Category: Refugees

UDHR@75: Article 14 and Climate Refugees

Climate Change, Human rights, Inequalities, Refugees, UDHR

Photo credit: Priscilla Du Preez

This blog forms part of a series celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Recognising the numerous conflicts and the daily breaches of human rights taking place across the globe, this series aims to highlight both the challenges and the opportunities to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights elaborated in the UDHR.

 

 

Article 14 and Climate Refugees 

Article 14(1) of the UDHR

‘Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.’

Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states that people have the right to seek asylum from persecution. This right traditionally applies to those who are persecuted due to race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, as specified in the subsequently adopted Refugee Convention. However, the understanding of what necessitates seeking asylum has evolved over the last 75 years since its inclusion in the UDHR. In the 21st century, this is now changing again to adapt to new challenges such as climate and environmental displacement. According to the Institute for Economics and Peace, current predictions suggest that by 2050, there could be 1.2 billion people displaced from climate and environmental threats, making climate refugees a ‘top priority’ for the UNHRC going forward.  

Throughout its history, the right to asylum in the UDHR has evolved to encompass situations beyond its original understanding. Internally displaced persons (IDPs) are an example that demonstrates the dynamic nature of the right to asylum. IDPs are individuals who are forced to relocate on similar grounds as refugees, although they do not cross international borders. Despite bearing similar protection needs described in Article 14, internally displaced persons (IDPs) were not traditionally considered under the asylum framework. However, international protection gradually became applicable for IDPs, expanding the grounds for receiving protections under this right. Additionally, this framework has recently been applied to people displaced by natural disasters. Although the term “refugee” has been avoided, the support processes share many similarities with those of refugees and have therefore also been addressed under this framework. 

The ongoing changes to international protection needs that emerge as a result of climate change threats suggest the necessity to broaden the scope of Article 14. Inhabitants of certain island nations, such as Kiribati, have already needed international protection due to displacement from rising sea levels. However, with a traditional understanding of asylum, it remains difficult to extend protections to people displaced by environmental factorscreate an applicable framework to resolve the discrepancy between the need and access to protection. The current use of the asylum regime in state practice and the acknowledgement of the limitations of a persecution-based understanding of protection demonstrates both the opportunities and challenges of utilising this framework for future problems. 

The future is expected to bring an increasing number of individuals impacted and displaced by climate change and environmental threats. As a result, it is imperative to develop how international law can support these individuals. The past success of Article 14 and the broader asylum framework to adapt dynamically to changing necessities demonstrates its applicability in addressing climate refugees. Since the need for international protection remains the same from the traditional understanding of refugees to climate refugees, Article 14 is becoming highly significant in the search for solutions to this global problem.  

 

As part of the GJA UDHR@75 celebration, we invited present and past students to contribute their personal reflections on the relevance of the UDHR today. This blog is by Şükrü Kağan Sürücü and Lucy Tomkins. They are PhD Law Candidates at the University of Edinburgh.

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Human Insecurity: Food Insecurity in the UK during COVID-19

Covid-19, food, food security, ICCPR, ICESCR, Immigration, Inequalities, Pandemic, Refugees, right to food, Scotland

Photo to the authorThis is the second blog in a series written by LLM students on the Human (In)Security course at Edinburgh Law School. The series celebrates the top five blogs selected in a class competition. This blog is by Leah Cowling. Leah did her undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Politics at Edinburgh before starting the LLM in Human Rights. She is currently working on a project to complete settled status applications for EEA nationals living in Scotland. You can follow Leah on Twitter @_leahcowling.

 

No One Should Go Hungry Because of Their Immigration Status: Food insecurity in the UK during COVID-19

It wasn’t long into the UK’s first lockdown that the promise of the COVID-19 pandemic as a great leveller began to ring hollow. It is now clear that the effects of the pandemic have been experienced asymmetrically across the globe – demonstrating that COVID-19 does discriminate, in that it exacerbates existing inequalities.

