High Commissioner For Refugees Research Articles

Rights and obligations of refugees by the legislation of Ukraine

This article describes the basic rights and obligations of refugees by the legislation of Ukraine.The rights and obligations of refugees by the legislation of Ukraine are properly established in accordance with international legal standards, and the main problem in modern Ukraine is compliance with the legislation on the rights of refugees. This category of individuals often experiences difficulties in connection with registration at the place of residence, obtaining permanent or temporary housing, employment at a new place of residence. There are difficulties with medical care and pension provision.The rights of refugees are a general component of the human rights system, the presence of a special mechanism for the protection of their rights does not mean for them exclusion from the general system of protection of human rights and freedoms, but it is organically included in the system of international legal protection of human rights.The presence of a large number of refugees in the world indicates numerous problems in the peaceful coexistence of states in various regions of the planet, including, unfortunately, in Europe, where more than 10 million Ukrainians have already become refugees as a result of full-scale brazen Russian aggression, in addition, there are many refugees in Europe, from conflicts in Afghanistan, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Georgia, Kosovo, Nagorno-Karabakh. As a result of objective circumstances, all these people were forced to leave their native homes and become refugees. The presence of millions of refugees from different parts of the world indicates the need for radical reforms of the UN, which is increasingly finding it difficult to ensure international law and order and conflict resolution, and also indicates the need to improve the mechanism for the protection of human rights at the universal level.Human rights, protection and promotion of the realization of rights have always been and remain a priority area of activity of our state. At the current stage, in the conditions of the military regime introduced in Ukraine, the need to improve the existing mechanisms for the protection of human rights, including refugees and forced migrants who are forced to leave their places of permanent residence, is becoming extremely urgent. The activities of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and his cooperation with the Government of Ukraine are important in this area.

Breaking Barriers

In the advent of the coronavirus pandemic and the push to digital work, this op-ed argues that the emerging digital economy can be vital for enabling refugee women in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to overcome existing livelihood barriers. Since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis in 2011, over 6.5 million Syrian refugees have been registered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) globally. Neighbouring countries across the MENA region continue to carry the largest share of the burden. Across the region, refugees live on the margins, in camps, as well as urban and peri-urban communities, and other informal settlements. Existing gender disparities coupled with other social and logistical barriers, as well as restrictive legal and economic structures, exacerbate livelihood challenges for refugee women in MENA. Research demonstrates that the digital economy, particularly crowd and ‘on-demand’ work, could provide opportunities that would enable women refugees to overcome these barriers to work. As it stands, however, the digital economy is still in its infancy, especially in host countries in MENA, and it is still fraught with challenges, including barriers to entry, employee protections and the lack of guarantees to decent work, especially for vulnerable and marginalised communities. We therefore argue that there is a need to direct efforts to maximise the benefits that the digital economy could offer, especially to refugee women – a need that has become even more pertinent since the coronavirus pandemic.

The Responses of Pakistan and Turkey to Refugee Influxes: A Comparative Analysis of Durable Solutions to Protracted Displacements

This research aims to study how Turkey and Pakistan (the world’s largest refugee hosting countries) have reacted to and managed protracted refugee challenges. In the context of Pakistan, the study explores the Afghan refugee influx since the late 1970, while for Turkey the focus is on the Syrian refugee inflow since 2011. While cognizant of contextual differences (time and space) between these two countries, we aim to comparatively explore policies, best practices, and short and long-term solutions developed to protracted displacement issues in each country. To do this we intend to comparatively explore the role of institutional environments and the international refugee regime in resolving protracted refugee issues in a chronological sequence. First, we investigate how each state’s “open-door policies” toward the first influx of refugees evolved into ad-hoc solutions in the course of protracted displacement. Second, we comparatively assess multilevel integration approaches and solution strategies at the macro (states and their cooperation with countries of origin and inter-governmental organizations such as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and International Organization for Migration (IOM)), meso (interventions/implementations), and micro levels (civil society and refugee-led initiatives). Third, we examine how refugee policies in each country are negotiated with national and international humanitarian and refugee agencies, including regional organizations and countries of origin. Theoretically, this article is grounded on a macro structural approach (state’s international humanitarian obligations and responsibilities), refugee diplomacy (state’s use of diplomatic tools, process administering refugees), and management theories.

