Speech #970252010

Mr. Speaker. the U.S. Committee for Refugees recently published its annual survey on the plight of refugees throughout the world in 1982. I would like to commend this publication to my colleagues and all who are interested in obtaining a realistic appraisal of the conditions and forces which compel people to flee their homes and countries and seek protection and aid in another land. This timely report describes the major issues. concerns. and activities of the international organizations and the private voluntary organizations which seek to assist these refugees and displaced people and wherever possible aid them to return to their homelands. Among the issues reported on are asylum. refugee protection. and statistics on refugee populations and durable solutions to the refugee problem. Roger Winter. a former Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement at the Department of Health and Human Services. has a most timely article on "Who Is A Refugee" in this 1982 report. Commenting on the historical evolution of the term "refugee." Mr. Winter. who is now the associate director for public affairs of the American Council for Nationalities Services. notes that the first Convention on Refugees was only prepared in 1951 and ratified in 1954. That document limited its description of refugees to those who were suffering due to the impact of World War II. The current U.N. Convention and Protocol relating to the status of refugees and removed the time limit in the definition has been signed by 90 governments. but several countries of first asylum. including Thailand have not ratified it. Mr. Speaker. I ask that Mr. Winters article "Who Is a Refugee" be reprinted in todays REcolw and I commend the chairman of the ACNS. Mr. David Cogan. and BenJamim Gim. the current president of ACNS for their effort to prepare and publish this excellent report. WHo Is A RtFUOE? (By Roger P. Winter) One modern dictionary defines "refugee" as a "person who flees to find refuge. especially one who escapes invasion. oppression. or persecution." Colloquially the term is often used interchangeably with "migrant." "immigrant." "asylum seeker" or even "illegal alien." There are many characteristics that refugees share with other migrating people. but there are also important distinctions recognized by international law. Because peoples lives and futures are frequently at stake in refugee emergencies. it is important that it be clear who is a refugee and who is not. With this knowledge and understanding. appropriate responses to the worlds refugee situations can be formulated. The meaning of the term refugee evolved over a 60year period from specific to generic. Until 1951 most nations considered refugees in terms of a specified group of people fleeing a specific country or group of countries for reasons of belief or status. In 1951 the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees was adopted by a conference of plenipotentiaries of the United Nations. On April 21. 1954. the convention was adopted by the required minimum of six nations and went into effect. The convention provided the first international "bill of rights" for refugees. It provided for travel documents for refugees. set forth the principle of nonrefoulement. which states that a refugee cannot be returned by force to the country from which he fled. and stated that refugees are entitled to the same basic human rights enjoyed by nationals of the asylum country. The definition of refugee put forth by the convention is: "A person who as a result of events occurring before January 1. 1951. and owing to wellfounded fear of being persecuted for reasons or race. religion. nationality. membership in a particular social group. or political opinion. is outside the country of his nationality and is unable. or owing to such fear. is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country." The four key elements of the conventions definition were its time limitationrefugees. it implies. were generated by the effects of World War II. its fundamental reliance on the concept of a "wellfounded fear of being persecuted." its specification of forms of persecution which could qualify one for refugee status. and its limitation to persons outside their country of nationality. Over time the International community grew to recognize that protection for individuals other than those covered by the conventions time period was a necessity. As a result. the General Assembly produced the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees which became effective on October 4. 1056. States which bind themselves to the protocol fundamentally agree that the substan. tive provisions of the convention will be ap. plied generically to refugees without reference to the 1951 date. although Individuals declared to be refugees under prior international agreements would be blanketed in. International protection of and assistance to refugees. and administration of the convention and protocol were assigned by the statute to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. (Parties which have acceded to the convention or protocol are listed on the next page.) The U.S. did not statutorily adopt the UN definition of refugee until enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980 (Public Law 96212). Prior to that act. the U.S. defined refugees in ad hoc legislative enactments. exclusively in an anticommunist context. As enacted. the act went further than the protocol to include as a refugee "any person who is within the country of such persons nation. ality ... who is persecuted or has a well. founded fear of persecution..." under spe. cial conditions. The determination of refugee status is normally the responsibility of the nation in whose territory the individual is located at the time he applies for recognition of his status. Recognition of a persons status as a refugee does not make him a refugee. but declares him to be one. However. until recognized as a refugee. a person is not normally included in refugee statistics nor does he receive UNHCR assistance. In a nation which has not acceded to the convention or protocol. a person can be determined by UNHCR to be a refugee and receive its protection. Thus. even among competent authorities. there can be differences in whether or not a particular individual is considered a refugee. There are persons in the world who are refugees who have not been formally declared such for one reason or another. and there are persons who are in refugeelike situations who technically do not meet the protocols definition strictly applied. One major reason for this phenomenon is that such refugeelike persons are often still within the borders of their homeland. Those individuals are often labeled "internally displaced" persons. It should be noted. however. that since no single international authority has responsibility for such persons. authoritative figures on the internally displaced are difficult to gather and frequently are imprecise. In a personal rather than legal sense. refugees are ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Refugees. like other migrating people. generally want to better their lives and the lives of their families. They sometimes immigrate to an industrialized society such as the U.S. or Western Europe. They frequently are poor. not because they had no resources but because they lost their belongings when they fled their homeland. Refugees often have experienced the loss of or separation from members of their families as a result of their flight. All have lost their homeland and are removed from the centers of their cultures and traditions. Their disaster is not natural. it is manmade. What most clearly distinguishes a refugee from other migrants is specified in international and U.S. law: their motive for departure is fear of specific forms of persecution. For members of the Bahai faith fleeing Iran. for example. it is fear of that nations organized attempt to exterminate members of that religious group. For many Poles. it is fear of the Polish governments program of erasing political opposition.