Refugee Resettlement

Power, Politics, and Humanitarian Governance

Adèle Garnier, Liliana Lyra Jubilut, Kristin Bergtora Sandvik, Ad�le Garnier, Liliana Lyra Jubilut, Kristin Bergtora Sandvik

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781785339455
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Émigration et immigration

Examining resettlement practices worldwide and drawing on contributions from anthropology, law, international relations, social work, political science, and numerous other disciplines, this ground-breaking volume highlights the conflicts between refugees' needs and state practices, and assesses international, regional and national perspectives on resettlement, as well as the bureaucracies and ideologies involved. It offers a detailed understanding of resettlement, from the selection of refugees to their long-term integration in resettling states, and highlights the relevance of a lifespan approach to resettlement analysis.

Part I

Refugee Resettlement in International and Regional Perspectives

1

Strategic Use of Resettlement

Enhancing Solutions for Greater Protection?

Joanne van Selm

Introduction

“Getting the biggest bang for the buck” is a suggestion that comes up in interviews with officials in many governments and organizations when discussing the Strategic Use of Resettlement (SUR). It seems straightforward—get the most out of efforts to resettle refugees. The question is, however, is it that simple? Does having motives beyond the resettlement of a refugee individual or family actually assist in the search for solutions or protection?

The SUR was introduced by Canadian-led Working Group on Resettlement in 2003 and defined as follows:

The strategic use of resettlement is the planned use of resettlement in a manner that maximizes the benefits, directly or indirectly, other than those received by the refugee being resettled. Those benefits may accrue to other refugees, the hosting state, other states or the international protection regime in general. (UNHCR 2003)

The concept of SUR, at heart, can be read as a simple statement: if deployed carefully, the very conscious and deliberate act of resettling a refugee for protection and a durable solution in a safe country can be given additional purpose. This additional purpose could be found in consequences for other refugees and for countries, as well as for the international refugee protection and humanitarian regime more broadly. In other words, resettlement does not stand alone. It is part of a bigger picture, and by being strategic (or at least tactical) in offering the limited number of resources available for actual resettlement, states could, in theory, bring benefits beyond the positive outcomes for the individuals and families resettled.

The central question for this chapter is whether SUR presents a practical path to increased protection broadly and more focused resettlement activity in particular, or whether SUR could better be considered as simply a concept. In the latter case, SUR would just be a thought to bear in mind when making choices about situations in which resettlement could play a role. A third alternative might be that the concept is too clumsy to be useful. One of the key ways to assess SUR’s potential, and match that up against its emerging reality, is to look at the language used and motives given for various resettlement policy decisions around the world.

An underlying issue in approaching this question is an understanding of the distribution of power in both the refugee protection and solutions regime broadly and in resettlement in particular. In this context, reflections on power can relate both to traditional state power, and the potential sway of international organizations, and to the more subtle power of persuasion. The focus here will be on the subtle power of persuasion and on the power of ideas in terms of cross-fertilization and targeted use of an approach to stimulate or sustain interest in other areas. Here again, the language used and motives given for resettlement decisions demonstrate a certain use of power.

This chapter will survey the role of SUR and the closely associated “enhanced resettlement” in sustaining interest in resettlement writ large and adding to the refugee protection regime. It will rely on reports written on the subject from 2003 (its introduction) to today. The analysis of those reports is supplemented by conversations with policy makers over several years regarding their thinking on whether SUR has continued potential. The approach taken is one of policy analysis. It is qualitative and based on political and juridical thinking: while offering some data, it has to be noted that there is limited work or research on SUR and, as such, this chapter offers as much a process of thought as it does a thorough academic argument.

In theory, SUR offers opportunities for rethinking and refashioning not only resettlement but also the whole refugee protection regime—from orderly arrivals in developed countries to knock-on effects in terms of greater protection capacity in regions of origin. In both theory and practice, however, there are many pitfalls, including in the consequences of language used (with the emphasis on strategy and multipliers, rather than protection) and in the devaluing of the resettlement activity as a good in and of itself.

If SUR has had any success since its inception, it has lain in the power of the idea—the notion that resettlement can be employed or deployed for other purposes. However, the very danger that SUR brings to resettlement could be that if used for a purpose other than a durable solution for refugee protection needs, then resettlement could easily be abused or misused, undermining this very valuable solution tool.

How Did SUR Emerge?