Syrian Refugees Evaluation for the Services Provided By High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) In Zaatari Refugee Camp (A Field Study)

The study aims at identifying the Syrian refugees’ evaluation of services provided by UNHCR, to achieve the objectives of the study, a sample social survey method was used. Anecdotal sample was selected consisting of (3%) of the study population formed from (471) heads of households, by using (the SPSS)statistical program to come up with results that would answer the study questions. The study reached the following important results: The general average of refugee satisfaction with the services provided by UNHCR was high, reaching an average of (3.85). Satisfaction of refugees with services in general (psychosocial support services, educational services, cleaning services, social support services, water services) was high, as shown by arithmetic averages, In-kind assistance, and electricity services were found at a moderate level.

The Gendered Consequences

This policy paper explores the gendered vulnerabilities of migrants seeking refuge from unlivable conditions in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala (Northern Triangle Countries), who are forced to the U.S.-Mexico border and stranded in border camps strung along U.S. entry ports. In particular, it examines the impacts of four immigration and border policies initiated by the Trump administration, and details the compounded risks of violence faced by displaced women and gender-diverse communities while traveling to the border and in border encampments. Migrants seeking asylum experience a range of physical and psychosocial trauma, and their safety is contingent on the varying stakeholder positions of the American and Mexican governments, transnational non-governmental organizations, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In evaluating the barriers to accessing basic resources and legal support faced by marginalized communities at the border, I argue that conditions in-camp require gender-sensitive humanitarian interventions from the UNHCR as mandated by its ethical and legal obligation to protect the rights of asylum-seekers. Following my analysis of the gendered vulnerabilities in border encampments and their historical roots, I then propose three potential policy choice sets to address the increasing urgency of the crisis.

Migrant Sexualities, Queer Travelers: Iranian Bears and the Asylum of Translation in Turkey

Since the early 2000s, an increasing number of lgbt+ and queer Iranians have sought asylum through the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Turkey. As recent queer and feminist scholarship has demonstrated, a “gay enough” litmus test often determines whether asylum seekers will be recognized as having a credible fear of persecution. To unhcr officers conducting asylum interviews, a claimant’s gender nonconformity functions as a proxy for credibility. Self-identified bears, with their masculine gender expression, cannot pass this litmus test and thus are expected to confess an indifference to religion, or areligiosity. Arguing that expectations of gender nonconformity and areligiosity make the application process an asylum of translation for self-identified bear claimants from Iran, this article examines the discursive labyrinth asylum seekers must navigate to become legible and advances a novel conception of the twinned process of confession and translocation that asylum-seeking has become in countries of transit like Turkey.

Climate Refugees in India: A Wake-up Call for an Inclusive Policy

Earth’s climate is changing drastically and its effect is being felt over the entire world. Some nations suffer more because of several geographical and demographical factors. People have started migrating from their homeland because of the disasters occurring due to climate change. These migrants commonly known as climate refugees are homeless and without rights. However, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has recognised the need to protect climate refugees and has taken initiatives to relocate the climate refugees. Recently, the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) ruled that no country can send back a refugee whose life is at imminent threat due to climate change. Even though this decision is non-binding on the countries, it puts an international pressure on countries to act soon concerning climate refugees. India is one of the countries which might face a great migrant influx from neighbouring countries. The Sundarbans 1 Delta of Bangladesh is one of the high-risk areas and it is estimated that around 50–120 million climate refugees might migrate to India. India needs to be prepared for this crisis and develop a sound refugee policy framework. Against this backdrop, this research article aims to highlight legal issues relating to the protection of climate refugees in India and suggests policy measures to overcome the crisis.

The Emigration of the Portuguese People and the Reception of Refugees in Portugal

Migration is a challenging global phenomenon that has been a growing trend in recent years. In 2020, it is revealed that approximately 3.6% of the world population were international immigrants [3]. In the same year, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), around 10% of all refugees in the world were living in the EU and around 2.25 million residence permits were issued, showing a decrease relative to 2019 due to the existing pandemic crisis.

Problems of Compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights in cases of Deportation from the Russian Federation

Over the past few years, the European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly found Russia’s failure to comply with the guarantees of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in deportation cases. At the same time, the ECtHR, as a rule, found the same type of violations, indicating the presence of systemic defects in the Russian legal system. A significant number of new similar and related complaints are currently pending before the ECtHR, including a recently communicated complaint by human rights activist Vanessa Kogan, head of the NGO Astreya, related to the annulment of her residence permit in Russia. The paper is devoted to assessing the observance by the Russian authorities of the ECHR guarantees in the field of deportation, identifying key problems in this area and ways to solve them. The paper develops a study conducted in the recently published issue “Protection in cases of expulsion from the Russian Federation”, prepared in cooperation with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Based on the results of this study, the author concludes that deportation and related procedures, from the point of view of compliance with the ECHR, are the most problematic mechanism for expulsion from Russia. The paper shows the main defects in legal regulation and law enforcement practice, and suggests specific measures to eliminate them.

