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The Global Refugee Regime: Charity, Management and Human Rights

by Tom Clark

284 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-2052; ISBN 1-4120-4245-3; US$24.00, C$27.45, EUR20.00, £14.00

This book assembles the often fragmented world of refugee affairs into a whole picture by means of integrating themes of charity, management and human rights.

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about the book      about the author      excerpts       catalogue info

About the Book This is an overview text book of the world of refugee affairs. It integrates important topics like refugee statistics, refugee law, and basic camp needs - topics that are normally dealt with in isolation by practitioners or by academics in different disciplines. The book aims to be substantive in these important topic areas: poulations and responses; the UN world; camps and refugees; dispersed refugees and asylum speakers; the role of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees; supporting Agencies; the 1951 Convetion; the role of human rights systems. In each area, the book gives basic information but goes beyond a simple text book by offering some reflections.

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About the Author For almost 18 years until early retirement in 2001, Tom Clark served as the coordinator for the Inter-Church Committee for Refugees, the Canadian national ecumenical body for refugees and migrants. During that time, he wrote briefs and made presentations to governmental and international forums, and he viited refugee situations in the developed and developing world. He was instrumental in court action by the Canadian Council of Churches and advcated creatively on bealf of refugees' and non-citizens' rights. he has published a number of scholarly articles relating to refugee and non-citizens' rigts. He conceived and helped to establish the Summer Course on Refugee Issues at the Centre for Refugee Studies, York University, in Toronto. He served as the coordinator (part-time) for the first five years of the Summer Course. His work involved contact with a large numbrs of people involved in the policy and practice of refugee affairs in governments, international agencies and non-governmental groups. Most of them were experts in one or more aspects of refugee affairs, but many were unaware of how they fitted into the wider context. This overview book has been written with these people in mind.

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Excerpts

Refugee work challenges the fundamentals of the nation state and the world order of the United Nations. Refugees force a local society to examine the core of what belongng to that community means. They challenge us to improve not just the State, but large parts of the world order we live in.

Globalization has affected migration and refugee affairs therough the intensification and uneven distribution of poverty among social groups and the impact of distribution on civil conflict. This form of globalization goes beyond the controversial consultations around trade and finance at the World Trade Organization, or within the G8 group of governments. The globalizing activity is part of a shared world with shared failures causing refugees.

Violent conflicts around the world correlate with the globe's Internally Displace Persons and refugees, but the cause...goes beyond the local political conflict. External factors and "significant foreign involvement" were almost invariably linked to a prolonged armed struggle and a related large refugee flow.

This book sets a premium on advancing human rights and a rule of law as a matter of pragmatic politics in the longer term.

Clearly better ways have to be found than calling on the military force of one or two States to address causes of refugees. The fact that the ways are not yet apparent should not deter us from seeking them.

Improving the UN system and the co-operation among UN and other agencies in early warning, prevention, relief and post conflict peace building is an important part of improving the global refugee regime.

Intended to be a temporary emergency measure, camps can remain in place over years and decades while opportunities to address the cause fail to arise and States and the UN allow refugee producing situations to drag on.

Some big steps have been taken to move the resettlement process away from the selection of refugees on the basis of unashamedly national interests towards an international assessment of need for protection. More can be done to move resettlement even further towards the rule of law.

The international human rights system, through which refugees should be able to claim human rights alongside other human beings, has been hesitatnt to assume responsibility for refugee rights.

A more consistent and international use of the various human rights procedures for refugees, by refugees and by NGOs, could help to achieve better prevention, better protection for refugees and more secure solutions.

The reluctance of human rights treaty bodies to deal with the rights of refugees is slowly being overcome, but the deference to States in matters of non-citizens' rights remains.

The evident desire of powerful States to retain flexibility in their management of refugees comes into conflict with the need for greater implementation of international human rights.

By promoting enforceable international rights for vulneable groups like asylum seekers we non-asylum seekers secure the rights for ourselves in our own hours of need.

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Catalogue Information

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