Attachments
The World Refugee & Migration Council, made up of 33 global leaders from all regions of the world, offers bold, strategic thinking on the international system of refugee protection in light of global challenges.
We are issuing this statement because the challenges facing the system are unprecedented and far-reaching. The international refugee and migration regime — one of the critical pillars of the post-war international rules-based order — is crumbling before our very eyes with global implications.
Those demolishing the regime are the very same democratic states who built it out of the ashes of the Second World War. Their actions are being driven by right wing populism, public sentiment that is hostile to those who are poor and in search of a better life, and an unwillingness on the part of more moderate voices to defend key democratic and human rights norms and principles.
We welcome United States-born Pope Leo XIV's first address to world diplomats stressing the importance of respecting the dignity of migrants, picking up the mantra of his predecessor Pope Francis in calling for passion and solidarity with those seeking a better life.
His statement is especially important in light of recent decisions made by many democratic countries that are undermining the international refugee and migration regime.
Cavalier and ill-considered funding cuts are already impacting key institutions, including the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which may have to dismiss a major portion of its total workforce, 6,000 or more people, the World Food Programme and the UN Migration Agency (IOM).
Our Council urges the following actions:
- We call on the Human Security Network to urge the UN Secretary-General to convene an urgent meeting of interested state parties and civil society groups to address critical funding shortfalls for UNHCR and IOM and identify new funding mechanisms, including assessed contributions to help fill an ever-growing funding gap. This meeting should also consider bold power-shifting action to transform multilateral institutions to become less top-down and more inclusive of civil society and refugee-led organizations.
- We ask UNHCR and civil society refugee advocates to establish a review mechanism to call out states that are not adhering to their convention obligations and recommend measures to rectify the situation.
- We call on member states to establish an informal coalition of deeply concerned states and a global action network of civil society partners to discuss and identify ways to support and strengthen international and especially the regional regimes on refugees and migration.
- We urge existing regional and global women and youth leaders’ networks to build a broader civil society global action network for the forcibly displaced.
- We ask global academic networks on refugees and migrants, working with inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations to create an Intergovernmental Panel on Refugees & Displaced Persons to address the combined challenges of climate change, disease outbreaks, and widespread human rights violations of refugees and migrants to complement the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
- We urge donor states to reverse de-funding and draconian restrictions placed on UNRWA, which has provided essential services to Palestinians for decades, as our Chairs have urged previously.