UN, Finland, and the All Too Narrow Definition of a Refugee

by Arttu Uuranmäki

While digging into the issues raised by this course, I became soon troubled with the concept of 'persecution'. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) – which is and has been the main institution in the global refugee regime since 1950's – defines a refugee as a legal category fundamentally on the basis of persecution (UNHCR 1951). Whether the reasons were political, religious, ethnics etc. the most important requirement is to be persecuted in order to be applicable for international protection. From this definition it follows that, to become legally acknowledged as a refugee, one has to be personally targeted by a violent entity. In example it is usually regarded that the numerous bombings against civilians in Iraq by different armed groups won't count as an argument for a refugee status when one is a civilian fleeing the country.

After the initial acceptance, the definition of a refugee by UNHCR becomes suddenly rather narrow. Just few days ago a representative of United Nations warned that Saudi Arabian blockade on Yemen puts millions of individuals on risk of severe famine (BBC 2017). If this scenario would eventually come true, a person fleeing the famine would be regarded – under UNHCR – as a economic migrant, not as a refugee. The same goes for people fleeing environmental catastrophes, like a potential mass-flooding caused by global warming in near future.

  

In the two cases described, even if the threat to the lives of persons involved isn't directly caused by an human agent – as the UNHCR definition implicitly requires – the threat is still as severe to these persons' lives as it would be in the case of a ethnic cleansing. Still, these victims of forced migration aren't granted a refugee status.

The UNHCR definition was created in the wake of Cold War, and thus was initially issued to secure the rights of persons fleeing totalitarian regimes. Fortunately, there are more recent localized legal institutions trying to tackle the deficits of the UNHCR definition. As Peter Gatrell states in his publication The Making of the Modern Refugee (2014):

An important hallmark of change was the decision by the Organisation of African Unity in 1969 to adopt a Convention on Refugee Problems in Africa, according to which a refugee was any ‘person who, owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing public order in either part of the whole of his country of origin or nationality, is compelled to leave his place of habitual residence in order to seek refuge’.

As a Finnish citizen I started to wonder how the Finnish government does legally define a refugee. After contacting Amnesty International's Finnish office, I was informed that Finland's refugee legislation is mostly dictated by European Union. As it turned out, Common European Asylum System defines a refugee, again, fundamentally on the basis of persecution (Library of Congress 2016). Nothing new here then, it seems.

But could Finland do better than the EU or UNHCR does with defining and acknowledging refugees?

 

Whether Finland can or cannot is still under question: In 2017, the EU is trying to systematize it's refugee legislation even further. Amnesty International is worried that the reforms might force those member states with already more developed refugee legislation in-use to downgrade their performance (Amnesty 2016). This change could eventually mean less autonomy on refugee legislation on a national level among the member states, hampering the possibility to redefine the concept of a refugee.

Although, when it comes to Finland, the risk of downgrading comes already from within the government: Last year, the government decided to shut down the policy of international protection on humanitarian basis, without any kind of external political or legal demands.

References:  

Amnesty International Suomen Osasto: "Euroopan unionin yhteinen turvapaikkajärjestelmä" (2016) ; https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/frantic/amnesty-fi/2014/03/Lausunto-AI-FI-32_2016-HaV-EU-CEAS.pdf 

BBC: "Yemen conflict: UN officials warns of world's biggest famine" (9.11.2017) ; http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-41923769 

 Gatrell, Peter: "The Making of the Modern Refugee" (2014), in the chapter "Introduction: The Making of the Modern Refugee" 

Library of Congress, prepared by Papademetriou, Theresa: "Refugee Law and Policy: European Union" (2016) ; https://www.loc.gov/law/help/refugee-law/europeanunion.php#General 

UNHCR: "Convention and Protocol: Relating to the Status of Refugees" (1951)