Are there really no refugees in the GCC-states? Establishing a basis for further research
Charlotte Lysa
Journal of Arabian Studies (forthcoming 2023)
The GCC-states, all with large migrant populations are often seen as states without refugees. None are party to the Refugee Convention – and hence not bound by international legal definitions of refugees. With few exceptions, refugees are absent in research on the GCC-states – and the GCC-states are equally absent in research on refugees. This paper argues that there is a high number of de-facto refugees in these states, and a lack of recognition contributes to invisibilizing these – despite the challenges brought about due to their situation as de facto refugees. A reorientation is required. This implies a new understanding of who is in fact a refugee in the GCC-states, and further to center these in any future research on the topic. This paper is a first attempt at establishing a broader understanding of GCC-states’ response to refugee situations through a discussion of historical and contemporary cases representing potential avenues for further research. Importantly, this is not done through a normative argument of refugee response in these states vis-à-vis other states, but rather by de-exceptionalzing refugee response in the GCC-states and centering those present seeking refuge in order to better understand the realities influencing refugee lives.
Refugees and Arab States: the New Norm-al?
Dallal Stevens
In T. Fakhoury and D. Chatty (eds), Refugee Governance inte the Arab World: The International Refugee Regime and Global Politics. Bloomsbury Publishing
(forthcoming 2023)
The focus of scholarship has historically considered whether or how the norm of international refugee protection has been adopted and applied in the domestic setting. Less consideration has been given to alternative models or understandings of refugee protection, which incorporate a ‘bottom-up’ approach, where actions and views of individual states – or indeed refugees – also feed into the conceptualisation of ‘protection’ and its provision. Equally, the role that non-contracting states, contracting states that have weak or non-existent refugee-determination processes, or states from the Global South have played in the development of the norm of refugee protection, has also been under-analysed and under-appreciated. This chapter seeks to redress the imbalance in part.
To test the role that Arab countries might have played in norm development and how far they have influenced refugee governance more generally, I provide a brief introduction to refugee law in the Arab World and the role – or otherwise – that Arab countries have played in international refugee law development. I move on to the fundamental norm of refugee protection, exploring the ‘shifts in responsibility’ to UNHCR, the Arab MOUs, protection and Palestinians, and the effects of the Iraqi and Syrian displacement on protection in practice and policy. I conclude with some reflections, describing what I refer to as the new norm-al – a greater understanding and appreciating of the impact Arab states have played – and continue to play – in norm development in relation to refugees.
Doing Refugee Right(s) with Technologies? Humanitarian Crises and the Multiplication of “Exceptional” Legal States
Mirjam Twigt
Refugee Survey Quarterly (2023)
The GCC-states, all with large migrant populations are often seen as states without refugees. None are party to the Refugee Convention – and hence not bound by international legal definitions of refugees. With few exceptions, refugees are absent in research on the GCC-states – and the GCC-states are equally absent in research on refugees. This paper argues that there is a high number of de-facto refugees in these states, and a lack of recognition contributes to invisibilizing these – despite the challenges brought about due to their situation as de facto refugees. A reorientation is required. This implies a new understanding of who is in fact a refugee in the GCC-states, and further to center these in any future research on the topic. This paper is a first attempt at establishing a broader understanding of GCC-states’ response to refugee situations through a discussion of historical and contemporary cases representing potential avenues for further research. Importantly, this is not done through a normative argument of refugee response in these states vis-à-vis other states, but rather by de-exceptionalzing refugee response in the GCC-states and centering those present seeking refuge in order to better understand the realities influencing refugee lives.
Saudi Arabia and the International Refugee Regime
Maja Janmyr and Charlotte Lysa
International Journal of Refugee Law (2023)
As a non-signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, Saudi Arabia is often portrayed as a State that refuses engagement with the global legal norms and supporting institutions focused on the protection of refugees. This article contends that this is not the case, and closely examines Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the international refugee regime by asking what was Saudi Arabia’s role in the drafting of the main refugee protection instruments, and what is its approach – past and present – to acceding to the 1951 Convention? How does Saudi Arabia engage with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) – on the global plane but also through UNHCR’s activities in the country?
Drawing on hitherto unresearched material from the UNHCR archives pertaining to the years 1962–94, as well as interviews with key government and UNHCR actors, this article argues that Saudi Arabia engages substantively with the international refugee regime. It discusses how Saudi Arabia participated in the drafting processes of the main refugee protection instruments and shows that accession to the 1951 Convention appears to have been seriously considered at certain junctures.
