The Politicization of Refugee Protection: Possibilities of Refinement of International Refugee Governance!

Unfortunately, international legal instruments that accord rights to refugees are somewhat limited in scope. This has led to a series of structural gaps in the global refugee protection regime. Three gaps are worthy of particular attention: First, there is no international mechanism to enforce the rights of refugees. Refugees are largely reliant on national governments to recognize them as refugees and to uphold their rights; they have little formal recourse if national governments fail to do so. Second, the refugee protection regime does not include any obligations for countries to protect refugees outside of their national borders. This creates an incentive for countries to prevent refugees from reaching their territory if they wish to avoid obligations towards refugees. And third, although the preamble of the refugee convention recognizes that the responsibilities associated with providing asylum may fall uneven on countries, and the refugee governance thus requires international cooperation, it provides no guidance how those responsibilities can be shared. Thus, wealthy countries and countries that host very few refugees often fail to provide adequate financial or logistical support to countries that are home to large number of refugees. These three structural gaps are a result of the processes followed to reach international agreement on refugee issues. They are also a product of the political and national interests of countries that have been most able to influence those agreements. For this reason, it has historically been difficult to address concerns relating to responsibility sharing, durable solutions and safe passage for refugees on the move.