Brookings: Experts - Khalid Koser

Responding to New Internal Displacement Challenges: The Displacement of Non-Citizens

Khalid Koser — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 12:00:00 -0500

When the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement were completed in 1998, it was against the backdrop of the massive displacement of people inside their own countries, especially as a result of the civil wars in the Great Lakes, West Africa, and the Balkans. This was a new phenomenon for which the existing international response was ill-prepared. The implementation of the Guiding Principles over the last decade and a half has gone a long way to filling the protection gap for these internally displaced persons although much remains to be done.

In recent years, however, a new group of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has emerged in substantial numbers, who were not envisaged by the Guiding Principles. These are non-citizens displaced by conflicts, natural disasters, or political crises, in countries to which they have migrated or through which they are transiting. In 2008 xenophobic violence displaced between 80,000 and 200,000 migrant workers in South Africa, mainly Zimbabweans, but also migrants from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and Somalia. Tens of thousands of sub-Saharan migrants were internally displaced last year during the civil war in Libya. Significant numbers of the million or so migrant workers in Thailand were displaced there by flooding last year, and hundreds of thousands of migrants were also displaced in 2011 by violence in Côte d’Ivoire. At the moment there are growing concerns for the safety of the 120,000 migrant workers in Syria, many of whom are female domestic workers.

In many of these cases, migrant workers have eventually been evacuated by their employers, their origin countries, or the international community, although many have been displaced inside the country before they can be evacuated. In other cases, for example in the cases of Libya and Côte d’Ivoire, where migrant workers have had irregular status, or their origin countries are poor, they have stayed displaced in the country until they can find a way out or it is safe to return to the communities where they work.

While there has been very little research on the experiences of non-citizens during crises, it is reasonable to suppose that many of them may be more vulnerable to displacement, and suffer its consequences more acutely, than local populations. They may not speak the local language or understand the culture, they may lack job security, they may lack a social safety net, and they may have insecure legal status. Sometimes they are bystanders in a crisis. In other cases they have been deliberately targeted, for example during the Libyan crisis many sub-Saharan Africans were accused of being mercenaries fighting for the Gaddafi regime and targeted by the opposition. Equally it may be harder for displaced non-citizens to resolve their displacement, especially if they are unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin, and they may face specific challenges in regaining property, employment, and identification cards in the country where they have been displaced.

It is not surprising that this particular category of IDPs was not explicitly envisaged in the Guiding Principles, as it is a manifestation of international migration patterns and trends that have accelerated dramatically in the last decade or so. The number of people living or working outside their own country has increased by at least 50 million since the beginning of the 21st century. A greater proportion of migration is between countries of the South, and not from South to North. Labour migration has also become increasingly linked with international trade and economic agreements, as for example in the movement of hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers to work on development and infrastructure projects in sub-Saharan Africa. In other words, there are more migrants, and in more volatile locations, than ever before.

How to respond to this changing reality of internal displacement?

One requirement is for a clear articulation of the legal rights of displaced non-citizens. It may be argued that there is already a sufficient legal foundation to provide protection for displaced non-citizens. They are technically covered by the core treaties of human rights law which extend to all migrants in all situations – irrespective of legal status. International Humanitarian Law (IHL) applies, although only in situations of armed conflict. Other bodies of international law including the Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic and Consular Relations are relevant for certain non-citizens. It may also be argued that the Guiding Principles apply to at least some displaced migrants, by referring to people displaced ‘…from their homes or places of habitual residence’, but this is not generally interpreted as applying to short-term or temporary migrant workers, or migrants in transit. Overall, however, the rights of non-citizens during crisis situations or displacement are not explicitly enumerated either in international treaties or standards that protect the rights of people who are displaced, nor in those that protect the rights of migrants (most importantly the UN International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and their Families).

Second, a more predictable response by international agencies is needed. No international agency has a mandate that specifically applies to this category of displacement. UNHCR has a mandate that applies to some non-citizens, specifically asylum seekers, refugees, and stateless people, but not to migrants. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) works with a wide range of international migrants, but does not have a formal protection mandate. During the last few years, as a result, displaced non-citizens have been assisted in an ad hoc and often unpredictable manner by UNHCR, IOM and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). It may be worth considering establishing a coordinating mechanism to try to ensure more effective cooperation across relevant international agencies and with NGOs.

Third, states also need to develop a greater capacity to respond. It is not clear which state should be primarily responsible for protecting or assisting displaced non-citizens. The Guiding Principles ascribe primary responsibility for protecting IDPs to the state where the displacement takes place; but it can equally be argued that where those displaced are the nationals of another country, then that state has a legal, as well as civil and moral responsibility to assist its own citizens abroad. Both sets of states could take concrete steps to develop better responses. The growing number of states that are developing national laws and policies on internal displacement on the basis of the Guiding Principles could be encouraged to make explicit reference to the rights of displaced non-citizens. Countries of origin with large overseas worker populations could develop standard operating procedures for the protection of migrant workers during crises, including detailed information on in-situ protection measures, relocation, evacuation, and repatriation procedures. An international emergency fund could also be considered, for access by countries of origin to evacuate their citizens during crises.

Finally, corporations that employ significant numbers of overseas nationals should develop standard operating procedures on protecting and evacuating workers; establish risk assessment units; and establish senior chief security officer positions tasked with ensuring the safety of all workers in the event of emergencies.

The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement responded to a displacement phenomenon that was not envisaged when the main international framework on displacement was established in the 1950s – a framework which focused on refugees seeking protection outside their countries. The face of displacement continues to change, and in the last decade a new form of internal displacement has emerged that equally was not envisaged by the Guiding Principles. The number of displaced non-citizens may be expected to grow significantly in the future, and it makes sense to prepare an effective response now.

Authors

Khalid Koser

Image Source: © Adnan Abidi / Reuters

Migration, Displacement and the Arab Spring: Prospects for the Next Year

Khalid Koser — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 11:10:00 -0400

In March I wrote a commentary for the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement considering lessons learned from responses to migration and displacement resulting from the events of the Arab Spring, focusing on the differential impacts of conflict on migration across the region, protection gaps for non-citizens who are displaced by political instability, and contrasting European and North African responses to migration and displacement.

This new commentary looks to the future, and identifies another three issues that are likely to dominate the migration and displacement policy agendas in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in the coming year.

New and Continuing Displacement
The most pressing issue is the new and continuing displacement occurring in several countries in the MENA region. Syria has dominated recent headlines: the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre estimates that there are some 589,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Syria, of whom at least 156,000 have been displaced over the last year, especially from Ma’arat al-Numaan, Homs and Jisr el-Soghour. At the same time, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that there are over 88,000 registered Syrian refugees, in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq.

Conditions for those already displaced by the crisis in Syria are deteriorating. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reports that the assets of many IDPs have been looted or destroyed; and that several public buildings where IDPs had been temporarily sheltering have been damaged and lack water and electricity. Meanwhile UNHCR has reported high levels of trauma and distress among Syrian refugee children, a shortage of food and a lack of basic household items for many refugees. Its regional appeal issued in March 2012 for US$84 million was funded at only 36 percent in May.

Yet as Syria descends into a full-scale civil war – as it was described last week by UN Under-Secretary for Peacekeeping Operations Hervé Ladsous – it is unlikely that the “massive increase in the level of violence” that Mr. Ladsous described will not result in significant new displacements. As an indication, the attack on Taldaw on the Houla plain during the night of 25-26 May resulted in thousands fleeing their homes, according to the ICRC.

Of particular concern is to what extent this violence will affect the significant number of refugees currently hosted in Syria. UNHCR provides assistance to around 100,000 Iraqi refugees in Syria (the Syrian government estimates that there are one million Iraqi refugees in the country) and there have been reports that some Iraqis are now returning home from Syria to escape the violence there. As observed at a recent Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement roundtable, the ongoing unrest in Syria makes it difficult to discuss durable solutions for Iraqis who remain there. In addition, there are also almost half a million Palestinian refugees in Syria. Elements of the Syrian regime have accused the Palestinians of supporting the revolution, and some analysts are concerned about the risk of a direct attack by the regime on the Palestinian refugee camps. More likely is that the situation of generalized violence reaches the camps and displaces some of the Palestinians. In this scenario there are particular concerns about whether any of Syria’s neighbors would accept Palestinians in their territories, or whether they will simply swell the number displaced within Syria.