Whither the Refugees? International Organisations and “Solutions” to Displacement, 1921–1960

Abstract Achieving “durable solutions” is a central goal of the contemporary refugee regime. Durable solutions are often equated with three routes to resolving displacement—voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement—and the concept is closely tied to ideas about permanency, protection, and the rectification of refugees’ legal limbo. Despite its contemporary prominence, the genealogy of the concept of durable solutions has not been fully considered. Accordingly, this article traces the origins of the concept of durable solutions for refugees from 1921 to 1960, examining how such solutions have been framed in international law and through the work of a key set of international organisations: the League of Nations, the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, the International Refugee Organization, the UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. By historicising durable solutions discourse as it evolved in the inter-war, immediate post-Second World War and early Cold War eras, and analysing how different international organisations have understood the “refugee problem” and solutions to it, this article promotes critical (re)engagement with the very notion of durable solutions, and demonstrates how the contemporary trinity of voluntary repatriation, local integration, and resettlement emerged from earlier approaches shaped by geo-political and legal considerations tied to particular groups of refugees.

THE NEED FOR A LEGAL DEFINITION OF STATELESS CHILDREN IN MALAYSIAN NATIONAL LAW AND POLICY: THE PERSPECTIVE FROM INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW

Millions of people worldwide remain stateless with various breakdowns in many regions (UN, 2018). As of 2019, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (hereinafter UNHCR) estimated a total of 3.9 million stateless people in the world (UNHCR, Malaysia, 2019). According to the United Nations (UN, 2018), approximately 50 percent of the 10 million stateless people of the world are residing in Asia, with at least 1 million of them being Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar. Amongst the member states of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), countries like Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia continuously face challenges pertaining to statelessness and stateless children. They usually come from neighbouring countries like Bangladesh and Myanmar (SUHAKAM, 2018). This article therefore, will examine the challenges of these statelessness and stateless children in Malaysia from a legal perspective; particularly on the definitions, categories of stateless children and the importance for the country to have national laws and policies pertaining to these issues.

Association Between Subnational Vaccine Coverage, Migration, and Incident Cases of Measles, Mumps, and Rubella in Iraq, 2001-2016.

ObjectiveThis analysis examines governorate-level disease incidence as well as the relationship between incidence and the number of persons of concern for three vaccine-preventable diseases—measles, mumps, and rubella—between 2001 and 2016.MethodsUsing Iraqi Ministry of Health and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) data, we performed descriptive analyses of disease incidence and conducted a pooled statistical analysis with a linear mixed effects regression model to examine the role of vaccine coverage and migration of persons of concern on subnational disease incidence.ResultsWe found large variability in governorate-level incidence, particularly for measles (on the order of 100x). We identified decreases in incident measles cases per 100,000 persons for each additional percent vaccinated (0.82, 95% CI: [0.64, 1.00], p-value < 0.001) and for every additional 10,000 persons of concern when incorporating displacement into our model (0.26, 95% CI: [0.22, 0.30], p-value < 0.001). These relationships were insignificant for mumps and rubella.ConclusionsNational level summary statistics do not adequately capture the high geospatial disparity in disease incidence between 2001 and 2016. This variability is complicated by MMR vaccine coverage and the migration of “persons of concern” (refugees) during conflict. We found that even when vaccine coverage was constant, measles incidence was higher in locations with more displaced persons, suggesting conflict fueled the epidemic in ways that vaccine coverage could not control.

The Plight of Refugees: Journey of Dilemma A Journey Towards Home or a Journey Towards Destiny

Refugees are ordinary people who live through extraordinary times in a country where conflict or persecution have put them at risk. They have no other choice but to flee and leave their country to seek safety; this means leaving a lot behind, one of the most complex decisions a person can ever take. So what makes a person a Refugee? From where do they come? Furthermore, where are they going? And how is the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office helping them? Refugees frequently flee with nothing more than the clothing on their backs, abandoning their daily lives. They may lose their home, savings, jobs, and, more often than not, their families and loved ones. The journey to safety can be long and full of dangers. During the journey, people can get hurt, and unfortunately, many people die; all of this can create serious trauma. In this article, let us look at the journeys people are leaving and which they are arriving in. And what destinies await them.