Described as the best vaccine against chaos, food takes on a central role in times of crisis. During this pandemic, food has been revealed to be the lynchpin upon which other rights depend. Footballer Marcus Rashford’s successful campaign to force government U-turns on the decision to halt free school meals highlighted one aspect of this interdependency; without nutritious food, children cannot exercise their right to education.

COVID-19 has also demonstrated that the distribution of food is microcosmic of larger structural, political, social and economic inequalities – as the wealthy stockpiled pasta, foodbank use skyrocketed, with the independent food bank charity IFAN reporting a staggering 88% increase in use.

While headlines were dominated by Rashford’s campaign to reinstate free school meals, the situation of food insecurity within migrant communities during COVID-19 often appeared to be an afterthought. Following the threat of a legal challenge, the free school meals policy was partially extended in April 2020 to some individuals without formal immigration status and subject to No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) conditions, on the grounds that ‘no child should go hungry because of the immigration status of their parents’. No doubt a welcome challenge, this statement stops short of the universal acknowledgment that no one should go hungry because of their immigration status.

Graphic of shopping bags.

Statistics from the Trussell Trust. Illustration by Issey Medd

Underreported is the experience of food insecurity by migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in the UK whose access to affordable, nutritious and culturally appropriate food has been threatened by the existence of the work ban and inadequate state support. For many, the closures of community centres, charities, churches and support groups due to lockdown restrictions represented the severing of a crucial lifeline. Reports from March 2020 suggested that approximately 1 million undocumented migrants were plunged into severe food insecurity, with many forced to access food banks.

Numerous volunteer-run, grassroots migrant support groups, such as the Unity Centre in Glasgow, responded to the increased need with deliveries of essential food and medicine. This support was given to all those in need, including to those isolating in cramped asylum accommodation with young children. This community-led response is emblematic of a larger problem, in which support from the third sector allows the government to evade accountability for failing to protect fundamental rights.

The legal basis of the right to food

The right to food is a clearly defined legal right, articulated in a number of international human rights instruments, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) – both of which the UK is a signatory to. The right to food obliges governments to enact laws which respect, protect and fulfil the right to food, to ensure that all people are able to feed themselves in dignity. Crucially, the right to food is universal, applying to all individuals within a state’s borders, regardless of immigration status, and without any form of discrimination.

Scales with food on either side demonstrating inequality in food.

Illustration by Issey Medd

In its 2016 report on the UK, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) which monitors the implementation of ICESCR, noted its concern about the lack of adequate measures ‘to address the increasing levels of food insecurity […] and the lack of adequate measures to reduce the reliance on food banks.’ Notably, while commenting on the inadequate protection of the right to health among migrant populations, the report fails to comment specifically on the food insecurity experienced by migrants. This omission reflects a trend in which the issue of food insecurity in migrant communities is overlooked.

Considering possible solutions

Clearly, increased foodbank capacity is not a solution to rising food insecurity amongst migrant populations. Foodbank use represents the tip of the food insecurity iceberg; a symptom of pervasive structural barriers to the ability to access food in dignity. As such, we should not confuse food charity with the right to food.

Statistics demonstrating the difference between food buying power on Universal Credite and Asylum Seekers SupportIn recognition of this, foodbank charity Trussell Trust recommended a £20 uplift to Universal Credit payments, which is expected to be extended in the March 2021 budget. While the £20 uplift has reduced the reliance on foodbanks for many, this policy continues to exclude those who are unable to access Universal Credit on account of their immigration status.

A possible legal route is through incorporation of the right to food in UK law – advocated for by civil society groups, such as Sustain, Nourish Scotland and the Scottish Food Coalition. It is argued that explicit recognition of the right to food at the domestic level would help individuals articulate demands on the government, and create more legal avenues to challenge government policy.

Incorporation of the right to food in Scotland appears increasingly likely with its proposed Good Food Nation Bill. It is encouraging to see explicit recognition of those who were ‘already food insecure before the crisis hit, including many refugees and asylum seekers who have no recourse to public funds’, but the Bill must be supplemented with specific and detailed analysis of nutritional vulnerabilities experienced by migrants in Scotland.