While Syria is understandably the focus of attention, it should not distract from other significant recent displacements across the MENA region. In Yemen, at least 175,000 people are estimated to have been newly displaced by armed conflict in 2011 – 90,000 alone from Zinjibar, the capital of Abeyan governorate. And although the majority of the half million or so people who were displaced last year inside Libya have since returned home, an estimated 70,000 remain internally displaced, with particular concerns about the fates of Qaddafi loyalists, and reintegrating IDPs poses significant challenges especially relating to the restitution of property.

Filling the Protection Gap for Foreign Nationals
My earlier commentary highlighted how the half a million or so foreign nationals displaced by the violence in Libya fell into a legal grey zone and relied on ad hoc coordination between UNHCR and the International Organization of Migration (IOM). The evacuation of migrant workers was largely effective, and the majority has since returned to their countries of origin. At least some foreign nationals, however, remain displaced and vulnerable inside Libya, in particular sub-Saharan Africans. And IOM has reported that significant challenges around employment, financial support, daily expenses and housing, are faced by returnees from Libya to West Africa, especially women. A further challenge will be to attract foreign nationals back to Libya, given that their labor was particularly important in the oil industry.

This was not the first time that foreign nationals have been displaced by conflict and violence – although the scale and the variety of different nationalities affected was probably unprecedented – and it will not be the last. There are indications that certain states and the international community have been spurred into action by the events in Libya to begin to plan responses to future displacements of foreign workers.

Some of those evacuated from Libya originated in South and South East Asia – over 36,000 from Bangladesh alone, for example. At the Fourth Ministerial Consultations of the Labour Sending Countries in Asia (the Colombo Process) in April 2011 in Dhaka, a roundtable session discussed institutionalized responses during emergencies impacting migrant workers. A series of recommendations were made, including for the appointment of national focal points in countries of origin to coordinate the various ministries and agencies involved along with consular activities in the affected country. It was noted for example that different ministries had managed the evacuation of Bangladeshi migrant workers after the first Gulf War and the Libya crisis, resulting in little institutional memory. The meeting also recommended the development of agreed principles and procedures for the protection of migrant workers in complex emergencies, including information for migrants on in-situ protection measures, relocation, and evacuation and repatriation procedures. Also during the Libyan crisis, the Philippines created an Overseas Preparedness and Response Team within the Office of the President, tasked with formulating and periodically reviewing contingency plans in times of crises affecting Filipinos overseas. The Colombo Process and other regional bodies were identified as appropriate mechanisms for sharing experience and effective practice.

At the level of international institutions, the focus for IOM’s annual International Dialogue on Migration in 2012 was ‘Migration Consequences of Complex Crises.’ Among the chair’s recommendations were: greater coordination between humanitarian, migration and development policies and actors in order to better integrate the different principles and procedures often adopted in these separate realms; and more coherent links between short-, medium- and long-term responses. Another recommendation was for vulnerability mapping, acknowledging that existing categories for crisis-affected populations do not always capture the vulnerabilities experienced by those displaced in crises. A third recommendation was for more innovative partnerships between the various U.N. agencies, international and non-governmental agencies involved in migration crises such as Libya, but also including a role for the private sector. There may, for example, be a role for the private sector in the provision of micro-insurance to migrants to help them cope with emergency situations.

Developing Regional Protection Frameworks
The role of governments in the Middle East and North Africa in responding to migration and displacement in the region has been important but limited. On the one hand Egypt and Tunisia deserve credit for keeping their borders open, guaranteeing access for international organizations and diverting significant funding to provide emergency services at the borders. On the other hand UNHCR and IOM were primarily responsible for protecting the displaced and finding solutions for them, while still other displaced persons were assisted directly by local communities. The Egyptian government has been criticized for not protecting refugees and migrants during the revolution there; the Tunisian government for not preventing tens of thousands of people leaving its shores in boats bound for Europe; and both governments for placing considerably more restrictions on sub-Saharan Africans displaced from Libya than Libyan migrants and refugees.

Of course there are extenuating circumstances: Egypt and Tunisia have both experienced their own revolutions and are undergoing political transformations. They are at best lower middle-income countries and still recovering from the effects of the global financial crisis; and the scale, speed and complexity of the displacement from Libya were unprecedented. But these should not divert attention from the fact that in Egypt and Tunisia, and across the Middle East and North Africa more generally, the legal framework and institutional infrastructure for protecting and assisting displaced people are poorly developed. There are hopes that the recent transitions may provide an opportunity for reform.

Most fundamentally, Jordan, Iraq, Libya and Syria are not signatories of the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, although Libya is a signatory to the 1969 Organization of African Unity (OAU) convention on refugees. The 1951 Convention is the key legal document in defining who are refugees, their rights, and the legal obligations of states. Even in those countries in the region that are signatories, international protection principles have tended to be poorly applied. Neither Egypt nor Tunisia, for example, has a national asylum law. In practice this has meant that for decades Tunisia has denied access to asylum; while in Egypt refugees have effectively been barred from achieving local reintegration (particularly access to employment and services). While maintaining its own capacity, UNHCR is currently working with the new governments in Egypt and Tunisia to strengthen national legislation and institutional capacity for asylum and refugee protection, including through awareness-raising, training on refugee law, and developing capacity for registration, documentation, refugee status determination and durable solutions, including local integration.

While there is no legal convention on internal displacement with universal scope, at least 24 states worldwide have developed national laws and policies relating to IDPs, – some of which draw on the 1998 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement – and the African Union Convention on Protection and Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons, based on the Guiding Principles, is the first binding legal instrument intended to address internal displacement across an entire continent. But other than Iraq and Turkey, no state in the MENA region has any IDP legislation. It is clear from Brookings’ index of national IDP laws and policies that many states have developed legislation only after having been directly affected by internal displacement, and it may be that the significant internal displacement over the last year provides a similar impetus in the MENA region. At the same time, it is important to recognize that national laws and policies are just the first step in developing an effective response to internal displacement, as illustrated in a recent assessment of national responses to internal displacement by Elizabeth Ferris, Erin Mooney and Chareen Stark.

Finally, there may be scope to mobilize greater attention on protection frameworks at the regional level. To be sure, during the recent crises in the region the Arab League has been involved in political and diplomatic processes, while the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the humanitarian department of the League of Arab States (LAS) have supported the international humanitarian response in the region. But unlike the cases of Africa and Latin America, MENA has never had a regional refugee convention that adapts the 1951 Convention to regional specificities, despite the Islamic tradition of providing asylum and hospitality. Similarly, while there are examples of regional instruments relating to internal displacement in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Europe, the Great Lakes region, Latin America, the Organization of American States (OAS) and most recently the African Union (AU), there are no such regional instruments in the Middle East.

Much of the optimism about the Arab Spring has subsided in recent months, as we witness Syria’s descent into civil war and ongoing unrest in Yemen, and realize in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia – in contrast to the revolutions that brought about such rapid change – the transitions they are now navigating are difficult, complex, lasting longer and could fail. This uneasy mix of optimism and pessimism also extends to the realms of migration and displacement in the region. On the one hand violence in Syria is likely to generate more displacement and to impact Iraqi and Palestinian refugees in Syria; internal displacement continues to rise in Yemen; and there are uncertainties about prospects for those who remain displaced in Libya. On the other hand, displacement over the last year has exposed an important gap in the migration regime pertaining to foreign citizens, and there are positive signs that this gap may be filled quickly. And direct experience of displacement, combined with regime change based on concerns about dignity, rights, social justice, legitimate governance and representative democracy, should provide an opportunity to strengthen international protection principles, at both the national and regional levels.

Authors

Khalid Koser

Image Source: © Ali Jarekji / Reuters

Migration, Displacement and the Arab Spring: Lessons to Learn

Khalid Koser — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 09:55:00 -0400

This time last year about 1,000 people per hour were fleeing Libya into Egypt and Tunisia. In total perhaps two million people have left their homes over the last year as a result of the impact of the Arab Spring across North Africa and the Middle East, and at least thirty countries have been directly affected by these flows. Many have since returned to their homes in Libya, but there are still at least 90,000 people internally displaced there; while the current estimate for displacement in and from Syria is at least 150,000 and rising rapidly.

The impacts of the NATO intervention and internal uprisings on migration and displacement have largely been overlooked in the analysis of the Arab Spring, and are largely being ignored in discussions about international responses to the crisis in Syria and future transitions in the region. This commentary considers lessons that may be learned from the Arab Spring experience over the last year about international responses to migration and displacement. A subsequent commentary will look to the future to identify the key migration and displacement issues to keep an eye on over the next year.

Lesson One: The Differential Impacts of Conflict on Migration and Displacement
The Arab Spring has resulted in rulers being ousted in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen; civil uprisings in Bahrain and Syria; major protests in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, and Oman; and minor protests in Lebanon, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Western Sahara. Yet large-scale migration or displacement has only taken place in two of the affected countries, Libya, and Syria. Three reasons can be discerned for these differential impacts.