The new geography of asylum: digital identity, artificial intelligence and blockchain

&lt;abstract&gt; &lt;p&gt;For several years, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has insisted on the need to invest in new technologies to improve the procedures for the identification, reception and redistribution of asylum seekers around the world. United Nations experts have promoted new forms of digital inclusion aimed at both asylum seekers and displaced persons. They consider digital tools to be essential for achieving one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Target 16.9, which by 2030 intends to provide legal identity for all, including birth registration. Biometrics have been used on an experimental basis since the early 2000s to create digital identities in the humanitarian space for those vulnerable persons without traditional identity documents. It is a divisive subject. The aim of this article is to consider, from a geopolitical perspective, if following the acceleration of the digital revolution caused by the pandemic it is possible to invest in technological tools to improve the processes of identification, redistribution and reception of asylum seekers and displaced persons while at the same time respecting their privacy and freedoms. This hypothesis would signal the emergence of a geography of receiving asylum seekers on a global scale based not only on the governance of territory and borders, but also on platform governance.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/abstract&gt;

Cancer care for displaced children from Venezuela.

Venezuela, the country with the largest oil reserves, has ridden the wave of oil prices—at times becoming one of the richest countries in Latin America. During the 1960s, as the economy was booming, it attracted migrants from all over the world; around 15% of the population was foreign-born, mainly Europeans. During the 1970s and 1980s, migrants from Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Chile, and Ecuador arrived in Venezuela, fleeing from political and social unrests in their home countries. The collapse of oil prices in the 1980s, together with successive political crises and increasing corruption, led to a progressive end of wealth, a contracted economy, and inflation. In 1999, the constitution guaranteed the right to health and foresaw a decentralised system that would reduce health inequities; unfortunately, no health law was ever passed to enforce it. Instead, the health system was nationalised and became characterised by inefficiency and rampant corruption, leading to a rapid deterioration of services and massive drug shortages. In the past 10 years, Venezuela's health-care system collapsed and became one of the most expensive and inefficient systems in Latin America, with families expected to pay for more than 75% of the costs. A report on the State of Cancer Care in Venezuela, published in 2019, offered a bleak picture of the situation for adults with cancer—the country only has around 10% of the drugs needed for their adequate care. Venezuela: aid needed to ease health crisisVenezuela's health system is collapsing and experts say external assistance is needed to ease severe shortages of drugs and other medical supplies. Barbara Fraser and Hildegard Willer report. Full-Text PDF Educational attainment in displaced children with cancerSupporting the health of displaced people is a challenge shared by the health system in the location to which they are displaced, non-governmental organisations, and the international community. This challenge is magnified when the host country is struggling with violence, poverty, and an unstable government. The COVID-19 pandemic has added further strain to an already difficult situation, restricting movement both within and between countries. Since 2014, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has rolled out capacity-building projects in countries hosting displaced people, with the aim of providing access to health care for non-communicable diseases. Full-Text PDF

Cancer care for displaced children in Lebanon.

Lebanon is a small country on the Mediterranean Sea that has been plagued for decades by civil war and internal strife, which result from regional wars and power struggles. Most of the Lebanese population has access to national governmental health-care plans, but these are inadequate to cover the costs of cancer care; therefore, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are needed to alleviate financial barriers to care. In 2002, the Children's Cancer Institute was established at the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC; Beirut, Lebanon), as a collaboration between AUBMC, St Jude Children's Research Hospital (SJCRH; Memphis, TN, USA), the Children's Cancer Center of Lebanon Foundation (CCCL; Beirut, Lebanon), and the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC; Memphis, TN, USA). This collaboration supports programmatic growth (ie, specific projects aimed at developing medical programmes and services to optimise cancer care and delivery) at the Children's Cancer Institute, and the CCCL and ALSAC ensure that no family pays out-of-pocket expenses for cancer-directed care. Between 2002 and 2012, the Children's Cancer Institute grew to provide care for 35–40% of children with cancer in Lebanon, and consultations or specialised procedures for an additional 20–25%. Networks of paediatric oncologists across the country were established, using funded disease-specific programmes, in which enrolled patients could access centralised diagnosis, specialised surgeries, radiotherapy, and unified treatment plans in coordination with their referring oncologist. Educational attainment in displaced children with cancerSupporting the health of displaced people is a challenge shared by the health system in the location to which they are displaced, non-governmental organisations, and the international community. This challenge is magnified when the host country is struggling with violence, poverty, and an unstable government. The COVID-19 pandemic has added further strain to an already difficult situation, restricting movement both within and between countries. Since 2014, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has rolled out capacity-building projects in countries hosting displaced people, with the aim of providing access to health care for non-communicable diseases. Full-Text PDF

Educational attainment in displaced children with cancer.

Supporting the health of displaced people is a challenge shared by the health system in the location to which they are displaced, non-governmental organisations, and the international community. This challenge is magnified when the host country is struggling with violence, poverty, and an unstable government. The COVID-19 pandemic has added further strain to an already difficult situation, restricting movement both within and between countries. Since 2014, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has rolled out capacity-building projects in countries hosting displaced people, with the aim of providing access to health care for non-communicable diseases.

