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Minor Truths

Louis Century

Some thoughts on non-refugees

By Louis Century - 12 months ago
Over the past few years, I have developed a focused interest in the plight of refugees, including six months spent working for UNHCR in Kenya. Part of this interest has been centred on philosophical views about the refugee experience. I now find myself questioning these views, in the face of a refugee regime that seems increasingly inadequate for the needs of today’s displaced people.

From the humanitarian limbo of the internally displaced to the power dynamics of refugee status determination, I am convinced more than ever of the glaring discrepancy between international refugee law and the experience of the people it’s meant to protect.

What drew me to refugee work was the uniqueness of the refugee experience. Deprivation of state protection – of meaningful membership in a political community – seemed to me the cruelest of fates, because it penetrates the core political identity of the individual.

I became sympathetic to scholars like Hannah Arendt who challenged the universality of human rights, arguing that such rights are only meaningful when upheld by states. Arendt called political rights the “right of rights,” since they make all other rights possible. Refugees, lacking political rights, expose the flimsiness of universal rights more than any other people.

The postwar refugee regime responded to Arendt’s concerns. The 1951 Refugee Convention required states to protect those who flee persecution from other countries. Later, this definition was extended in Africa and Latin America to include people who flee general conflict, even if they’re not individually targeted. UNHCR's “durable solutions” approach sought to secure for refugees the political rights Arendt most valued – through voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement. 

While these achievements are significant, the laws and policies they engendered do not adequately reflect the experience of today’s refugees.

A previous Governance Village blogger wrote about the troubling distinction between “refugees” and “internally displaced persons” (IDPs). In most conflicts around the world, thousands of people flee their homes but do not cross international borders, thus failing to qualify as refugees under UNHCR law.

Environmental refugees, climate-change refugees, development-induced refugees and economic refugees are all, like internally displaced persons, “non-refugees,” standing outside the legal definition of what a refugee is.

But their experience is the refugee experience. Forced from their homes, lacking state protection, many of these people share the troubles and the needs of formal refugees. Their experience tests the legitimacy of universal rights in the same way that refugees do.

To compound these definitional challenges, the granting of refugee status is infused with power dynamics. From the birth of a refugee crisis, the most vulnerable people are often unable to flee, making the act of fleeing itself a strange kind of privilege.

Later on, in refugee camp situations, the wealthy and educated refugees tend to qualify for resettlement programs – often due to the benevolence of Western charities who sponsor them – leaving camps lacking in skilled workers. In protracted refugee crises like that of Somali refugees in Kenya, this drain of talent and resources is particularly acute.

I remain committed to working with refugees for the same reasons as before. Namely, I feel strongly about the uniqueness of the refugee experience. I believe it represents not only a practical but a deep philosophical challenge for our time.

However, I have come to see how inadequately refugee law and policy reflects the experience of displacement. Part of working responsibly with displaced persons, I now think, is to continually challenge one’s understanding of displacement, ensuring that it remains true to real people and experiences.
 

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