One concerns the nature of the uprising. Full-fledged conflict has only occurred in Libya and Syria, although there has also been protracted violence in Yemen. President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled Tunisia within a month of the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi while President Hosni Mubarak resigned after 30 days of peaceful mass protests in Egypt. In contrast, conflict in Libya endured five months between the NATO intervention in mid-March 2011 and the capture of Tripoli and ousting of Colonel Gaddafi in mid-August. The conflict in Syria has been raging since late November 2011 when Syrian opposition forces first occupied the Baba Amr district of Homs.

A second and related explanation concerns the political will and capacity of the states concerned to protect civilians, including migrant populations. While there were sporadic police raids in Algeria and Bahrain, and government forces clashed with protestors in Tunisia, Iraq, and Oman, only in Libya and Syria has civil war erupted between the government and opposition forces. In Egypt, in contrast, the revolution was largely peaceful. Similarly, civil society was better institutionalized and mobilized in certain states than others, one result being that violence against citizens could be better documented and broadcast both internally and internationally. In Yemen, for example, Tawakul Karman won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her role in supporting women’s rights during the Arab Spring. In Bahrain, protests were initially not targeted on overthrowing the government but on greater political freedom. A third factor appears to be the presence within national borders of large migrant populations. The largest migration impact has been in Libya and Syria, which respectively were host to about 2.5 million migrant workers and at least one hundred thousand Iraqi refugees at the beginning of the upheavals. On its own, the presence of a large migrant population is not a full explanation for the emergence of a displacement crisis – there are also very significant migrant and refugee communities in Egypt and Jordan, for example, although in the case of the Palestinians these refugees have been settled there for decades. But some combination of the nature of conflict; political will to protect civilians and civil capacity to resist attacks on civilians; and the presence of a mobile population largely explains the differential impacts on migration and displacement of the Arab Spring. Certainly these are the sorts of factors to take into account when considering the broader consequences of political transition.

Lesson Two: Highlighting a Protection Gap
Numerically the largest single category of people who have been forced from their homes over the last year during the Arab Spring has been migrant workers – that is people from other countries working (or looking for work) in one of the affected countries. This phenomenon has been particularly significant in Libya. In the three months between March and June 2011, over half a million migrant workers left Libya for Egypt and Tunisia – more than the number of Libyans who fled the country during all of last year and more than the number of internally displaced Libyans or Syrians. While the majority of these migrant workers were from Egypt and Tunisia, about 250,000 were from other countries, in particular sub-Saharan Africa. In addition to those who crossed borders, a significant proportion of the 150,000 or so people who were displaced from their homes within Libya were also not Libyans.

The legal status of migrant workers who are subsequently displaced is uncertain. The legal framework for protecting migrants in general is weak. Relatively few countries (and no major destination countries) have ratified the 1990 UN Migrant Workers Convention – and in any event that Convention does not extend explicitly to cover migrant workers who are subsequently displaced. Where they cross borders they are not usually legally entitled to claim refugee status, as this status relates to conditions in their country of origin (unless they can demonstrate that the country where they have been working has become their ‘country of habitual residence’). And they are not specifically included in the definition of internally displaced persons in the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, although the Guiding Principles do apply to those who are habitual residents. Nevertheless, most countries do not yet have national laws or policies on internal displacement, and where they do these do not always incorporate the Guiding Principles in full. As a consequence of such legal gaps, there is no clear institutional responsibility in the current international system either for protecting or assisting displaced migrant workers.

Yet the number of migrant workers is on the rise – there has been an increase worldwide of at least 50 million in the twelve years since the beginning of this century. And as emerging economies in Latin America, Asia, and Africa become increasingly important destinations for migrant workers, the likelihood that some may find themselves in situations of violent conflict and be displaced as a result of that conflict will increase. Migrant workers, mainly from South Asia, were displaced during the conflict in Lebanon in 2006; Zimbabwean workers were displaced by xenophobic violence in South Africa in 2008; and over the last year in addition to the events in Libya, significant numbers of Burmese migrant workers were also displaced by floods in Thailand. Looking to the future, the expansion of Chinese development and infrastructure projects, which tend to import Chinese workers, including in Libya, will be especially important in this regard.

Developing new legal frameworks for the protection of migrant workers or even extending existing ones is unlikely in the present international climate. At an institutional level, in South Africa and more recently in Libya, the challenge of protecting and assisting migrant workers has promoted greater cooperation between the three main international agencies with competence – the International Labour Organization (ILO), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Between them IOM and UNHCR evacuated some 60,000 migrant workers from Libya to 30 countries worldwide. In addition some countries that have particularly large overseas migrant populations are also strengthening systems of consular protection for them. In recent years, for example, a range of Chinese institutions to assist Chinese citizens working overseas has emerged, and in recent years have evacuated Chinese workers from Chad, Haiti, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, the Solomon Islands, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Tonga – as well as Libya.

Lesson Three: Europe’s Quid Pro Quo
Much has been made of the contrasting responses of the European Union (EU) and neighboring North African states to the exodus from Libya. While Egypt and Tunisia maintained an open border policy and admitted between them perhaps half a million migrants (as well as receiving home half a million returning nationals), the EU stepped up security and border controls in response to the arrival of around 45,000 migrants on boats. Maritime operations and surveillance were bolstered through the EU’s FRONTEX border agency; training was provided for the coastguard service in Tunisia; and there was a debate about temporarily suspending the Schengen Treaty that guarantees the freedom of movement within the EU.

While the contrast in the respective approaches of the EU and Egypt and Tunisia is unavoidable, a number of reasons explain the hard-line response by the EU. First, the boats arrived mainly in Lampedusa (a small Italian island with a population of around 5,000 people) and to a lesser extent in Malta, and inevitably placed a strain on services and generated resentment on these islands, before the majority of migrants were resettled temporarily to camps in Southern Italy. Second, the majority of those arriving on the boats were economic migrants and not asylum-seekers. The boats carried Tunisians and Libyans, but also part of the annual flow of sub-Saharan Africans transiting North Africa for Europe. Most of those who arrived by boat have subsequently been deported. Third, many EU governments were concerned that these arrivals might be harbingers of much larger numbers of migrant arrivals in the future. Were those who arrived to have received legal status that entitled them to be joined by family members, then the numbers would have skyrocketed. Should the crisis in Libya have endured and become more deadly, which was certainly the concern when the first boats arrived, there may have been far more people taking to boats. And if a precedent was established by admitting people from Libya and Tunisia, how would Europe be able to turn away new flows from other countries affected by subsequent manifestations of the Arab Spring?

Through its response to the Libyan crisis, the EU has probably signaled its future intentions. Protecting EU borders can be justified as a security issue. While people fleeing conflict in Europe’s neighborhood may require assistance and protection, they should not have to come to Europe to access it. The quid pro quo is that Europe will support the capacity of those countries that are directly affected by influxes to process asylum applications, protect refugees, and maintain basic services for migrants and refugees.

The lessons to be learned about migration and displacement learned from the Arab Spring over the last twelve months have clear implications for the coming year. Syria is characterized by a protracted and violent conflict, no political will to protect civilians, with weak civil institutions, and the presence of a very large migrant population, and significant displacement may be expected as a result. While this migrant population is largely comprised of refugees rather than migrant workers, the extent to which they will become further displaced by the conflict in Syria, and how they will be assisted and protected, is an important challenge for UNHCR and the international community. And it is clear that the EU will resist large-scale asylum flows, meaning that the burden of the displacement from Syria will continue to fall upon neighboring Turkey in particular.

The fate of Iraqi refugees in Syria is one of the three ‘hot topics’ for the next year that will be considered in a second commentary on migration, displacement, and the Arab Spring. A second is the return of migrant workers to Libya – which is essential for kick-starting the oil industry and Libya’s economy more generally. And the third is to what extent the Arab League will be spurred to follow the example set by other regional organizations in developing regional instruments on migrant, refugee, and IDP protection.

Authors

Khalid Koser

Image Source: Murad Sezer / Reuters

Responding to Migration in Humanitarian Emergencies

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 09:00:00 -0400

Event Information

September 21, 2011
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM EDT

Kresge Room
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

This discussion examined the challenges of managing migration and displacement in humanitarian emergencies. Humanitarian crises often spur significant movements of populations, both internally and across borders. The scale, speed and complexity of displacement can overwhelm national capacities to respond, and test the ability of humanitarian organizations to respond rapidly. With this in mind, Elizabeth Ferris, senior fellow and co-director of the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement, welcomed the keynote speakers and the audience of researchers and policymakers from a variety of disciplines to the discussion.

