Tuesday, September 23, 2003

On Tuesday, September 23, 2003, the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) welcomed Ms. Erika Feller, Director of the Department of International Protection in the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva. In a talk entitled The "Convention" and the "Plus" in Convention Plus, Ms. Feller, an expert in the development and application of international law, spoke about UNHCR's efforts to strengthen the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and extend refugee protection beyond its confines. The moderator of the briefing was Kathleen Newland, MPI co-founder and co-director, who participated in the Consultations.

Ms. Feller's presentation covered three related initiatives of UNHCR: the Global Consultations on International Protection, the Convention Plus process that grew out of them, and the UNHCR 2004 deliberations. She used the briefing in part to address the question "where are we at the end of the Global Consultations process?" Feller began the briefing by mapping the early doubts surrounding the new initiatives, drawing attention in particular to the poor reception of the Global Consultations process when it was introduced more than two and half years ago. The three-track Global Consultations on International Protection were conceived to restore and "buttress" the 1951 Refugee Convention. While the first track of the Consultations focused on reaffirming commitment to the 1951 Convention, the second track analyzed questions related to interpretation of the Convention and perceived gaps in its coverage, bringing together legal experts to discuss issues not made clear in the original text, such as internal flight, gender concerns, family unity, and a more precise understanding of the term "particular social group". The new volume Refugee Protection in International Law - UNHCR's Global Consultations on International Protection, co-edited by Ms. Feller, brings together the expert papers and conclusions from the Track II consultations.

The third track of the Global Consultations sought to assess how the Convention might be more broadly used as a tool for effective international protection in situations of mass influx, temporary protection, and other circumstances not foreseen in 1951. The Consultations process introduced a discussion on the proper implementation and regulation of the Convention and concluded with the first-ever conference of states parties to the Refugee Convention, in December 2001. The states issued a strong "declaration of support" for the Convention. The declaration is a non-binding "agreed understanding" between signatories, which Ms. Feller described as useful for "reminding states of their renewed commitment" to the Convention.

The Global Consultations also resulted in the creation of the Agenda for Protection, which is a series of guidelines used by governments to strengthen their dialogue with UNHCR and enhance their own refugee protection regimes, and is used by both governments and humanitarian organizations to strengthen the worldwide refugee protection regime. The Agenda identifies the main challenges and future directions for and objectives of international refugee policy. It has sought to structure the interactive protection dialogue by establishing a regime of principles, such as a "mass influx protocol" and legal drafting of the rights of children, reception of asylum seekers, and temporary protection.

"Convention Plus" builds on the Agenda for Protection's idea that the Convention must be supplemented with new tools to ensure a broadening and strengthening of the international refugee protection regime. It is important to recognize that the regime is not static and must be allowed the flexibility to adapt to new realities.

Ms. Feller emphasized the need to understand Convention Plus as an umbrella of two imperatives: being mindful of the Convention and its central themes; and the need for additional tools to reinforce those central themes, the "Plus". There were initially two ideas for undertaking Convention Plus: one was the creation of more legal instruments (such as protocols) on certain issues such as child asylum seekers, mass influx, temporary protection, and so forth. Many felt this option would be too constraining, however, and supported the second idea, which was built around the negotiation of special agreements or understandings among groups of states and UNHCR. Both ideas are envisioned in UNHCR's statute. Convention Plus has come to be centered, however, around the creation of special agreements, harkening back to the "Comprehensive Plan of Action" that finally brought an end to the Indochinese refugee crisis of the 1980s. Special agreements under the rubric of Convention Plus must fulfill several criteria, such as:

1. Added political and monetary value to agreements already been established;
2. Increased bilateral and multilateral aid to support the UNHCR and its activities both in countries of origin and countries of asylum;
3. Reasonable prospects for success;
4. Full support within and outside UNHCR, including at headquarters and field level, with donors, hosting states, and NGOs;
5. Improved provisions for burden-sharing between host countries and countries of origin, requiring that host countries are ready to participate with UNHCR to enhance the Convention;
6. An orientation toward durable solutions;
7. Priority to addressing and resolving protracted refugee situations.

• The al-Tash camp for Iranian Kurds in Iraq. The ideas for dealing with this long-stayer population include a combination of voluntary repatriation, encouraging local integration in Southern Iraq; resettlement to Northern Iraq, resettlement to a third country, and others. The project is currently on hold because of the turmoil in Iraq.
• Somali refugees in various locations
• Sudanese refugees in Egypt, who are an interesting caseload because they represent a combination of types of cases that need a combination of solutions. This initiative, however, is in need of greater international support as neither the Egyptian government nor UNHCR have the capacity to deal with this full caseload.

The ramifications of an insufficient protection infrastructure are severe. A difficult protection environment in a first country of asylum too often causes people to move on to seek protection elsewhere. More states are thereby drawn into the protection challenge, caseloads expand, and more people are put at risk. This situation is most evident in Africa, where the lack of a regional infrastructure to mitigate the "transit migration problem" has resulted in an overburdened system of refugee camps, large numbers of asylum seekers, urban refugees and illegal transit and migration.

Ms. Feller briefly touched upon the "UNHCR 2004" process, which is a campaign to attract more political and financial support for the organization, and strengthen its organizational capacity, so that it can fulfill its mandate under the Convention and implement the new initiatives of Convention Plus.

Ms. Feller concluded by stressing that "Convention Plus" is a forum for dialogue. She noted the need to understand specific protection issues beginning with the possible linkage of development assistance to the resolution of protracted refugee situations. Development programs should address refugee issues more systematically, in order to make it possible for countries hosting refugees to integrate them into more dynamic local economies. Refugee resettlement is also seen in the Convention Plus framework as a tool that can match protection with durable solutions. Ms. Feller suggested following Canada's lead in establishing a framework for resettlement and noted that broader state resettlement criteria would be especially helpful for UNHCR. Lastly, Ms. Feller highlighted the need for burden sharing and international cooperation.

Q & A Session:

Question: What has been the response of the donor community to Convention Plus efforts?

Response: Though the vision is ambitious the response has been positive particularly in the European community where their has been an acknowledgement of the dilemmas, and many who have voiced their willingness to work with UNHCR to develop specific project proposals. Overall, however, the positive rhetoric has yet to translate into substantial increases in funding. The Canadian response, particularly in terms of resettlement, has been encouraging.

Following the initial question about aid, Ms. Feller discussed briefly the now "dead" UK asylum proposal, which had contemplated transferring asylum seekers in the European Union to a location outside the Union for processing. She saw the publicity and momentum surrounding the UK asylum proposal as an opportunity to call on states, whether receiving or sending, to invest concretely in international protection and to mobilize the capacity of states to offer effective protection.