Committee: High Commissioner for Refugees

Topic: How can refugees be guaranteed protection of their fundamental rights?

Over the past few decades, waves of migration have increased dramatically
worldwide. Overall, it is estimated that 281 million people will be living in a
country other than their country of birth in 2020, 128 million more than in 1990
and more than three times as many as in 1970. These different movements can be
explained by various causes, which have multiplied over the last few decades.

There are currently 26 million refugees in the world, according to figures

from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. This number is highly
indicative of the problems to which the world and its populations are exposed.
Fundamental rights are the set of basic rights that every human being can claim,
and their protection is essential for the survival of human integrity. If they are today
associated with refugees, it's because some of these rights are not given to them
as they should be.

Refugee: Refugees are people who have fled their country because they were at risk
of serious human rights violations and persecution. Their lives and safety were
threatened, so much so that they felt they had no choice but to leave their country
and seek a place where they would no longer be in danger, as their own state was
unable or unwilling to protect them. Refugees are entitled to international
protection.

An asylum seeker: Asylum seekers are people who have left their country and are
seeking protection from persecution and serious human rights abuses in another
country, but who have not yet been legally recognized as refugees and are therefore
awaiting a decision on their asylum claim. The right to asylum is a human right,
under which everyone should be allowed to enter another country to seek asylum.

A migrant: There is no internationally recognized legal definition of a migrant.

Like most organizations, Amnesty International considers migrants to be people
who live outside their country of origin, but are neither asylum seekers nor
refugees.

International protection
The term international protection refers to what is commonly known as "asylum".
This is a form of reception or refuge that a state decides to offer to nationals of
another state, whom the latter is unwilling or unable to protect itself.

General overview : Refugees at the heart of our concerns

The causes of their displacement

Refugees are often forced to flee their countries for a variety of reasons, such
as climate change. Between storms, cyclones and hurricanes, which are
increasingly frequent and powerful, a large proportion of the population is forced to
leave, as in 2020 with cyclone Amphan in Bangladesh, which forced around 5.1
million people to leave.
There are also frequent and regular floods, as in 2019 in Nepal and India, where
floods and landslides forced over 12 million people to leave their homes. These
disasters destroy millions of homes as well as farmland, triggering the second
reason for displacement: famine, the lack of resources linked to survival, such as
water in 2019 in East Africa, when a severe drought decimated crops and livestock,
prompting 15 million people to flee to Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya.

There are also the economic opportunities that are sometimes more
attractive in other countries: for example, Latin American companies are the ones
that hired the most in 2021, with an increase of 156%, which can push many
families to head for these countries in the hope of obtaining a better-paid job.

However, armed conflict and persecution are still the main causes of
population displacement, and one of the main reasons why people flee and become
refugees. The number of these fleeing populations reached record highs in 2018, at
over 70 million. Several major conflicts have forced populations to uproot
themselves, such as the civil war in Syria, which saw 12 million refugees flee, or in
2017 when several thousand Rohingya victims of persecution and violence in
Myanmar fled to Bangladesh.

Refugees end up fleeing their country. There can be many reasons for this.
They need support to get used to this brutal change of life, and they need a
healthy environment that will enable them to know and guarantee their
fundamental rights, such as access to healthcare, freedom, food, water,
education and all the essential rights that every human being can claim. But
these rights are often violated.
 No more rights..?

Refugees come in the hope of starting a better life in a new country. Every
refugee can claim the right of asylum, and since 1951, international protection,
which allows each of them to be safe and legal in a new country.

Some countries, such as France, do not allow refugees to work as soon as

they enter the country; they must first apply for asylum, and then wait 6 months for
a response from Ofpra, the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and
Stateless Persons. What's more, there are also restrictions on their right of
movement, such as the motion put forward by the Swiss People's Party (Union
démocratique du center) and the Swiss Federal Council banning all foreign travel
for asylum seekers from 2020; this motion has been heavily criticized by the
UNHCR. All these factors contribute to the violation of their fundamental rights.

In addition, restrictions designed to combat COVID 19 have all but

eliminated the right of victims of violence and persecution to apply for asylum.
Indeed, several countries such as Japan, Morocco and Israel have closed their
borders in an attempt to stop the spread of the virus. This had repercussions for
refugees, such as the impossibility of applying for asylum, or the suspension of
existing applications, putting millions of refugees at risk of being forced to remain
in their countries, where they were exposed to violence and the threat of death.

Access to their rights made more difficult

Currently, there are a number of reasons why these services are not always
respected for refugees: first of all, some countries, due to a lack of resources, do not
have sufficient capacity to take in millions of refugees, and other countries do not
have the financial capacity to provide them with the necessary care, such as Kenya,
which today takes in more than 50,000 refugees, and which has expressed itself on
this subject through its delegate: he announced that this number was too high,
whereas their resources were not, and therefore did not allow them to receive the
care they needed.

Hence, we need to act.

How can refugees be guaranteed protection of their fundamental rights?