introduce a new resolution on refugees. In the end, rather than a new resolution, there were significant changes made to the Mass Exodus resolution to include some of the issues raised by NGO's. This was largely done through negotiations with the Canadian Government delegation, which has considered this to be "their" resolution since it was first introduced in 1980.

New language in this year's resolution "urges all States to promote and protect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of refugees and asylum-seekers". It calls for implementation of the UN's Inter-Agency Standing Committee's Plan of Action on sexual exploitation. And perhaps most importantly, it calls for an "analytical report" to look at human rights abuses, including a "compilation" of all relevant refugee rights addressed by various UN Special Rapporteurs and Committees (e.g. Human Rights Committee, Committee against Torture, Committee on the Rights of the Child, etc.). This analytical report and compilation on human rights and refugees will be examined at the Commission in 2005.

Ultimately, these words articulating rights for refugees must be put into action. Governments which accede to these resolutions at the Commission on Human Rights must now ensure that these rights are recognized at the national level, and NGO's have an important role to play in ensuring that happens.

But it is imperative to have strong human rights language at the international level which can give national advocates something to strive for when promoting human rights for refugees. The Commission on Human Rights in Geneva is one place where the commitment to refugee rights can now be tested.

 

Oral Statement Written Statement Written Statement of MCC on Human Rights and Refugees
Top