SUR was introduced in 2003 as part of the Convention Plus initiative led by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This initiative flowed from the Agenda for Protection, itself an outcome of the Global Consultations marking the fiftieth anniversary of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. That anniversary came in a period in which the convention was being called into question on many sides, with political parties in various developed states suggesting that it was no longer useful or relevant, and amid North-South tensions over the issue of solidarity and the location and financing of refugees and their protection.¹

Interest in SUR specifically flowed from the confluence of three major trends that gave rise to a desire to reinvigorate or recast the traditional durable solution of resettlement. First there were serious limitations placed on the biggest resettlement program globally (that of the United States) following the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in 2001. Second, this was a time when European states were experiencing what then seemed like an asylum crisis (the events of 2015–2016 cast that in a different light), and not (yet) conducting any significant levels of resettlement. Third, existing resettlement countries and UNHCR had been seeking new partners in expanding resettlement for the benefit of the overall systems and a more solutions-oriented approach (van Selm 2003; Sandvik, this volume; Garnier 2014).

Over time, a renewed focus on comprehensive solutions also emerged, into which SUR played perfectly (van Selm 2004, 2013). Protracted refugee crises, stagnant for years or even decades in some cases (Thomson, this volume), might be resolved if some of the caseload were to be resettled, opening the way for others (perhaps dependent on specific group characteristics) to return home or achieve substantive local integration (on this, see Losoncz, this volume).

The intended appeal of SUR is clear: encourage more resettlement and more thoughtfulness in resettlement choices by focusing not only on the relatively small number of refugees who are resettled but also on any added benefits for others that can be gained through that resettlement. Officials who have been central to the development of SUR over the past decade often cite their search for “the multiplier effect.”² By achieving a multiplication of impacts, there could also be an increase in willingness to resettle, and thus in both places available and destination countries involved (Jubilut and Zamur; Vera Espinoza, this volume).

The more cynical practitioners, perhaps naturally, have focused on issues such as why there cannot simply be more resettlement, because in and of itself resettlement, as a durable solution and “burden-sharing” tool is a “good thing.”³ Why would one have to layer other solutions or outcomes into the equation? Others have asked whether the significant resources needed for each individual resettlement case could be better channeled into a stronger and more direct approach in regions of origin, including in conflict prevention and resolution and in support to neighboring states hosting hundreds of thousands of displaced persons (Loescher and Milner 2003). So, it can reasonably be said that while SUR offers opportunities, it is also replete with pitfalls and challenges.

To be clear, it is far from being the case that all resettlement is, or ever would be, “used strategically”—although, as will be seen below, there is an increasing push toward developing “enhanced resettlement” that might be viewed as a more positive version of essentially the same approach.

This chapter is concerned only with that resettlement that is either labeled a “Strategic Use of Resettlement” or “Enhanced Resettlement” or talked of in strategic terms and could therefore be easily construed of as being intended to be SUR. Indeed a fundamental line of argument will be that one of the greatest challenges to “genuine SUR”—the seeking of a positive multiplier effect—is governments making use of resettlement offers to seek gains that serve nonprotection, or even what might be called antirefugee protection and certainly anti-(im)migration, interests.

Setting Up a Winning Situation

The notion of SUR did not bear immediate fruits in the mid-2000s, but later in the decade major resettlement countries and UNHCR were starting to identify situations in which they could apply or adapt the concept.

As noted above, SUR was developed in the context of the Convention Plus initiative. In the early 2000s, this initiative sought to elicit commitments from all key actors in multilateral processes to strengthen refugee protection based on the convention. It was very much an initiative intended to bridge the North-South divide in refugee protection. This divide is evident in the location of refugees (predominantly in the South) and the tone of discourse on asylum and on protection (particularly harsh in the North). It is also manifest in the issue of solidarity or responsibility sharing, both in a practical and financial sense, and in the sense of support and a managed approach (Betts and Durieux 2007; Pressé and Thomson 2008). The actors involved were receiving states in the developed world and less developed states in regions of origin, UNHCR, and implementing partners, including NGOs.

The three strands of Convention Plus were resettlement, targeted development assistance to support refugee protection, and the management of irregular secondary movements (UNHCR n.d.). The resettlement strand bore fruit in the form of the SUR working paper and discussions. However, its implementation was predicated on it being part of an overarching initiative including all three Convention Plus strands—and work on the other two elements was significantly less successful. Indeed the initiative as a whole has been characterized as a failure (Betts 2009: 150–52). As such, broad progress on SUR was impeded. Although the notion had been planted, it was not nurtured in isolation from the other Convention Plus strands but lay dormant until a context for its further development arose. It was, however, in the intervening period, used as support for decisions on groups of refugees to be resettled by the United States in particular, as will be seen below.