Following the opening remarks, Khalid Koser, nonresident senior fellow at Brookings Institution and head of the New Issues in Security Programme at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, and Susan Martin, director of the Institute for the Study of International Migration in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, discussed themes and case studies from their new edited volume The Migration-Displacement Nexus: Patterns, Processes, and Policies. The book examines the challenges of responding to complex flows of migrants and displaced people.

Khalid Koser addressed how recent events in Libya illustrate the migration-displacement nexus, and paid particular attention to the absence of a legal and normative framework for protecting migrant workers who become displaced. According to Koser, there are three lessons for the future to be learned from the Libyan crisis:

International organizations should adopt a flexible approach to new categories of migrants;
National laws and policies should become more robust; and
There should be an increased response on the regional level.

Susan Martin remarked on the multiple factors that influence why and how a person migrates, ranging from economic opportunity to political unrest to climate change, and how it is increasingly difficult to distinguish them. These complex forms of migration expose gaps in the existing institutional arrangements and legal frameworks, for example for people who cross international borders in order to escape the effects of environmental change. At the policy level, where the most work needs to be done, there is a patchwork system. Martin characterized the current approach to migration and displacement as one of benign neglect.

The concluding conversations with the audience focused on the issues of protracted displacement, protection of third country nationals and urban internally displaced persons and overall, highlighted the enormous challenges in responding to displacement and large scale migration.

Participants

Moderator

Panelists

Susan Martin

Director, Institute for the Study of International Migration (Georgetown School of Foreign Service)

Displacement in Libya: Humanitarian Priorities

Khalid Koser — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:09:00 -0400

Speaking last Thursday UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern over civilian casualties in Libya. His remarks came in response to a NATO air strike on Libyan State Television transmitters last month, and other more recent strikes that have allegedly killed civilians, an especially poignant mistake given that the principal rationale for UN Security Council Resolution 1973 was to protect civilians from Colonel Gaddafi.

But there is another civilian population equally in need of protection from whom attention seems to have fallen away in recent weeks, and that is the displaced within and from Libya. As is so often the case with humanitarian emergencies, media and public attention on the plight of the displaced has waned considerably since Beth Ferris drew attention to this crisis in her web-editorial in March.

To be sure, the scale of displacement has subsided considerably, but some of the most challenging work remains in the weeks, months and years ahead.

At its peak during the first week of March some 77,000 people crossed the Libyan border into Egypt and around 1,000 people per hour were crossing the border into Tunisia, according to Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) statistics. Today cross-border movements out of Libya are minimal as solutions have been found for many of those displaced: around 60,000 migrant workers have been evacuated from Libya or neighboring countries to some 30 countries of origin worldwide, ranging from Bosnia-Herzegovina to Vietnam; while 144,000 of the 172,873 Libyans who entered Egypt have since returned home, as have the majority of the 321,830 who arrived in Tunisia. Boat arrivals in Lampedusa, Sicily and in Malta also appear to have stopped, though not before two boats capsized with the loss of at least five hundred lives. Still, significant displaced populations remain in a vulnerable situation and require international protection and assistance. UNHCR estimates that there are around 200,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Eastern Libya, around 58,000 of them in IDP settlements and camps. A proportion of IDPs in Libya may be migrant workers who have become stranded en route to border crossings. Another category of concern is around 3,500 asylum seekers and 8,000 refugees registered by UNHCR in Libya before the uprising, the majority from Iraq, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Palestine, Somalia and Sudan. It remains unclear what has happened to these people or what their status is. Some may indeed be asylum seekers and refugees who had been registered in Libya, but others may be migrant workers – and in particular irregular migrants – who have crossed the border and subsequently claimed asylum. What is clear is that the full case load of asylum seekers and refugees registered in Libya remains unaccounted for and that there is still a significant IDP population as well.

Immediate-, medium- and long-term actions are required to deal with this ongoing humanitarian crisis, and to stop it escalating.

Immediate-Term

In the immediate-term, the humanitarian priority is to fill the gaps in protection and assistance identified above. In response to ongoing protection needs for IDPs in Libya, UNHCR has recently announced a series of training workshops on the rights of IDPs for the Department of Justice of the Transitional National Council in Libya, and in collaboration with Mercy Corps, for the Libyan Red Crescent Society. UNHCR continues to provide support to the asylum seekers, refugees and others of concern to the agency in camps on the borders, although it has warned of a funding shortfall of some USD 30 million that may affect these operations. Most of the refugees on the border are from countries such as Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan where they cannot easily be returned, and so UNHCR is focusing its efforts on finding resettlement options for them in third countries. In an effort to try to support registered refugees and asylum seekers in Libya, national staff has kept open the UNHCR office in Tripoli and established a hotline, but UNHCR reckons that thousands of registered refugees and asylum seekers do not have any form of access to the office. Between them, International Organization for Migration and UNHCR are processing the ‘boat people’ who have arrived in Lampedusa and Malta in order to try to identify those with a genuine claim for refugee status or other forms of international protection. Continued collaboration between international and local agencies will be needed to respond to the immediate humanitarian needs.

Medium-Term

A medium-term priority is to prepare for the possibility of further displacement, especially from Libya, but also potentially from Syria and other countries affected by the Arab Spring. Evacuating the relatively few remaining migrant workers on the Egyptian and Tunisian borders is considered a priority in order both to avoid the development of a humanitarian crisis there and to free up space for potential new arrivals. Equally important is to encourage Egypt and Tunisia to keep their borders open to people in search of safety from the conflicts. More pressure may be required on others of Libya’s neighbors to allow access for migrants fleeing the crisis across their borders. There are legitimate reasons for safeguarding EU borders against a large-scale influx, through enhanced surveillance, maritime operations and border controls. But the quid pro quo is the need to support the capacity of Libya’s immediate neighbours, and other potential receiving countries in the region, to process asylum applications, protect refugee, and support migrants. If very significant numbers of those migrant workers who remain in Libya go home, some of their countries of origin may also require support to reintegrate them. These measures would be of immediate importance, but are likely to require years to come to full fruition.

Looking to the future, it will also be necessary to prepare for the return of IDPs within Libya. Problems commonly experienced by returning IDPs include regaining access to their property, reissuing lost personal documentation, reuniting families that may have become divided during displacement, supporting the reestablishment of livelihoods and in some cases providing for reconciliation between those who were displaced and those who were not. If the crisis in Libya is resolved soon, many of the evacuated migrant workers can also be expected to try to return, raising logistical challenges concerning entry visas, work permits and access to jobs.

Long-Term

The longer-term displacement-related priority in the Middle East and North Africa is not to react to the current or potential displacement effects of the Arab Spring, but proactively to address the underlying causes for high levels of emigration from the region. This includes supporting democracy and the rule of law, promoting education and encouraging employment-generation.

Authors

Khalid Koser

When is Migration a Security Issue?

Khalid Koser — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0400

While from many perspectives the present situation on Libya’s borders is a clear humanitarian issue, in this space last week Beth Ferris explained that the prospect of large-scale migration as a result of the crisis in Libya is also perceived as a security issue in Europe. This perception has only heightened since her comments were published, as the first significant waves of Libyans and migrants working in Libya have now arrived in Lampedusa, Italy – some 2,000 on 27 March alone – adding to over 15,000 people, mainly Tunisians, who have arrived since the beginning of the year. In response, the Italian Government has temporarily suspended transporting migrants from Lampedusa to reception centers in Sicily and on the mainland, and the European Union’s border management agency, Frontex, has extended its support to Italy’s coastguard and border authorities until August. Meanwhile, countries that neighbor Italy, including Switzerland, have begun to move personnel and equipment to these borders to reinforce them against the possibility of large-scale migration from North Africa.

The securitization of migrants and migration is nothing new: German citizens resident in the UK were interned there during World War II on the grounds that they may have been ‘fifth columnists,’ while Kurdish and Algerian diasporas were associated with terrorist attacks in Western Europe during the 1970s and 1980s. But the perception of migration as a threat to national security has certainly heightened in recent years, in part as the security agenda has become more prevalent across many aspects of policy, and in part in response to the rapid rise in the number of international migrants (214 million in 2010 according to the International Organization for Migration) and especially of ‘irregular’ or ‘illegal’ migrants (estimates vary from 30-50 million worldwide).

Labeling any issue a security threat has significant implications in terms of the laws, norms, policies, and procedures that become justified in response. In the migration context, for example, the label has been used to justify greater surveillance, detention, deportation and more restrictive policies. Such responses in turn can impact the migrants involved, for example, by denying asylum seekers access to safe countries, driving more migrants into the arms of migrant smugglers and human traffickers, and by contributing to a growing anti-immigrant tendency among the public, within the media, and in political debate in many countries.