Looking forward

An important step towards food security following the effects of COVID-19, the incorporation of the right to food in Scotland offers an opportunity to embed the right to food within in a broader rights-based framework.

However, full realisation of the right to food will require appreciation of the linkages between hostile environment policies and food insecurity, as well as the multiple layers of discrimination faced by migrants in the UK. This must include calls for the removal of the NRPF immigration condition, and for increased asylum support payments in line with Universal Credit.

An integrated, person-centred, rights-based approach to food security in a post COVID-19 landscape will require commitment to the uncontroversial statement that no one should go hungry because of their immigration status.

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Peacebuilding and Syria: What Hope?

Human rights, Innovative Initiative Fund, Middle East, Peace, Peace Processes, Political Settlements, Refugees, Syria

Between 13-15 October 2018, the Global Justice Academy co-hosted a weekend of events joining Relief & Reconciliation for Syria with peacebuilding communities in Scotland. This post from Dr George R. Wilkes, reflects on the series of events that took place.

The prospect of an inclusive peacebuilding process in Syria looks bleak now. From the perspective of millions of Syrians who have fled regime controlled areas, atrocity, terror and armed extortion all confront attempts to straddle divisions to talk about peace. Refugees face daily existential pressures in the face of which peace talks appear distant and untimely. Critics of regime ‘reconciliations’ see the concept reduced to the mechanics of overpowering the regime’s outlaws. In regime territory, a more inclusive embrace of populations controlled by Islamist armed groups is undercut by the sense that violence and terror were the inevitable result of a religious fundamentalism shared widely within those populations, and by the international supporters of those forces.

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Talking Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery in the Context of Migration Negotiations

Human rights, Immigration, International Law, migration, Refugees, UN

Dr Kasey McCall-Smith, Chair of the Association of Human Rights Institutes and member of the Global Justice Academy, discusses Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery in the context of the UN Global Compact for Migration.

In a previous post, I gave general overview of the UN Global Compact for Migration and a brief analysis of the Migration Compact thematic discussions on the distinctions between human smuggling and human trafficking. This note considers modern slavery, a topic with which the University of Edinburgh is highly engaged through both academic projects as well as its Modern Slavery initiatives. Following on from the distinction between migrants smuggled into a state for the sole purpose of evading legal migration and individuals trafficked into (or within) a state for purposes of exploitation, the following will present key debates about modern slavery and human trafficking that are highly relevant to the conclusion of a comprehensive Migration Compact.

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Smuggling or Trafficking? Defining the Terms in the UN Migration Compact

Human rights, International Law, Refugees, UN, Women

Dr Kasey McCall-Smith, Chair of the Association of Human Rights Institutes and member of the Global Justice Academy, discusses recent steps towards a UN Global Compact for Migration. This is the first of two blogs from Dr McCall-Smith on the Migration Compact negotiations.

The next steps toward a UN Global Compact for Migration to combat the ever-growing legal and policy issues associated with mass and irregular migration were taken at the UN headquarters in Vienna, Austria, 4-5 September 2017. The Compact aims to deliver a comprehensive approach to human mobility as well as further clarification of and support for existing international frameworks addressing migration, refugees and trafficking, including the Refugee Convention and its Protocol, the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (Trafficking in Persons Protocol) and the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air (Smuggling of Migrants Protocol), as well as a number of human rights instruments such as the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), among many others.

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The Asylum Monologues

Blog, Citizenship and Belonging, Human rights, Immigration, Innovative Initiative Fund, Refugees

This blog has been written by Dr Grit Wesser, a postdoctoral fellow in Social Anthropology at The University of Edinburgh. Here, she reports from a recent Asylum Monologues event in Edinburgh, which brought together performers, academics, students and the public to discuss this global human rights issue.