Realising the Right of Return: Refugees’ Roles in Localising Norms and Socialising UNHCR

ABSTRACT Refugee repatriation rests on a fundamental norm: the right of return. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) styles itself as the chief defender of international norms on refugees, educating refugees about their rights and socialising states to respect the cardinal rules of the refugee regime. However, UNHCR initially devoted little attention to the right of return. When UNHCR began to engage more actively with repatriation in the 1980s, it had only a nascent institutional conceptualisation of the right of return: it framed the implementation of the right of return as a non-political, humanitarian undertaking, and assumed sovereign states had largely unfettered discretion in its implementation. Drawing on extensive material from the UNHCR archives on repatriation movements from Honduras to El Salvador in the 1980s, this article examines how refugees themselves have influenced the governance of return by serving as norm entrepreneurs, localising the right of return and socialising UNHCR to rethink and support broader interpretations of this principle. It analyzes how Salvadoran refugees envisioned the right of return as a collective and deeply political process of asserting citizenship claims, and took direct action to implement this right, compelling UNHCR and government actors to adjust to their vision. These experiences have important implications for understandings of the right of return as an international norm, and the roles of refugees themselves as actors in norm localisation and socialisation processes. Reinforcing and expanding on recent studies of how refugees actively shape aid efforts, peacebuilding and the resolution of displacement, this study highlights the significance of subaltern power in the refugee regime, showing how it can reverberate across different sites and scales to definitively influence not only the execution of the regime’s core functions but also the interpretation of the normative commitments underpinning it.

The Role Of Law Clinics in the Fight Against Statelessness by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Unhcr) in Nigeria

Statelessness has become a global phenomenon. Statelessness simply means that a person does not belong to any country in the world. It means that a person does not have a nationality or any means to prove his or her nationality. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has embarked on a fight against Statelessness. The UNHCR have estimated that 10 million people in the world are stateless, one million of which are located in West Africa, although no figure has been estimated yet in Nigeria. However, because of numerous factors, the UNHCR has brought the fight against statelessness to Nigeria. They have mapped out their strategies in a National Action Plan (NAP) in 2018, and among such strategies are awareness and sensitization. They are of the belief that Nigerians are not aware of the concept of Statelessness. To test their assertion, empirical research was conducted for this paper via a questionnaire. One of the major consequences of statelessness is that stateless persons are deprived from enjoying their basic fundamental human rights like the right to freedom of movement, civil and political rights and the right to access of certain services which include access to health care and access to justice. More so, the Universal declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has a right to a nationality, which means the very notion of being stateless runs contrary to this universal basic right. This paper submits that derivation of fundamental rights especially access to justice is a social justice issue that could be handled through public interest lawyering. These two- Social Justice and Public Interest Lawyering- form part of the Clinical Legal Education (CLE) curriculum, therefore a nexus is immediately formed between CLE and the fight against statelessness. From the results of the research conducted in this paper, it is recommended that the service component of CLE, which is the Law Clinics, can assist the UNHCR in the fight against statelessness in Nigeria by actualising some of their strategies contained in the NAP which include but not limited to; sensitization and awareness. The UNHCR also raised a red flag on lack of data on this issue; again, this paper recommends that law clinicians can be their foot soldiers and aid in gathering the necessary data through client interviews and outreach activities. Lastly, the benefits of this partnership between the law clinics and UNHCR to the law clinicians was also outlined, as it will be of extreme benefit to them and it would lead to the achievement of the ultimate outcome and objective of CLE .&#x0D; Keywords: Statelessness, Nationality, Identity, Access to Justice, Human Rights, Law Clinics, Social Justice, Public Interest.

Who depends on whom? Uganda’s refugee ‘success story’, corruption and the international community

The progressive refugee policy of the Ugandan government has been widely applauded as a success story, and Uganda has been depicted as a role model. This article argues how the perceived success created a situation of mutual dependency between the Ugandan government and the international community. While the Ugandan government relied on aid from the international community, the international community had interests in the success story as proof that their policies work (for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), and in response to the European migration crisis (for bilateral donor governments). Nevertheless, in 2018, it emerged that the Ugandan refugee policy suffered from large-scale corruption. The article argues that the mutual dependency provided a fertile breeding ground for corruption, and negatively impacted accountability. Similarly to how the Museveni regime has been able to benefit from an image of success to deflect accountability on governance transgressions in the past, it has now largely managed to evade accountability for corruption in its refugee policy.