Photograph by The Atlantic
Introduction
The Syrian refugee crisis has been described as “the greatest humanitarian crisis in a generation” which has resulted in the death of approximately half a million people along with the destruction of Syria’s infrastructure, economy and national wealth. The burden of accommodating Syrian refugees has fallen disproportionately on a few countries bordering Syria, namely Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.
There is no denying the fact that people fleeing conflicts and seeking shelter in another country is not a new phenomenon. It has been prevalent since time immemorial. However, the law revolving refugee regime is relatively new and evolving because it developed as a product in response to the post-war crisis in the second half of the twentieth century. It is a set of international laws, norms, notions and established practices that govern the treatment of refugees.
Article 2 of the Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms lays down that the State has the primary responsibility of protecting human rights of all persons within its territory. However, at times, situations arise when the concerned State or government are either unable or unwilling to protect the rights of their citizens. Under such scenario, the citizens may become victims of grave human rights violation which compel them to leave their home & hearth in order to seek safety. It must be the international community, that must join hands together to ensure that such human rights are respected. This is where the principle of burden sharing comes into the picture.
Historical Background
The Syrian civil war began with peaceful protests. Young people took to the streets in Syria, in March 2011, seeking government reforms. The government met such peaceful protests by violence which led to civil-war like situation. Situations worsened as the Syrian military began fighting militant groups. This conflict had torn apart the lives of millions of Syrian children and families, resulting in what is now known as the Syrian refugee crisis.
Burden Sharing
Burden-sharing is a kind of international co-operation where states agree to share the responsibility of offering protection and asylum to the refugees. The concept of Burden-sharing for the first time was described in the preamble to the 1951 Refugee Convention, which states that “the grant of asylum may place unduly heavy burdens on certain countries, and that a satisfactory solution of a problem of which the United Nations has recognized the international scope and nature cannot therefore be achieved without international cooperation”.
Approximately, 4.5 million people (mostly women and children) have fled Syria and found shelter in the neighbouring countries which makes it one of the largest refugee exoduses in the recent history.
(a) Burden Sharing and the Syrian Crisis
There are no concrete existing domestic legal frameworks in Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey which could accord formal refugee status to the Syrian refugees. This is primarily because both the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and 1977 Optional Protocol relating to Status of Refugees are international treaty law which makes them binding only on the signatories. Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey are not signatories to these treaties and thus are not bound to accord formal refugee status to the refugees. Refugees in these countries have to face certain limitations on the inability to seek employment, to move freely, and in some cases (particularly in Lebanon and to some extent in Jordan and Turkey) on their inability to access basic services. Moreover, looking at the present situation, there is only a little hope that the law relating to these refugees is likely to change. Thus, most refugees are currently trapped in a dependant state with no or meagre savings.
Despite UNHCR’s repeated early calls to European countries for burden-sharing in the Syrian refugee crisis as a sustainable, viable and permanent solution, the past few years have witnessed little support from European countries. This call is being made due to the deploring social, economic and political conditions of the neighbouring third world countries which have resulted in their inability to accommodate such a large influx of refugee population. As early as 2013, UNHCR also recognised that “the burden of sheltering millions of Syrian refugees is far too heavy to be borne by only the neighbouring countries…the international community must put in place more – and more robust – measures of sharing that burden”.
(b) Burden Sharing Globally
Majority of refugees enter into Europe via Turkey. As per the EU-Turkey Agreement agreed on 18th March, 2016, European Union member states planned to repatriate refugees who arrived in Greece to Turkey in exchange for 6 billion euros to aid refugees in Turkey. A point of criticism to be noted here is that enhanced financial aid cannot be an escape from a key obligation of the international community, especially from those countries that have signed and ratified the 1951 Geneva Convention and 1977 Additional Protocol.
Several scholars have called this deal unethical and illegal as the deal is based on potential violations of international refugee law. The deportation of refugees to Turkey will result in violation of rights of such refugees to seek asylum in the State. Further, there is no guarantee that the deported refugees to Turkey will be protected from returning back to Syria thereby violating the right of non-refoulement.
States such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Israel within the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region have also failed to burden-share Syrian refugees despite being some of the wealthiest countries in the region. Israel has followed footsteps of European countries by building walls on its borders to keep the refugees out. Incessant demands have been made from within the Israeli society for Israel to begin accepting refugees. However, these demands have been rejected by the government.
Conclusion and Suggestions
It is clear that burden-sharing occupies a fundamental position in the international refugee regime; hence, that the international community must come together to share the burden of refugees more equitably than at the present which could alleviate the burden of neighbouring countries. It is also clear that the Syrian refugee crisis is not a problem for the Middle East alone; neither is it the sole responsibility of states such as Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. The failure to implement burden sharing would not only be detrimental but will also never yield in a long-lasting solution to this humanitarian crisis. Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey cannot be left to deal with it alone. It is true that a few countries will not be able to contain such a large influx of population within their territories particularly the third world countries. Thus, the need of the hour is that the burden of accommodating such refugees is shared not only between few neighbouring states but by all nations. Further, dearth of national legal framework in neighbouring countries like Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan poses difficulty in countering this problem.
The current approach of the stakeholders has been to provide humanitarian assistance. This approach is insufficient as it will never yield a permanent solution to this problem. It requires an urgent political solution wherein the humanitarian actors work hand in hand to continue to save lives, alleviate suffering, grant protection, particularly to the most vulnerable. This can be done by incorporating few of the basic principles of international humanitarian law with respect to refugees in the national legal frameworks. In Syria, there are two central challenges at the moment – “the struggle to protect and provide for the rights of refugees”, and “the struggle to prevent conflict from spreading”. Both the challenges are intertwined with each other and must be fought together in order to provide for a long-lasting solution. The struggle to protect the rights of refugees has to a certain extent been met by the stakeholders with the financial aid. However, the solution to stop the spread of conflict further is to amend the restrictive laws of the three countries by granting the refugees formal refugee status which will help in assimilation of the refugees in local society. Focus on providing education and thereby generating employment in the neighbouring states can also decrease the economic hardship and dependency of refugees on others. Collaboration between the governmental and nongovernmental organisations in providing additional support to refugees in resettlement, healthcare and education can be instrumental in countering the crisis.
Providing financial and technical aid to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan is undoubtedly an essential aspect of burden sharing. However, at the same time it is important to provide aid and assistance in resettlement of refugees, humanitarian admission, family reunification or similar mechanisms which will provide for a more comprehensible and durable treatment to this problem.
This article has been authored by Yuvanshi Kulshreshtha, a fourth year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) student at Jagran Lakecity University, School of Law, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.
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