Alex Aleinikoff: The UN Refugee Summit: What Can Be Achieved?
World leaders are poised to gather in New York on Monday at the United Nations headquarters for a summit to discuss the world’s growing humanitarian protection crisis and migration more broadly. In advance of the Summit for Refugees and Migrants, hosted by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a draft outcome document was negotiated among Member States. In a new commentary, MPI Senior Fellow and former Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees T. Alexander Aleinikoff examines the outcome document’s strong points and gaps, as well as the process itself. “The important question is whether anything will have changed the day after the summit. To some degree the answer will be “no”—or at least not much,” he writes. “The summit will do little to ameliorate the humanitarian crisis facing migrants undertaking dangerous journeys to Europe. It will not call for the convening of a global conference on Syrian refugees (or Afghan, Somali, or Eritrean refugees). It will not establish new norms for forced migrants who do not fit within the Convention’s definition of refugee. Nor will it provide a system of accountability for implementation of the new business model of refugee protection and assistance. It is widely recognized that millions of persons will be forced from their homes in the future because of natural disasters and climate change, yet the summit will not produce outcomes concerning these issues.” While acknowledging that the outcome document will not bind Member States to new obligations, Aleinikoff finds value in its creation and expected approval in an era of increasingly contentious debates and rhetoric surrounding refugees and migration. And the summit’s most significant contribution, he suggests, may be the commitment to a two-year process to draft a Global Compact on Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration and a Global Compact on Refugees.
This timely commentary is available here.
KJ