A UNHCR position paper in 2011 reignited the concept (UNHCR 2011a) and UNHCR’s 2011 Resettlement Handbook talks of maximizing “the potential benefits from the application of this scarce resource” and how “with the active involvement of States, refugee and civil society, resettlement can open avenues for international responsibility sharing and, in combination with other measures, can open possibilities for self-reliance and integration” (UNHCR 2011b: 39). Used strategically, resettlement can, according to the handbook, “bring about positive results that go well beyond those that are usually viewed as a direct resettlement outcome” (ibid.).

UNHCR suggests the benefits of SUR can be maximized when states coordinate among themselves and with UNCHR. SUR has, or should have, greatest impact when it turns into a coordinated, comprehensive effort, not just to “use” resettlement but to develop a protection outcome that satisfies individuals, states, and societies and allows all durable solutions (so also integration and repatriation) to be applied. UNHCR and states (particularly the United States and Canada) point to a couple of successes. One was the closure of the Al-Tanf camp for Palestinians, which was achieved in part through the resettlement of ex-Iraq refugees with nowhere else to go (UNHCR 2012: 56). Another was the coordination of the Core Group on Bhutanese refugees in Nepal, which has seen a multiyear commitment to resettle tens of thousands of the 100,000 or more refugees (van Selm 2013).

Some question these apparent successes. Most Bhutanese were resettled to the United States, which was seeking to increase its own resettlement program and needed a relatively straightforward caseload, and the anticipated returns of others to Nepal did not really materialize (Banki 2008). SUR appears to some to have primarily been a tool or mantra under which resettlement decision makers in the United States could focus on groups who did not have the misfortune to be representative of those religions or ethnicities that Western states have difficulty accommodating in a time of extremist terrorism. Yet, one could also say that the concept of SUR at least presented an opportunity to focus on some of these groups and to achieve their resettlement, and durable solutions, even if it could just be a cover for avoiding some more difficult choices.

Indeed, the US resettlement program could have dwindled in the face of political opposition following 9/11. Instead UNHCR and the officials responsible for the program initially held back and then moved the program toward cases such as the Bhutanese in Nepal and the Burmese in Thailand, maintaining resettlement arrival numbers without challenging domestic US political concerns and perceptions about who was arriving. This simultaneously assisted UNHCR in clearing some backlogs and opening opportunities for other solutions for those who were not resettled from those specific situations (van Selm 2013: 36ff). This “Strategic Use of Resettlement” had an additional outcome in keeping the United States fully engaged in resettlement to the benefit of the international protection regime, as covered by the definition given by the 2003 Working Group definition of SUR. It kept the United States’ refugee resettlement program open and active. By 2016 the resettlement targets of the program had grown numerically, and groups such as Syrians in Jordan and Lebanon were getting access and a solution (for additional perspectives on resettlement in the United States, see Darrow; and Lewis and Young, this volume).

In this maintenance and growth of the United States’ resettlement program until 2016, we can observe the power of the idea. In essence, a small group of policy makers in various government agencies, as well as staff of nonprofit institutions involved in resettlement and the local UNHCR bureau, were able to employ the notion of SUR to help keep the resettlement program alive in a time of intense political pressure. Having done that, the program remained intact, ready to grow again when international developments and national politics required and permitted it.⁴

States and UNHCR frequently note that resettlement is a very scarce resource in the face of massive international (and internal) displacement (see, e.g., UNHCR 2003: para. 5).⁵ One of the intended outcomes of SUR was an increase in the resource, and indeed some countries have started to participate in resettlement over the past thirteen years, even if the overall number of places has not increased dramatically (yet), and certainly not in proportion to global needs (Garnier 2014; Cellini, this volume).

SUR has primarily been called upon as a way of focusing resettling states and UNHCR’s attention on long-standing refugee populations, in which there has been little or no movement and seems to be no end to the standstill other than through a game changer such as resettling one particular subgroup in order to achieve return or local integration for others (or indeed simply resettling an entire refugee community). Applying SUR for newer refugee groups might, perhaps, be seen as too much “strategy.”

However, UNHCR has pushed for SUR, or as it has recently more often been labeled “enhanced resettlement,” in the case of Syrians in Lebanon and Jordan (Cochetel 2015). Syrians are the focus of m...