Immigration has perhaps always been – at least since the rise of nation-states – a contentious issue for policy makers, in public discourse, and around families’ kitchen tables. The so-called “European Refugee Crisis” has renewed a debate not on ‘whether’, but on ‘how much’ to control and limit immigration to Europe. In this process, the issue has been reduced to one of numbers.

But why do people cross borders and leave behind their home countries and loved ones? What does it mean to be an asylum seeker in Scotland? What new boundaries do migrants face, once they arrive in a country that is foreign to them – and treats them as foreigners? Could Scotland become their new home? These questions were being creatively examined through a performance of the Asylum Monologues, and in the panel discussion that followed.

Ice&Fire, a theatre company that explores human rights issues through performance, created the first script of the Asylum Monologues in 2006. Since then the company has recorded and performed various testimonies of asylum seekers, aimed at raising awareness of asylum seekers’ experiences by sharing their stories with the communities to which they now belong. The audience listened attentively to a Scottish script, launched only during Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival in 2016.

The three Ice&Fire performers took turns in telling the stories of a Kurdish unaccompanied minor, a young Pakistani man, and an Iranian woman and their experiences in Scotland. These narrations were candid and often bittersweet, taking the audience on the asylum seekers’ journeys, oscillating between the fear of state persecution and the sensations of loss, hope, and homesickness. The stories evoked the grief caused by broken families and the joys experienced through new-found friends as well as the frustrations and struggles associated with having to start from scratch and the potentials and expectations that new beginnings hold.

The performance was followed by a panel discussion, chaired by Jenny Munro from Beyond Borders Scotland. The panel comprised Professor Anthony Good, Social Anthropology; Phil Jones, manager of the Glasgow Night Shelter for Destitute Asylum Seekers; and Steven Ritchie, one of the three performers. The panellists were joined by two young men whose stories we had just heard: Tony and Aras.

Since Aras had listened to the script of his own story for the first time, he was eager to praise the performer: “It was great. You told it better than I could have!” Tony and Aras spoke to the audience about their new life in Scotland, while Phil explained how the Night Shelter’s work attempts to mitigate the difficulties faced by asylum seekers in Glasgow. Steven, who was also involved in interviewing asylum seekers, revealed more about the process of recording and retelling their life stories.

Issues surrounding the asylum process in the UK were clarified by Prof Good, who has frequently acted as an expert witness on asylum appeals in the UK and other countries. Contrary to the stories we had listened to, he elaborated, the Home Office structures its interviews with asylum seekers in a way that does not accommodate a chronological order of their experiences. Questions are often phrased ambiguously so that asylum seekers’ answers could vary, in turn leading to an intentional undermining of their credibility – a credibility required for gaining refugee status.

After a vote of thanks to the performers, panellists, and sponsors, the event ended with much applause and a donation appeal. The audience donated a total of nearly £200, which was equally split to support the work of Amnesty International and the Glasgow Night Shelter.

Aimed at making the people behind immigration numbers visible again, it was a successful evening – as one attendee later commented: “I’ve been to a few discussions on refugees and asylum seekers in Scotland, but this was the first to have a more creative take with the monologues, which I thought worked really well. It’s always helpful to have a more personal take, because numbers and places are difficult to bring to life.  I thought it was great all in so thanks for putting it together.”

Grit Wesser organised The Asylum Monologues event with Helene Frössling (Scottish Graduate School of Social Science) and Hannah Cook (Centre for African Studies), and in collaboration with Beyond Borders Scotland and Ice&Fire. The event was co-supported by the Global Justice and Global Development Academies’ through their joint Innovative Initiative Fund.

MBA Team Syria: Making a Difference to the Community

Citizenship and Belonging, Conflict, EU, Globally Just Leadership, Human rights, Immigration, Local-Global Connections, Refugees, Scotland, Students participate!, Syria

DSC00990As a part of the Strategic Leadership course on Edinburgh’s MBA programme, a group of five students organised a social event to help draw awareness to the Syrian refugee crisis. In this guest post, Debjani Paul offers an overview of the event, which centred around the the personal life experiences of three Syrians now settled in Edinburgh – Aamer Hanouf, Hussen Al Ajraf, and Amer Masri.