Given such consequences, it is worth asking whether, and if so when, migration really does represent a threat to national security. Common responses to this question are that migration can be a vehicle for importing terrorists and criminals, or for spreading infectious diseases. These are dangerously misleading perceptions, but nonetheless widespread. First, there is very little evidence from any country in the world that there is a greater concentration of terrorists, potential terrorists, or criminals among migrant populations than among local populations. Similarly, only in very exceptional circumstances have migrants been found to be carriers of diseases that threaten to infect significant numbers of people. Second, imputing migrants with tainted intentions without substantiation risks further antagonizing public attitudes towards them. Third, to focus only on these extremes risks diverting attention from circumstances where migration can actually pose a threat to national security.

Irregular migration, for example, can legitimately be viewed as undermining the exercise of state sovereignty, as any state has the right to control who crosses its borders and is resident on its territory. It is worth observing that the majority of irregular migrants worldwide have not crossed a border without authorization, but rather remain or work without authorization. Still, failing to control and manage migration risks undermining public confidence in the integrity of government policy. The burgeoning migrant smuggling and human trafficking industries can pose a genuine threat to law and order, especially where they are related to organized crime and intersect with the movement of illicit goods, including weapons and drugs. In this case, it is not the migrants, but those who take advantage of them, who are criminals.

The arrival of large numbers of migrants, especially from very different social or cultural backgrounds than the receiving communities can also pose serious challenges to social cohesion. This can have practical implications for states, for example, regarding the allocation of resources as well as more conceptual implications regarding models of integration and national identity. Migrants can compete with locals in the labor market, especially during periods of recession, and thus become magnets for resentment. Where significant numbers of people are settled in a restricted area for a long period of time, as is the case in some refugee and IDP camps, they can have a detrimental effect on the local environment.

In other words, migration can be a threat to national security, but not usually for the reasons normally assumed. The threat is not systematic, but instead arises in particular circumstances. This could be where migration is irregular, occurs on a large scale, brings together groups of people with very different backgrounds or little previous contact, takes place during a period of recession, and so on.

Arguably some of these circumstances now pertain to Southern Italy: arrivals are irregular; and they take place against the backdrop of a stuttering economy. Significant challenges confront the Italian government and local authorities in Lampedusa, Sicily, and Southern Italy today, for example as regards accommodating the migrants and trying to distinguish the refugees among them. On the other hand the numbers are still relatively small – although there are genuine concerns about far greater numbers in the near future, most of the migrants originate in countries with close historical, political, and social links with Italy, and they being settled in reception centers and with no access to the labor market. Neither can it be argued that the arrival of migrants in Lampedusa really represent a serious threat to any country in Europe beyond Italy.

The question is whether viewing the current migration crisis through a security lens is likely to promote the most effective responses. As Beth Ferris has suggested, it is more accurately considered a humanitarian crisis, comprising migrants in need of assistance and refugees in need of protection. The threat to human security is still far more real than any threat to national security.

Authors

Khalid Koser

Internal Displacement and Refugee Status Determination

Khalid Koser — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0500

In 2009, 922,500 asylum claims were submitted in 159 countries or territories around the world, according to statistics from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The United States received the second highest number at 47,900 applicants, behind South Africa with a staggering 222,000 applicants. Other significant destination countries were Malaysia (40,100) and Ecuador (35,500). With growing numbers of asylum applications (the number in 2009 comprised the third consecutive annual rise), and an increasing proportion of asylum seekers headed for new countries often in the global South, there is rising pressure on the process of Refugee Status Determination (RSD) – that is determining which asylum seekers are and are not entitled to refugee status. A robust RSD process is a fundamental part of a national refugee policy, which must begin with determining which people should have access to limited resources for protection and assistance. And getting it wrong can be life-threatening, especially where it culminates in the return of people who have been rejected by the process to situations where their lives or liberty are in fact in danger. UNHCR conducted RSD either unilaterally or jointly with national governments for 145,000 asylum claims in 2009, meaning that the majority – 777,400 – were processed by national governments alone.

Even in those states with significant experience and well-developed laws and policies for assessing asylum claims, there is often a basic lack of understanding of internal displacement in the RSD process. At first sight this appears logical. Internal displacement concerns people who have moved involuntarily inside their own countries as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), whereas by definition refugee status can only be granted to someone who has crossed an international border, and furthermore is fleeing a far more proscribed set of threats than that which applies to IDPs. Yet understanding internal displacement can be critically important for getting RSD right.

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Khalid Koser

Incorporating the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement into Domestic Law: Issues and Challenges

Walter Kälin, Khalid Koser, Andrew Solomon and Rhodri C. Williams — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0500

In order to better protect the human rights of the displaced, the Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of IDPs has urged governments to adopt laws or policies to address internal displacement, as it is the government that holds the primary responsibility for protecting the rights of the displaced. In order to assist governments in doing so, in 2008 the Brookings-Bern Project published a manual for law and policymakers addressing key points to include in a law or policy on internal displacement. These studies served as the basis for this manual and provide a more in-depth analysis of the key issues and challenges to incorporating the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement into domestic laws.

This study consists of fifteen chapters, each discussing one particular issue related to the implementation of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement in domestic law. The studies in this volume focus on specific IDP protection issues chosen for their inherent technical complexity and demonstrated significance to the amelioration of the situation of IDPs and resolution of internal displacement. While the authors have been asked to draw on many common sources and follow a standard format, each study also reflects the opinions and conclusions of its author(s), based on their research and experience.

With minor deviations in light of the subject matter, each of the chapters follows a similar structure. They start with an overview of the legal framework pertaining to the relevant issue, including identificatioin of the most relevant provisions of the Guiding Principles, and an explanation of the legal basis for the cited Principles. Next, each chapter considers the main obstacles, both legal and practical, to implementing the Guiding Principles. Most chapters next review the regulatory framework in various countries with the next section focusing on substantive and procedural elements of state regulation, distinguishing amont regulations and procedures prior to displacement, during displacement, and in the context of durables solutions. The chapters then go on to review institutional elements of state regulation, again distinguishing different stages of the displacement cycle. Though the majority of each chapter focuses on national mechanisms, a brief section in each is also devoted to the role of the main international actors for each topic and their responsibilities.

This volume was edited by Walter Kälin, Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons and Co-director of the Brookings-Bern Project; Rhodri C. Williams, a consultant with the Project; Khalid Koser, former Deputy Director and currently a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Project; and Andrew Solomon, current Deputy Director of the Project. It was published by the American Society of International Law, Studies in Transnational Legal Policy No. 41 (2010). The book can be downloaded in its entirety or by chapter through the links below.

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Walter Kälin
Khalid Koser
Andrew Solomon
Rhodri C. Williams

Publication: The American Society of International Law and the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement

The Migration-Displacement Nexus in Afghanistan

Khalid Koser — Mon, 04 May 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Migration and displacement in and from Afghanistan are bewilderingly complex: one of the world’s largest and most enduring protracted refugee situations coincides with the largest repatriation in recent history – over five million refugees have returned since 2002 but over three million remain in exile. Returnees to Afghanistan from Iran and Pakistan cross paths with increasing numbers of cross-border migrants, traders and new refugees moving in the opposite direction, many of whom are subsequently deported as “illegal” labor migrants. Many returning refugees have effectively become internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Afghanistan, forming one of an increasing number of different IDP categories in that country. Some refugees who have chosen not to return to Afghanistan have remained illegally in Iran and Pakistan, and in some cases have paid smugglers to help them move further away. Camps that once housed Afghan refugees in Pakistan are now occupied by Pakistani IDPs fleeing violence in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) arising from US and Pakistani counter-insurgency operations against the Taliban. And there are even reports of Pakistanis fleeing across the border to seek temporary asylum in Afghanistan.

