Reconciling Refugee Protection and Security Concerns in Wartime: The Case of Iraq

As states struggle to strike a balance between the demands of national security and their commitments to the international refugee regime, those displaced by continued turbulence in Iraq may find their rights to protection severely curtailed. Amidst heightened security concerns in the post-9/11 world, this policy brief examines international responses to the Iraqi refugee situation and explores various tools that can effectively allow states to reconcile security efforts with the continued commitment to international protection.

The study maps the context of the war and finds that heightened security concerns have severely restricted access to international protection. While countries such as Turkey, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia have increasingly cited security concerns as the reason behind their tightened or outright closed borders, policies in the United States, Australia, and the European Union have severely restricted access to asylum and third-country resettlement. Although states have traditionally seen security and international protection as a zero-sum game, the study finds that a number of tools exist that allow states to effectively strike a balance between the two. Specifically, the study suggests that the strategic and lawful use of exclusion, separation, and burden sharing can be effective in ensuring national security while abiding by international commitments to protection.