The article also explores Saudi Arabia’s relationship with UNHCR. In addition to focusing on Saudi Arabia’s role in the UNHCR Executive Committee, it looks more closely at UNHCR’s activities in the country, identifying three phases of UNHCR involvement – establishment (1987–97), expansion (1998–2005), and consolidation (2005–). It finds that UNHCR’s approach to Saudi Arabia is characterized by pragmatism rather than by principle, and that Saudi Arabia has been able to influence the way UNHCR implements its mandate in the country, as well as beyond. Importantly, Saudi Arabia is a gatekeeper for UNHCR operations in the Gulf region and in Muslim-majority countries more generally. Similarly, UNHCR is an important vessel for Saudi Arabian humanitarianism.
Introduction: Rights mobilisation in the Middle East and North Africa region
Mirjam Twigt, Nora Milch and Abdullah Yassen
Forced Migration Review (2023)
Worldwide, procedures and processes put in place for refugee rights-recognition fall short. They can be elusive and frequently draw upon exclusionary mechanisms such as focusing on national backgrounds or narrow understandings of vulnerability. For activists, pursuing rights-recognition entails risks, particularly in environments that are often already not favourable to refugees. For instance, the negative effects of increased anti-migrant rhetoric on people who have sought protection can be seen starkly in Tunisia, where such rhetoric is negatively impacting their already precarious legal stay in the country. In this context, this special feature asks: what role(s) can localised or transnational acts of mobilisation play in supporting the rights of forced migrants in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA)?
The articles in this special feature bring our attention to initiatives geared towards strengthening the rights of forced migrants across the MENA region. The authors show the importance of acts of mobilisation in different locations and contexts. However, they do not shy away from reflecting on the many obstacles that often confront such efforts. Some of these obstacles concern the complex legal landscapes these initiatives are operating in. Other obstacles relate to donor restrictions, European containment policies and practices, and the increasingly widespread criminalisation of solidarity – the process of illegalising support for other people’s human rights.
UNHCR’s Expansion to the GCC states: Establishing a UNHCR Presence in Saudi Arabia 1987-1993
Maja Janmyr and Charlotte Lysa
Middle East Critique (2023)
How does the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) establish its presence in states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)? And how does it negotiate the legal frameworks needed to formally operate in these states? Focusing on the historical case of Saudi Arabia, this article attends to these pertinent questions. Based on UNHCR archival material and interviews with key actors, it details how an unprecedented opportunity for UNHCR to establish a formal presence in Saudi Arabia emerged in the context of the 1991 Gulf War. The article argues that Saudi Arabia’s hosting of Iraqi refugees in the Rafha camp provided a watershed moment for UNHCR to carve out an official presence by, first, negotiating a Note Verbale providing UNHCR with official recognition in 1992, and second, a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 1993. Importantly, this MoU provides the basis for UNHCR-Saudi relations still today.
Syrisk flyktning eller arbeidsmigrant? Flyktningebeskyttelse og risiko for tvangsretur under Libanons kafala-system
Nora Milch
Babylon - Nordisk tidsskrift for Midtøstenstudier (2022)
Libanon står på randen av økonomisk kollaps og presset for å returnere flyktninger til Syria, øker. Hvilken betydning har det at en stor andel syrere er kategorisert som arbeidsmigranter heller enn flyktninger?
I denne artikkelen bidrar jeg til forskningen på flyktningers beskyttelse i Libanon ved å spesifikt undersøke hvilken betydning kategoriseringen av syriske flyktninger som arbeidsmigranter, som kafala-systemet effektiv bidrar til, har for risikoen for retur til Syria. Her vil jeg også bidra med en kritisk undersøkelse av koblingen mellom humanitære organisasjoners promotering av flyktningers selvforsørgelse og Libanons kategorisering av syrere som arbeidsmigranter.
Governing Refugees in Saudi Arabia (1948–2022)
Charlotte Lysa
Refugee Survey Quarterly (2022)
Saudi Arabia is a non-signatory state to the Refugee Convention, with no domestic refugee law. Its refugee population is generally not categorised as such. Based on these facts, Saudi Arabia is largely missing from the refugee studies literature in general, and the increasing scholarship on refugee protection in states not signatory to the Refugee Convention in particular. What characterises refugee governance in wealthy, non-signatory states with a largely invisible refugee population? And, how does the “Saudi approach” to refugee protection relate to those of other non-signatory states? Based on hitherto unresearched archival material, interviews, and openly available sources it argues that while there are no legal framework for governing refugees in Saudi Arabia, the state has adopted ad-hocratic policies, which nevertheless followed a certain pattern when refugee situations emerge. This ad-hocratic approach is similar to that found in other non-signatory states in the Middle East and North Africa; the state responds to particular situations based on nationality or ethno-religious affiliations, keeping refugees strictly temporary and often on opaque terms. Where the situation in Saudi Arabia differs, is in the role undertaken by UNHCR who instead of acting as a “surrogate state” takes on a lobbying and monitoring role.
