THE RIGHT TO REFUGE: WHO HAS IT?

Abstract

As of June 2020, nearly 80 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes, surpassing even post-World War II records. Refuge is a rather simple concept: people have the right to flee serious harm, and receiving countries have a corresponding, humanitarian obligation to assist. Refuge is as pertinent today as the time in which the refugee system was developed in the late 1940s. Yet, while the world has radically changed, the system constructed for a bygone era has not. Policies codified in the 1951 Refugee Convention, in subsequent protocols, in the Statute of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and through state practice have grown ossified, inflexible, and utterly unable to meet the urgent needs of the contemporary world. Ultimately, the most vulnerable of groups bear the weight of poor policy-crafting and implementation. The current global migration crisis reflects the realities of life as a refugee: prolonged and hopeless encampment in a refugee camp; destitution in proximate states, where the right to work is restricted; or treacherous journeys to distant and, usually, disinclined safe-havens. This paper seeks to explain who, under the current international legal framework, has the right to refuge, analyze the inadequacies of the present regime, and, ultimately, recommend policies to reconstruct the system, including redesigning the 1951 Convention, redefining the role of the UNHCR and other actors, and the establishment of a clear-cut burden-sharing mechanism amongst states.