In this way Afghanistan’s border regions illustrate what might be described as a “migration-displacement nexus”. Within this nexus it is increasingly hard to distinguish different migrant types, and to match migrants to existing legal categories, for a number of reasons. First, especially in a conflict or post-conflict setting such as Afghanistan, it can be hard to distinguish individual motivations for moving. People moving out of Afghanistan may often be simultaneously fleeing the risk of violence, avoiding the effects of environmental hazards, responding to unemployment and poverty, and seeking to join family members elsewhere They might equally be classified as refugees, “environmental migrants” or labor migrants, and if they cross the border without authorization, they can also be considered as “irregular” migrants. Second, even where it is possible to separate out individual motivations for migration, often migrants moving for different reasons move together, from the same origins, to the same destinations and across the same border crossings. A report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) revealed that a startling 390,000 Afghans passed through a single border crossing on the Afghan-Pakistan border, in both directions, in one two-week period in January 2005. Approximately as many people were reported to be crossing into Afghanistan as those setting out for Pakistan. Third, different migrant “types” may adopt similar survival strategies, again making it difficult to distinguish them. There has been a growth of migrant smuggling and human trafficking of Afghans from Iran and Pakistan to Western Europe and North America, a significant proportion of whom subsequently gain refugee status. Both recognized refugees and economic migrants in Iran and Pakistan regularly send home remittances to support family members abroad. And an increasing proportion of the Afghan refugees who remain in both countries work in the informal economy in urban areas, competing with economic migrants from Afghanistan for the worst jobs in the labor market.

The migration-displacement nexus matters for at least three reasons. One is the importance of being able to distinguish those migrants – especially refugees – who have the right to international protection and assistance, from those – such as irregular migrants – who currently do not. Internally displaced persons may not be entitled to international protection, but there is growing recognition that they require special attention from their national governments, and distinguishing them from rural-urban migrants is equally important. There is a very real risk that as a result of the migration-displacement nexus some refugees and IDPs are being overlooked. A second reason is border security, and nowhere is this more apparent than on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Uncontrolled population movements undermine the exercise of state sovereignty and will further destabilize an already insecure and dangerous border zone. There is clear evidence that extremists are among those crossing the border in both directions, and also of links between cross-border movements of people, arms, and drugs. Finally, the migration-displacement nexus poses a real challenge for existing legal categories of migrants, and the consequent rights of different migrant types. Are the circumstances of those fleeing persecution necessarily so very different from those of people fleeing poverty as to justify discrimination in terms of protection and assistance?

The migration-displacement nexus also matters because it is by no means unique to Afghanistan and its region, although it is probably most evident there. The forced eviction of Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa in 2008 provides another example – many of these were migrant workers (in some cases without authorization to be in South Africa) who were subsequently internally displaced there, and at the same time in many cases could not go home because of the risk of persecution in Zimbabwe, thus equally being eligible to apply for asylum. The UN Refugee Agency – UNHCR – constantly monitors boats that cross the Mediterranean between North Africa and Southern Europe because of clear evidence that a proportion of those being transported are refugees fleeing violence and persecution in sub-Saharan Africa. There is very little doubt that some of the 200 hundred or so people who drowned off the coast of Libya in April this year would have been granted asylum had they reached Europe. And the sheer scale of internal migration in China – there are some 200 million rural-urban migrants, ten percent of whom have been estimated to have lost their jobs as a result of the global financial crisis – makes it almost impossible to distinguish those moving voluntarily for work from those trafficked against their will and those fleeing persecution or natural disasters. And looking to the not-too-distant future, people fleeing the effects of climate change will further challenge existing legal categories, normative frameworks and institutional responses to migration.

Authors

Khalid Koser

Publication: Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement

Displacement, Human Development, and Security in Afghanistan

Khalid Koser and Susanne Schmeidl — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Nearly five million refugees have returned to Afghanistan since 2002 and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) often cites Afghanistan as a positive example of refugee repatriation.[1] In reality, however, the return of Afghan refugees may prove to be one of the most ill-conceived policies in the Islamic world in recent times.

While in the right circumstances the return of refugees can contribute to peace-building and post-conflict reconstruction, those circumstances cannot really be said to have existed in Afghanistan when repatriation commenced in 2002; much less at the moment.[2] An estimated 40 percent of rural Afghans are malnourished; about 70 percent of the population lives on less than $2 USD per day; over two-thirds of Afghans over the age of 15 cannot read and write; and one in five children dies before they reach their fifth birthday. The economy was already described as ‘little short of catastrophic’[3] even before it was hit by the recent hike in food and fuel prices.[4] Barnett Rubin argues that ‘the subsistence economy has been largely destroyed, and Afghanistan relies on imports of food and exports of agro-based commodities—opium and heroin.’[5] At the same time there has been an increase in insurgent activity and violent incidents over the past two to three years. There are on average 548 violent incidents every month; there have been over 300 suicide attacks since the beginning of 2007; and the humanitarian space is shrinking.

Far from ‘going home’ to rebuild and make peace, many returning refugees are struggling to survive or have returned to Pakistan and Iran in the search of security and labour. A majority (80 percent) of the Kabul population (including many returning refugees and IDPs) live in squatter settlements that cover about 69 percent of the total residential area of the city.[6] Many returning refugees are unemployed,[7] and are going hungry.[8] In effect they are adding to the growing number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Afghanistan, displaced for a range of reasons from conflict to environmental degradation.[9]

As this paper suggests, the net effect of these displacement trends is to severely undermine the potential for human development (or human security) for the displaced as well as those who depend on them, and to stall rather than promote economic development in Afghanistan. There are also potentially wider national and regional security implications, including the growth of cross-border smuggling and trafficking, growing support for the insurgency in Afghanistan, and increasingly tense relations between Afghanistan and its neighbours Iran and Pakistan. New solutions are required, and the U.S. has an important role to play in identifying and implementing them.

This paper has four main sections. In the first section we provide a brief overview of the links between displacement, human development and security. Next we describe recent trends in displacement in Afghanistan, including the recent politics of refugee repatriation to Afghanistan. Third, we consider the implications of displacement trends for human development and security in Afghanistan and the wider region. In the conclusion we consider alternative solutions for the Afghan refugee crisis, and a role for the U.S. administration.

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[1] UNHCR, The State of the World’s Refugees: Human Displacement in the New Millennium; Oxford: OUP, 2006. There is some controversy over the exact number of returnees and it seems that some ‘rectifying’ occurred. Thus between 2002-2005, about half a million more refugees were reported to have returned than were initially registered in Pakistan (D.A. Kronenfeld, ‘Afghan Refugees in Pakistan: Not All Refugees, Not Always in Pakistan, Not Necessarily Afghan?’, Journal of Refugee Studies 21(2008), 1-21. See also D. Turton and P. Marsden, Taking Refugees for a Ride? The Politics of Refugee Return in Afghanistan, (Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, 2002).

[2] Turton and Marsden, 2002.

[3] W. Maley, Rescuing Afghanistan, London: Hurst, 2007, 79.

[4] ‘Afghans hit hard by rising world food prices’, http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/SHES-7DYMPV?

[5] B.R. Rubin, ‘The Transformation of the Afghan State’, pp. 13-23 in J.A. Thier (ed.), The Future of Afghanistan, Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace, 2009, 17.

[6] World Bank, ‘Why and how should Kabul upgrade its informal settlements?’ Urban Policy Notes Series 2005, No. 2 http://siteresources.worldbank.org/SOUTHASIAEXT/Resources223546-1150905429722/PolicyNote2.pdf. A majority of all refugees (40 percent) return to urban destinations, with 29 percent of Pakistani refugees returning to Kabul alone (UNHCR ‘Statistical Overview of Afghan Refugee Population in Pakistan, Iran, and Other Countries, Returned Afghan Refugees from Pakistan, Iran and Non-Neighbouring Countries, IDP Population Movements, Reintegration Activities and extremely Vulnerable Individuals (EVIs) Program’ (January 2-October 31, 2007), Operational Information, Monthly Summary Report – October 2007, (Kabul: Operational Information Unit).

[7] UN News Service, ‘Returning refugees to Afghanistan struggle to earn a living wage’, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=29457&Cr=afghan&Cr1=unhcr.

[8] IRIN News, ‘Afghanistan: Little to eat for IDPs in makeshift Kabul camp’, http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=82195.

[9] IDMC, ‘Afghanistan: Increasing hardship and limited support for growing displaced population’; October 28, 2008.

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Khalid Koser
Susanne Schmeidl

Publication: U.S.-Islamic World Forum

Displacement in the Muslim World: A Focus on Afghanistan and Iraq

Elizabeth Ferris, Hady Amr, Khalid Koser and Susanne Schmeidl — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0500

INTRODUCTION

Throughout the Muslim world, millions of people have been forced to flee their homes and communities for many reasons: civil wars, interstate conflicts, U.S.-led military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, tsunamis, earthquakes, and a multitude of other disasters. Many have crossed national borders and live in nearby countries as refugees. Many more remain within the borders of their country as internally displaced persons (IDPs). Some are displaced only temporarily and are able to return to their communities when conflicts are resolved or flood waters have receded, but most live many years as refugees or IDPs. For some, displacement has lasted for generations. The statistics are detailed in the appendix to this paper.

