On pathways for admission of Syrian Refugees

A one-day, high-level meeting on global responsibility sharing through pathways for admission of Syrian refugees was held 30 March 2016 in Geneva . The meeting was bookended by the 4 February 2016 Supporting Syria conference in London, the 23-24 May 2016 World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, and the 19 September 2016 Summit Addressing Large Movements of Refugees […]

On past as prologue [5]

Leon Gordenker, Refugees in International Politics (1987) — The misery of refugees thus dulls the glitter of unilateral, short-term campaigning by governments. The homeless, persecuted, hungry, confused people who turn up at border posts and distant airports signify the costs of conflict within and among societies and states. They are living monuments to war, disorder, […]

On past as prologue

As I barrel through a ton of older literature, I’ll be posting quotes that read like they were written today — From: Alte Grahl-Madsen, Chapter 21: “Identifying the World’s Refugees” (1983), in Peter Macalister-Smith and Gudmundur Alfredsson (eds.), The Land Beyond: Collected Essays on Refugee Law and Policy by Alte Grahl-Madsen (2001), p. 259. Stemming the […]

On emergency

Held on 5 February, the Foreign Policy program at Brookings hosted the American Academy in Berlin for the 2016 Richard C. Holbrooke Forum focusing on the global refugee crisis. I finally got around to watching the interesting exchange between Leon Wieseltier, Michael Ignatieff, and Martin Indyk. Worth watching for Wieseltier’s brief discussion about emergency; of his current research on […]

On implementing EU-Turkey agreement

Standard Operating Procedures implementing the mechanism for resettlement from Turkey to the EU as set out in the EU-Turkey Statement of 18 March 2016 EU-Turkey refugee deal: staff shortages and rights concerns pose twin threat / Fears grow over refugee safety with EU returns plan set to take effect / Greece insists refugee deportations will […]

On historical resettlement planning

From FMR 49 – Lessons from planned relocation and resettlement in the past, read by Jane McAdam: In 1942-1945, US President Roosevelt launched a covert “M” project to study resettlement sites around the world, resulting in 660 land studies in 90+ volumes.

On “Resettlement Plus”

UNHCR just published their supplemental appeal, Strengthening refugee resettlement and other pathways to admission and solutions: Global Strategy 2016. From page 4, UNCHR Strategy, UNHCR’s response to this unprecedented level of requests for referrals of refugees for resettlement and other forms of admission centers on: The immediate scale up of capacity for resettlement processing, including through […]

On debates re: European burden sharing

17-18.03.2016: European Council Conclusions; UNHCR response 15.03.2016: “Later, this month, [Grandi] will issue an appeal for member states [of the UN] to accept at least 10 percent of Syria’s refugees. That’s 400,000 people who need to be resettled, including about 170,000 whom nations have already promised to take,” UN Refugee Chief: Western Leaders Stir Up […]

On creative solutions [2]

UDI’s Director, Frode Forfang, recently wrote a blog post about rethinking the international refugee regime (det internasjonale flyktningregimet) by – if I understand him correctly – doing away with asylum in favor of a European-based quota system — La oss tenke oss et helt annet system. Et system der Europa hvert år tok imot opptil […]

On 2016 projected global resettlement needs

UNHCR’s 2016 projected global resettlement needs is a treasure trove of context as to what’s going on, statistically, and the behind the scenes of global resettlement. From page 17, Strategic response 2015 – 2016 The Resettlement Service will: • Expand global capacity and response: Resettlement needs continue to outstrip the number of available places, particularly […]