With the rising global concerns including climate change, an increase in global population, poverty, and terrorism, world leaders have much to focus on. It is becoming a new norm for companies to be socially responsible by promoting sustainability and contributing at least in one of the global concerns, also known as Corporate Social Responsibility. This is the ethical way to do business that every future leader should practice.

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Out of Serbia

Balkans, EU, Europe, Human rights, Immigration, Inequalities, Refugees

This post was first published on the author’s Remotely Balkan blog, and is re-blogged here with permission.

This post is by Laura Wise. Laura is an Analyst on the Global Justice Academy’s Political Settlements Research Programme. Her research interests include minority mobilisation, state-society relations, and conflict management in South-Eastern Europe.

Röszke, Vasfüggönnyel a bevándorlók ellen. Képen: Szögesdrót a röszkei határátkelőnél. fotó: Segesvári Csaba

Röszke, Vasfüggönnyel a bevándorlók ellen.
Képen: Szögesdrót a röszkei határátkelőnél.
fotó: Segesvári Csaba

The Balkan Express is no more.

Replaced by luxury international coaches from Vienna to Sarajevo, with on-board toilets that work, Wi-Fi, and conductors who serve drinks, gone are the potholed, unreliable minibus journeys that make classic travellers’ tales for the Western backpacker. Last month I made a fleeting visit back to the Balkans; the kind of trip where you spend hours on the aforementioned buses just to meet friends for coffee. It was also a chance to reunite with rakia, and revisit bars where the pop-folk of Dado Polumenta is an acceptable choice of music. However, most of my conversations and experiences kept returning to a more sobering topic: Europe.

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What Can Scotland Do?

Conflict, Human rights, Immigration, Refugees, Scotland, Student Ambassadors

Rebecca Smyth is a Global Justice Academy Student Ambassador for 2015-16. In this post, Rebecca reflects on the third in our series of Rapid Response Roundtables on the current refugee crisis. Rebecca also report from the second roundtable, ‘Is the Global Refugee Regime Fit for Purpose?’.

Chaired by Dr Patrycja Stys of the Centre of African Studies, this event was the last of three organised by the Global Justice Academy in relation to the current refugee crisis.

It began with a screening of LIVED’s Learning to Swim, a short documentary that aims to share something of the everyday lives of displaced young Syrians in the Zaatari Refugee Camp, the village of Zaatari, and Amman in Jordan. It’s a very special piece. Through seemingly disjointed snippets of interviews and footage, it gives a sense of the inner lives and daily routines of children and young people caught up in the Syrian conflict. We meet a girl who loves football, kites and fried food, and whose favourite place is Homs, a place of roses and affectionate people.

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Is the International Refugee Regime Fit for Purpose?

Conflict, Refugees, Response, Student Ambassadors

Rebecca Smyth is a Global Justice Academy Student Ambassador for 2015-16. In this post, Rebecca reflects on the second in our series of Rapid Response Roundtables on the current refugee crisis. Rebecca will also report from the final roundtable, ‘What Can Scotland Do?’.

This panel discussion was a follow-on event from the first panel discussion held at the beginning of October on the roots of the current Syrian crisis. The panel was comprised of Professor Christina Boswell and Dr Lucy Lowe from the School of Social and Political Science; campaigner Amal Azzudin of the Mental Health Foundation; and Jamie Kerr, Partner at Thorntons Solicitors specialising in Immigration Law. It was chaired by Dr Mathias Thaler.

“The international refugee regime is spectacularly not fit for purpose”

Drawing upon her academic research and own experience working with the UNHCR in the mid-1990s, Professor Boswell demonstrated the ways in which the origins of the current global refugee regime have combined with EU policy to create an unsustainable system for dealing with the current refugee crisis.

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