This massive dislocation of people affects both national development plans and individual human development. It impacts national security and personal security. It affects relationships between neighboring countries, UN Security Council discussions, and peace processes. In short, understanding— and resolving—displacement is central to development, peace, and security.

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Publication: The Brookings Instituion

Gaps in the Protection of Those Displaced by Climate Change

Khalid Koser — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

INTRODUCTION

The normative framework for people displaced by the effects of climate change inside their own country is better developed than that for people displaced outside their country. Many of the former are IDPs and their protected by human rights law and international humanitarian law as articulated in the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, whereas few of the latter qualify for refugee status and international law does not currently protect their status in other countries.

While a priority is therefore to define the rights of people displaced outside their country by the effects of climate change, the prospect of growing numbers of people displaced internally should also be a catalyst to address gaps and implementation challenges in the normative framework that applies to them. The rights of the majority of the 25 million people already internally displaced by conflict and the many millions more displaced by natural disasters and development projects are currently poorly protected. The effects of climate change will inevitably increase their number and further test protection in law and practice.

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Khalid Koser

Publication: Forced Migration Review

Surge in the Number of Iraqi Refugees

Daljit Dhaliwal and Khalid Koser — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:00:00 -0400

A new United Nations report finds that in the past year the number of refugees worldwide has increased from 9 to 11 million. Khalid Koser, deputy director of the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, discusses the causes behind this increase as well as possible implications if the number of refugees continues to climb. Koser says the primary reasons for the increase are the continued presence of Afghan refugees plus new Iraqi refugees who have fled to Jordan and Syria. Without durable solutions, these refugee situations can become protracted, which has significant security implications for the host countries and their regions.

Excerpt

DHALIWAL: The number of refugees worldwide has gone up for the second year in a row to more than 11 million, according to a new United Nations report. And that doesn’t even include the 26 million people who are displaced within their own borders. The increase is attributed to a complex mix of global challenges. And here to give us his insights is Khalid Koser, Deputy Director of the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement. Khalid welcome to Foreign Exchange.

KOSER: Thank you.

DHALIWAL: What has caused this dramatic jump in the number of refugees?

KOSER: As you indicate there are complex reasons behind the rise. But I think it’s fairly straight forward to me to say that Iraq is the main factor at the moment. We have at least 2.5 million Iraqis displaced outside their country as refugees, and that number alone has accounted for most of the increase that we’ve seen. It combines with, I think, disappointing returns to Afghanistan. We have about 3 million Afghans still displaced as refugees. Around three-quarters of a million have gone back over the past year but that’s far fewer than what was expected. So it seems to me that the combination of Iraq, increasing numbers in Afghanistan, not decreasing numbers accounts almost solidly for the increase overall. It wouldn’t be too much of an exaggeration to say that the rise in refugee numbers around the world have become an unintended consequence of the War on Terror. Iraq and Afghanistan alone comprise more than half of the world’s refugees.

DHALIWAL: And how many Iraqis have fled since the invasion overall? Since 2003?

KOSER: At least 2.5 million outside their country and at least 2.5 million inside their country. I think the only reason there aren't more refugees in Jordan and Syria is because Jordan and Syria have now closed their borders to refugees. So you have a situation where increasing numbers of Iraqis are leaving their homes but can't escape the country.

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Khalid Koser

Peace in Sudan: Implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:00:00 -0400

Event Information

June 27, 2008
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM EDT

Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

While the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement brought new hope for southern Sudan, many barriers remain to the Agreement’s successful implementation three years on—-as recently illustrated by the fighting around Abyei, Sudan. The creation of the agreement and the deployment of a joint military force have calmed most of the violence, but the continuing Abyei border issue and disputes over the control of oil revenues remain as potential threats to sustainable peace.

On June 27, the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement hosted a discussion to examine Sudan’s 2005 peace agreement and to explore the ways in which it has been successfully implemented and the areas in which challenges still exist. Participants included representatives from the Sudanese government; Lynn Fredriksson, Africa advocacy director for Amnesty International USA; and Pamela Fierst, a member of the Sudan policy group at the State Department.

Khalid Koser, deputy director of the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, provided introductory remarks and moderated the discussion. After the program, panelists took audience questions.

Transcript

Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

20080627_sudan

Participants

Moderator

Panelists

Dr. Mudawi AlTurabi

Parliament Member, Foreign Relations Committee, Government of Sudan

Dr. Lam Akol

Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, SPLM National Liberation Council

Pamela Fierst

Senior Desk Officer, Sudan Programs Group
U.S. Department of State

Lynn Fredriksson

Africa Advocacy Director
Amnesty International USA

Displacement and Security in Afghanistan

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:00:00 -0400

Event Information

June 23, 2008
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM EDT

Somers Room
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

The resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan has complicated the displacement crisis in the country, as fighting continues to displace both new groups and IDP and refugee returnees. A lack of security in most of the country has also left those displaced wary of returning to their homes and has threatened humanitarian and aid access to these groups. For the donor countries and organizations working on reconstructing Afghanistan, finding durable solutions for the displaced will be an essential component of peace-building and post-conflict reconstruction.

On June 23, the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement hosted a breakfast with Ewan McLeod, the Deputy Representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Afghanistan. McLeod discussed the displacement sitaution for both IDPs in Afghanistan and refugees who have fled elsewhere, as well as the implications of this displacement for Afghanistan, both in the near term and the long term. Khalid Koser, Deputy Director of the Brookings-Bern Project moderated the discussion.

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Event Materials

0623_afghanistan

Participants

Moderator

Panelists

Ewan McLeod

Deputy Representative in Afghanistan, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Protecting Displaced Migrants in South Africa

Khalid Koser — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0400

An estimated 80,000 migrants have been displaced by the recent wave of anti-immigrant violence in South Africa. While some have returned to their home countries – including Burundi, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe - most have been settled temporarily in seven camps, and the South African government aims to reintegrate them in the host communities from which they were forced to flee in the next few months.

An important lesson learned in other displacement situations around the world – whether arising from civil strife, conflict or natural disasters – is that attention needs to be paid to protecting the rights of the displaced. In South Africa migrant families have been separated during displacement. Agencies including Human Rights Watch, Medecins Sans Frontieres and Oxfam have reported overcrowding, poor shelter and deteriorating health conditions in camps. Many of the displaced either have no documentation or have fled without their documentation, which may impede access to education or medical assistance and possibly make them targets for forced returns if they cannot prove that they have legal status. The displaced are often particularly susceptible to discrimination and gender-based violence. There is no guarantee that they will still have homes or jobs if they do go back to their host communities. And there is currently a lack of consultation and information-sharing with the displaced in South Africa on next steps.

Just what the rights of these displaced migrants are, however; and who is responsible for protecting them; is by no means straightforward.

International migration law defines the responsibilities that host states have towards migrants, for example as regards protecting their human rights and procedural guarantees in areas such as detention or expulsion. These rights derive from two sets of international instruments: the core human rights treaties and the UN Convention on Migrant Workers; and migrants’ rights are also protected under a variety of regional treaties. A good proportion of those currently displaced in South Africa, however, do not have legal status, and the rights of ‘irregular’ migrants are contested in international migration law. Indeed one reason why so few states have ratified the UN Convention on Migrant Workers is because it explicitly extends rights to migrants without legal status that are not contained in other human rights treaties. South Africa has not ratified the Convention.

Some commentators have suggested that the displaced migrants should be considered internally displaced persons (IDPs), irrespective of their legal status. The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (developed through a process supported by the Brookings Institution) spell out the rights of people who are displaced internally, but generally do not apply to displaced migrants. The Guiding Principles define internally displaced persons as ‘…persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence…and who have not crossed an internationally recognized state border.’ An argument might be made that for long-term migrants with legal status their homes or places of habitual residence are now in their host country, although how long a migrant needs to have been present for this to be the case is unclear in law. Many of the migrants displaced in South Africa, however, have been there for only a short period of time and many do not have legal status. Furthermore the Guiding Principles are not binding upon states, and do not guarantee rights even for those among the displaced migrants who might be considered IDPs.

Although none of the displaced migrants in South Africa have been reported either to have refugee status or formally to have applied for asylum, UNHCR believes that at least some of those who originate in Zimbabwe may be entitled to refugee status, either because they fled persecution in Zimbabwe, or because to return there would now endanger them. Were they to be formally granted refugee status their rights would be protected, irrespective of whether or not they have been subsequently displaced internally, by the1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, as well the 1969 OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, of all of which South Africa is a signatory. The key protection conferred by these Conventions is against refoulement or forced return to a country of origin where it is not safe to return.

