Coursework

The legal definition of Refugee

The term ‘refugee’ has a long history of usage to describe certain groups of people in broad and non-specific terms. However, there is a legal definition of a refugee, which is enshrined in the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

Some 150 of the world’s 200 or so states have undertaken to protect refugees and to not return them to a country where they may be persecuted, by signing the 1951 Refugee Convention and/or its 1967 Protocol.

Forced migration can be defined as ‘ a general term that refers to the movements of refugees and internally displaced people (those displaced by conflicts) as well as people displaced by natural or environmental disasters, chemical or nuclear disasters, famine, or development projects’. Conflict-induced displacement, as the name suggests, occurs when people are made to flee their homes, as a method, often, just to survive, due to violent conflict. A large portion of these displaced people flee across international borders searching refuge in the arms of (often) western societies. At the end of 2005, both types combined comprised some 17.1 million people worldwide.

Taking business and development to third world countries is a benefit to both the business in the sense of cheaper labour and production costs but also a benefit to the local people generating a booming economy. Projects generating this effect usually involve large-scale development such as the building of dams, roads, ports, airports, urban clearance initiatives, mining and deforestation projects, the introduction of conservation areas and parks and biosphere projects, research projects and resettlement projects.

This category of forced migration, is, without doubt, the one, which as caused the largest proportion of people to be displaced. The people affected usually consist of ethnic minorities, indigenous people, urban and/or rural poor people who also usually have little or no education and fear of the large commercial entity promising them a world of changes. On average, dam projects are estimated to displace 10 million people a year alone. The final category of forced migration is disaster-induced displacement. As the nomenclature suggests, the displaced persons are displaced as a result of natural disasters, such as floods, volcanoes, landslides, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes and as our most recent global disaster demonstrated, tsunamis. Estimating global figures on persons displaced by disasters is more difficult to do than estimating figures in the other two categories. People, especially children, were being lost in hospitals, women as well. It is clear from the above descriptions of forced migration, that those peoples displaced often justify international or global protection as such that is afforded to those classed as refugees.

Yet the definition of refugee referred to by Harvey does not encompass them all. Especially people displaced by development project and resettled. In the subject area of forced migration, various terms have developed which cover those who have been displaced by forced migration. Figures on the number of people being smuggled are very difficult to obtain, much like with smuggled people who are often moved illegally for profit as well. Motivations to activate the process of smuggling if often mixed and due to the international community strengthening their asylum seeking and refugee protocols, more and more people turn to the trade of smuggling to find a solution to their problems.

Asylum seekers, another term often used in forced migration, are people who have moved across international borders in search of protection under the 1951 Refugee Convention, but whose claim for refugee status has not yet been determined. Asylum migration is clearly a result of mixed motivations. Western states often react badly to the asylum seeker as a reflection of internal political voices. The domestic population of an asylum granting nation as more often than not opposed to asylum seekers entering the country. Further, the declining populations in these countries further enforce this figure. People are outraged and complain that the state compensation system is suffering to an extreme extent paying out benefits to people coming to settle in Germany illegally and then claiming income support or housing support. Domestic persons fear immigrants because they fear the loss of their own safety and well-being. Often, the terms asylum seekers and refugees get lumped together in the minds of those domestic people speaking and little concern or sympathy is extended to any of those people falling under either of those classifications. Further, people who arrive in the domestic countries into communities speaking their foreign languages and practicing their foreign cultures with little or no attempt at integration causes further dissent. The legal and institutional protection refugee receive would be the ideal for internally displaced persons, yet not having managed to cross an international border usually disqualifies these persons from any protection whatsoever . No mandated bodies exist to deal with these peoples and so the host government is left to deal with these people, but problem. The host government is often the responsible entity for the displacement of these people. Internally displaced persons, just as all members of the global community, have some basic rights guaranteed to them under international humanitarian law, as outlined in the Geneva Conventions . The number of internally displaced persons around the world is estimated to have risen from 1.2 million in 1982 to 14 million in 1986. Affected people usually remain within the borders of their country. People displaced in this way are sometimes also referred to as ‘oustees’, ‘involuntarily displaced’ or ‘involuntarily resettled’ . This category includes people displaced as a result of natural disasters (floods, volcanoes, landslides, earthquakes), environmental change (deforestation, desertification, land degradation, global warming) and human-made disasters (industrial accidents, radioactivity), in other words those suffering under disaster-induced displacement.

The vast majority of refugees are in the world’s poorest countries in Asia and Africa. The global refugee population grew from 2.4 million in 1975 to 14.9 million in 1990. People particularly being trafficked or smuggled would benefit from an extension of the definition of refugee. A more encompassing definition for refugee or introduction of another classification, which equally receives protection from the international community.

The case is the same with the refugee situation. This includes those people who were once refugees.