20th June 2003
UNHCR
Asylum Policy: Setting the Record Straight
This
is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Kris Janowski
– to whom quoted text may be attributed – at the press
briefing, on 20 June 2003, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
There is at the back of the room a signed
editorial by the High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers,
on asylum. This op-ed has been published over the past couple
of days in a number of newspapers around Europe, but we would
like you to see the full original version. It lays down UNHCR's
current suggestions for ways to improve protection of refugees
in their regions of origin, and also for possible actions in the
context of the EU and in individual domestic asylum systems.
In the run-up
to the Thessalonika Summit, UNHCR's position has been widely misinterpreted,
and we would like to set the record straight. UNHCR has NOT been
talking about "zones of protection." We're not sure
what this concept means exactly.
We are primarily
concerned with making more concerted and imaginative efforts to
grapple with specific situations in refugees' regions of origin,
not with creating some sort of new geographical or physical entities.
We are very interested indeed in working with states to build
more effective protection in asylum countries neighbouring the
refugees' own countries. One result of this would be that fewer
refugees feel the need to move further afield, to Europe and elsewhere.
We're interested in removing the pressures on them to move, not
in somehow containing them. There was a lot of positive discussion
of this type of initiative in the run-up to Thessalonika. Unfortunately,
it has – hopefully only temporarily – been completely
overshadowed by the heated debate about so-called "zones
of protection."
That said,
UNHCR recognizes that there are legitimate concerns about the
current management of asylum systems globally. We fully agree
that there are many things that can be improved. In particular,
there needs to be a much greater effort to find solutions for
refugees while they are still in their regions of origin, so that
they don't lose hope and feel the need to keep on moving in search
of security and reasonable living conditions. Too many refugee
situations have been allowed to fester, and too many developing
countries are left hosting huge numbers of refugees with inadequate
resources.
All
these issues were examined in depth during the exhaustive two-year
Global Consultations process that came to an end in early 2002,
involving more than 150 states as well as many other actors all
across the world. The key issues are laid out in the so-called
Agenda for Protection – an extremely important map for future
developments in asylum that resulted from that process. These
in turn have already led to a number of new initiatives such as
the High Commissioner's Convention Plus plan and the various proposals
made recently to governments that are laid out in the editorial
he presented this week.
ENDS
To
read the High Commissioner's editorial please click
here.