A significant proportion of the migrants currently displaced in South Africa therefore fall into a protection gap in the existing normative framework as they do not have regular status, are not long-term residents, and have not lodged asylum claims. At the same time there are practical obstacles to protecting the rights even of those displaced migrants who are unequivocally entitled. The fact that many of the displaced do not have documentation, for example, makes it almost impossible to discern legal from illegal migrants, and also difficult for them to prove their claims for asylum. And the fact that sixty-two migrant workers have been killed, 670 injured and tens of thousands displaced by violence to sub-standard camps raises legitimate concerns about the capacity of the South African government to fulfill even those commitments to which it has formally agreed.

There are some immediate steps the South African government should be urged to take. First, the government should give a clear commitment that none of the displaced migrants will be deported. The risk of deporting people with a legitimate claim on refugee status or migrants who cannot prove their legal status because they have lost their documentation is too high. Second, the government should work with UNHCR to process asylum claims in particular for those displaced from Zimbabwe. Third, the government should consider a limited and targeted program of regularization as a way of securing the rights of those among the displaced who do not currently have legal status.

Supplementary and complementary mechanisms for protection are also required. The displaced should be given access to legal systems and national courts should apply international human rights law to cases that come before them. Civil society should be empowered to monitor and report on conditions in the camps, to provide services and information, and to lobby for the rights of the displaced migrants. The governments of the migrants’ origin countries should be enlisted to support protection efforts, for example by upholding the principle of consular access to non-resident nationals in South Africa. Relevant UN Special Mechanisms – including the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants and the Representative of the Secretary-General on the human rights of internally displaced persons – should be mobilized.

This is not the first time that migrants have been targeted and displaced in South Africa, and it may not be the last. Unemployment in the country is currently running at 30 percent and may well fuel further scape-goating of migrants, despite anti-xenophobia programs currently being developed. And South Africa is by no means alone in hosting large number of migrant workers – many of them without legal status – who are subject to discrimination and victims of violence. The crisis in South Africa should provide a catalyst to find innovative ways to fills the current gaps in the existing normative framework. At the very least there may be value in articulating in a single compilation the existing treaty provisions and other norms that relate to the protection of the rights of migrant workers, and in facilitating the consistent implementation of the provisions.

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Khalid Koser

The Displacement-Peace Nexus

Khalid Koser — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Introduction

Resolving internal displacement is inextricably linked with achieving lasting peace. In some countries, the sheer scale of displacement is so significant that it is unrealistic to plan for a peaceful future without incorporating IDPs' needs and ensuring their active participation. Unfortunately, however, IDPs are often ignored in peace processes.

Helping displaced populations to return and reintegrate can both address the root causes of a conflict and help prevent further displacement. The return of displaced populations can be an important signifier of peace and help validate the post-conflict order. IDPs can be active in local politics and can also make an important contribution to the recovery of local economies. In some countries the displaced have become parties to the conflict, and their inclusion is therefore necessary for conflict resolution.

All this is also true of refugees but IDPs often have additional needs that require specific attention during peace processes. IDPs often remain close to the zone of conflict and more vulnerable to violence. Provision of humanitarian assistance to IDPs is often more difficult. Unlike refugees, they are not singled out for specific protection in international law. Furthermore, IDPs need shelter, may be unable to replace official documents and often encounter problems recovering land and property.

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Khalid Koser

Publication: Forced Migration Review

Rising Food Prices and Displacement

Khalid Koser — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:00:00 -0400

In the 1980s BBC docudrama ‘The March’, hundred of thousands of Africans marched northwards toward the Mediterranean to escape starvation, prompting widespread panic in Europe about an impending ‘flood’ of ‘illegal migrants’. The current global food crisis is very unlikely to result in mass migration, and population movements that do occur will almost certainly take place within countries and not across borders, and for a short-period of time only. Still the crisis is likely to have a significant impact on those already displaced as refugees or internally displaced persons; and finding solutions for them will be part of the long-term solution to the food crisis.

The dimensions and dynamics of the food crisis have been widely reported: rice prices have increased in the Philippines by 70 percent in one year and tripled in Thailand since the beginning of the year; high food inflation is affecting countries as diverse as Costa Rica, Djibouti, Egypt and Sri Lanka. The global causes are increasing demand for food especially in Asia, reduced supply because of bad weather and increased bio-fuel production, speculation on futures markets, and high oil prices that drive up prices of fertilizer and transport. Their impact has been compounded by local factors: the displacement by political unrest of Kenyan farmers during the harvest period, limited access and rising transport costs in Gaza, poor March to May rains in Ethiopia, and conflict in Somalia.

The only source that has so far posited that the food crisis may directly result in population displacement is a recent report of the Hyundai Economic Research Institute which suggested that: ‘Soaring international grain prices will further worsen North Korea’s food shortage and encourage more North Koreans to flee the country’. There is no question that around the world the food crisis is impacting on poor people. The World Bank has estimated that a rise in the relative rice price by ten percent would result in an additional two million poor people; the UN Economic Commission for Africa estimates that the number of food insecure people could rise by more than 16 million for every percentage point increase in the real prices of staple foods, meaning 1.2 billion people could be chronically hungry by 2050. What is less clear is the extent to which hunger and poverty will cause people to move. Many of the most affected populations in Africa are nomads and pastoralists for whom movement is a traditional coping strategy. The urban poor are amongst the hardest-hit by the current crisis, which may preempt significant rural-urban migration. And it may be that ‘fight’ is a more effective strategy than ‘flight’ in this case – the governments in Haiti and Burkina Faso have recently responded to social unrest by lowering food prices.

Rather than directly causing displacement, it seems more likely that for some people the food crisis may become the ‘straw that breaks the camel’s back’, a final contributing factor to a range of other factors that make them too vulnerable to stay at home any longer. While the underlying causes for displacement are often political – for example conflict, the precipitant factors are often economic – for example hunger. In part the displacement implications also depend on how long the food crisis persists. If food prices return to something approaching normal within six months to a year, most people will find ways to see out the crisis, by borrowing or working harder or eating less. But the World Bank has estimated that food crop prices will remain high at least through 2009, and remain above 2004 levels until 2015. Sustained food shortages are likely to cause people to leave their homes.

There is a much clearer link between the food crisis and the situation of those already displaced. It is striking that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees was quick to back the unprecedented request by the World Food Program for an additional $500 million by 1 May. One third of Iraqi refugees in Syria are reported to be skipping one meal a day in order to feed their children. And the UN Relief and Works Agency, which works with Palestinian refugees, reports that whereas in 2004 it spent about $8 per refugee every two months in Gaza, today costs have risen to $19 to provide the same 60 percent of their caloric needs. These increases have forced the agency significantly to reduce the number of recipients of aid. In the Thai-Burma border camps rations for refugees have been reduced to 26 pounds of rice a month and no other food items – comprising less than half the daily protein and calorie needs - and nursery school feeding and health projects are being cut or terminated. Of course the food crisis is impacting on non-displaced populations too. In Sri Lanka UNICEF reports that 14 percent of children under five are showing signs of wasting and stunting, and that 29 percent of children younger than five are underweight – but the evidence suggests that those displaced inside their countries in particular almost always exhibit the most extreme rates of hunger, morbidity and mortality.

Many of the short-term solutions that are being discussed would benefit poor people whether or not they are displaced: cash transfers to the particularly vulnerable, lowering domestic food prices, food for work schemes, and food aid. At the same time displaced populations probably require particular attention. They are often the most vulnerable. They are often trapped in conflict zones or in camps across the border and cannot adopt the mobile strategies of other poor people. Hunger is compounded for them by numerous other problems, especially in camp environments. In the longer-term, the displaced can become part of the solution too. It is almost certainly true that the majority of the world’s displaced people are agriculturalists. They need to be able to return to their land and start farming again – to become providers instead of recipients of food.

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Khalid Koser

Dimensions and Dynamics of Contemporary International Migration

Khalid Koser — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0400

INTRODUCTION

There are more international migrants today than ever before, and their number is certain to increase for the foreseeable future. Almost every country on earth is, and will continue, to be affected. Migration is inextricably linked with other important global issues, including development, poverty and human rights. Migrants are often the most entrepreneurial and dynamic members of society; historically migration has underpinned economic growth and nation-building and enriched cultures. Migration also presents significant challenges: Some migrants are exploited and their human rights abused; integration in destination countries can be difficult; and migration can deprive origin countries of important skills. For all these reasons and more, migration matters.

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Khalid Koser

Publication: Workers without Borders: Rethinking Economic Migration, Maastricht Graduate School of Governance