Held in New York, this workshop examined the current methods used to address displaced populations and suggestions for improvements building upon a multilateral framework.

Forced migration is currently occurring at historically high rates. According to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR) statistics, there are currently 17.9 million forced migrants outside the borders of their citizenship. Moreover, the number of expellees has sharply increased because of war, terror, and state breakdown in the Middle East: since 2011, three million people have fled Syria alone. In addition, there are another 33.3 million people who are “internally displaced,” forced to flee their places of residence but who are still within the borders of their state. In total, 51.2 million people have fled and/or been expelled from their homes. This total is 15 million higher than in 2012. A cursory glance of refugee flows shows that state failure and war rather than economic crisis are the main drivers of forced population growth: Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq, followed closely by Somalia, are the main sources of forced migrants. Afghanistan held the top position for decades until being recently displaced by Syria.

These massive numbers, each one masking a tale of human suffering, is one part of the problem. The second is the length of time spent in a state of legal, economic, and political uncertainty. When migrants flee or are driven out, they may be protected in five ways. The first, and most generous, is a grant of asylum by a state signatory to the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (and its 1967 protocol). The major receiving countries of asylum claims are wealthy liberal democracies: Germany, the US, France, Turkey and the UK (Turkey’s applications are inflated by the Syrian crisis). The second means of protection is resettlement in a wealthy country (mainly the US and Canada). The third is through admission to a refugee camp that is run by a state, UNHCR, or both. The fourth is as a refugee in an urban area, with vastly varying rights and economic opportunities depending on the host country and whether or not they are under a UNHCR mandate.  And the fifth solution is through return following an improvement in the conditions that led to flight or expulsion in the first place.

Only a minority of the world’s refugees is granted Convention asylum status, resettled, or returned. Globally, approximately 38% of asylum applications receive a grant of refugee status (in Europe, the figure is close to 30%); some 100,000 displaced persons are returned each year; and some 90,000 are resettled.  By far the most common experience for refugees is a state of legal limbo in a refugee camp or in an urban settling. A small majority of refugees (52%) under UNHCR monitoring is in urban areas; the rest are in refugee camps.