Refugee Participation through Representative Committees: UNHCR and the Sudanese Committee in Beirut
Maja Janmyr
Journal of Refugee Studies (2022)
The notions of refugee participation and empowerment are core – but highly debated and poorly implemented – standards of humanitarian response. Drawing on empirical research in Lebanon, this article offers an account of the ways in which – and which not – meaningful refugee participation and empowerment are achieved through representative committees. Spotlighting the case of the UNHCR-supported Sudanese refugee committee in Beirut 2014-2015, it focuses on three intricate and interrelated concerns – refugee participation, representation and autonomy. The article finds that the design and function of the committee made it difficult for refugees to share authority with UNHCR over decisions that impact their lives. The committee was primarily seen by UNHCR as a good in and of itself rather than as an opportunity to actively involve refugees in decision-making processes. The article suggests that there is ample room for the development of more meaningful participation that better integrates the capabilities, preferences and agencies of persons living as refugees.
UNHCR and the Algerian war of independence: postcolonial sovereignty and the globalization of the international refugee regime, 1954–63
Malika Rahal and Benjamin Thomas White
Journal of Global History (March 2022)
The Algerian war of independence (1954-62) was crucial to the extension of the modern international refugee regime beyond Europe. It is also the exemplar of how that regime became a site for the establishment of postcolonial sovereignty, globally. Tunisia and Morocco, newly independent, requested UNHCR’s help in assisting hundreds of thousands of Algerian refugees: interacting with the refugee regime allowed them to establish their credentials as independent states while asserting sovereignty over their own territories. In Algeria, the 1951 Refugee Convention applied before the war started, and UNHCR worked there to support ‘old’ refugees. During the war, the Front de Libération Nationale asserted itself as a state-in-waiting by engaging with UNHCR outside Algeria as the agency coordinated a vast relief operation. After the war, as refugees returned to a landscape riven by mass displacement, interacting with the refugee regime helped the new state assert sovereignty over Algeria’s territory, and Algerian bodies.
Sudanese Refugees and the “Syrian Refugee Response” in Lebanon: Racialised Hierarchies, Processes of Invisibilisation, and Resistance
Maja Janmyr
Refugee Survey Quarterly (September 2021)
By focusing on Sudanese refugees and asylum-seekers in Lebanon, who in 2018 constituted 4 per cent of all persons of concern to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in that country, this article explores how the UNHCR protects and assists refugees not encompassed by the mainstream humanitarian response. The article finds that in terms of refugee recognition, resettlement, and overall protection, Sudanese refugees receive differential treatment when compared with the more dominant refugee groups. More precisely, it argues that the humanitarian practices contribute to structural processes of invisibilisation of the particularities of the protection concerns and circumstances of Sudanese refugees. It spotlights how, while racism and racial discrimination remain major protection concerns for the Sudanese community in Lebanon, humanitarian vulnerability assessments are altogether blind to these categories of harm. In examining how Sudanese refugees respond to and resist such processes of invisibilisation, the article also examines two key collective action approaches through which Sudanese refugees seek to access better protection and assistance: the establishment of representative refugee committees, on the one hand, and refugee protest, on the other. It finds that refugee protest was an important means of countering humanitarian processes of invisibilisation.
Regional Refugee Regimes: Middle East
Maja Janmyr and Dallal Stevens
The Oxford Handbook of International Refugee Law (Oxford University Press, 2021)
This chapter defines the Middle East to include Arab States, Israel and Turkey but excluding North African countries, with the exception of Egypt. It explores the role of the Refugee Convention, the UNHCR and other influential NGOs and of international human rights law to protect asylum seekers and refugees in the region. The chapter opens with a brief outline of the Middle Eastern context, historical background in relation to international refugee law and the significance of the UNHCR/UNRWA in Arab states. It compares the approach of signatory and non-signatory states and considers the consequences of failures to incorporate the Convention as well as the use of relevant domestic legislation to deal with asylum seekers and refugees. An important focus of this chapter is how – and whether – refugee protection is achieved across the region in light of the different approaches adopted by states to refugeehood, arising from historical, political and religious (Islamic) notions of hospitality and the treatment of foreigners, as well as to the role of law.