November 03, 2011 | Alice Thomas
Next month, the United Nations will hold a high-level ministerial meeting to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the 1951 Refugees Convention. For more than half a century, the Convention and its 1967 Protocol have provided protection to millions of vulnerable people fleeing conflict and persecution in their home countries.
But the world today is a vastly different place than it was in 1951, and the ability of the Convention to address increasingly complex drivers of displacement and migration is limited. As I write this, millions of people in Pakistan, Thailand, Cambodia and elsewhere have been forced from their homes by severe flooding.
In Somalia, prolonged drought combined with decades of conflict has left millions on the brink of starvation, many of whom have fled to neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia in search of life-saving assistance. Yet the asylum status afforded by the Refugees Convention does not extend to those forced from their homes by floods, droughts, or other natural disasters – which, according to available data, are increasing in force and frequency.
Nor does the Convention protect people likely to be displaced in decades to come by slower-onset events, like the rise in sea levels associated with global climate change. Just last month, the government of Tuvalu, a low-lying island nation in the Pacific, declared a state of emergency when its fresh water levels dropped to an all-time low. Well water, reduced by drought, had become contaminated with salt water from unusually high tides – and from pollution caused by population growth. The crisis was averted only when New Zealand, Australia, the US, and the Red Cross rushed in supplies of bottled water and desalination plants.
And just this week, the United Nations projected that the world’s population had reached an all-time high of seven billion, with population growth highest in developing countries.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, noted the changing nature of displacement at a recent Executive Committee meeting of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
“There is a growing link between the movements of people forced to flee because of conflict and persecution – refugees according to the 1951 Convention and other instruments of refugee protection – and those who are forced to flee for other reasons or even move just because they want a better life,” Guterres said.
“It is extremely important for the international community to recognize the growing complexity of this phenomenon. Climate change, food insecurity, the links between poverty and conflict compound existing gaps in the protection regime which need to be redressed.”
To more deeply explore these emerging trends, RI and the Norwegian Refugees Council convened a panel on the sidelines of the meeting entitled, “The Gathering Storm: Natural Disasters and Protection Challenges.” The other panelists and I discussed the unique challenges presented by the recent spate of natural disasters across the globe, which have affected rich and poor countries alike.
In his closing remarks, the High Commissioner called on the international community “to recognize that the world is changing with new trends of displacement, to recognize that gaps do exist, and to open the way for the international community to design innovative approaches to face these challenges.”
Can the global community come together, as it did in 1951, to meet these challenges? That remains to be seen. To date, calls to expand the Convention to include those displaced by natural disasters or other environmental changes (or even to frame a new international agreement) have met with both political and practical obstacles. Many experts argue that the current framework is ill-suited to meet new drivers of human mobility, but the prospects of a new international agreement are few. The “Nansen Principles,” adopted after a Norwegian-led conference in June 2011, are an important step in the right direction. But without broad support and strong political will, they will not move forward.
In the US, the Refugees Convention’s anniversary should be a cause for great celebration. After all, we are a nation of immigrants that has embraced refugees from all corners of the globe. In a changing world where population growth and environmental change affect human mobility in complex ways, the US should not forget its own history, and must resist calls for a new isolationism on this and other issues.
The US must heed the High Commissioner’s words and provide innovative leadership to meet these challenges, and commit to better protecting vulnerable populations displaced by natural disasters and global environmental change.