Refugees as Migrants

Abstract

We argue that refugees are indeed migrants. We underscore the overlap between these two categories in a global context that is characterized by restricted avenues for legal migration, limited durable solutions for refugees, and punitive policies towards asylum seekers. In so doing, we do not deny that refugees are special, nor do we question the international refugee protection regime. On the contrary, the current institutional and normative refugee protection framework should be supported and the specific rights and entitlements for refugees set forth in the Refugee Convention and Protocol should be implemented and reinforced.

Our aim is to show why the forced/voluntary and political/economic binaries that underlie the refugee/migrant distinction are questionable. We contend that conceptualizing refugees as migrants does not undermine the specific normative and institutional framework for refugee protection. Rather, it further promotes refugees’ access to asylum and safety.

Refugees, like all migrants, are already protected by international human rights law, which has proven effective in addressing many intersecting factors (such as age, gender, religion, ethnicity, and nationality) that exacerbate refugees’ vulnerability. As well, insisting on a migrant/refugee dichotomy leads many to believe that refugees need protection while migrants do not, a belief that is false: refugees may singularly need ‘international protection’ as conceptualized in the Refugee Convention, but all migrants—indeed all human beings—need the protection of States against violations of their human rights.

Our goal is to plead for a global mobility regime that would ultimately lead to the better protection of rights for all those on the move, including refugees. International migration law is still nascent and fragmented, but the Global Compact for Migration constitutes a major political step towards structuring States’ responses more coherently. One could cautiously suggest that, just as the UDHR created the post-1948 momentum for numerous subsequent human rights instruments and institutions, so might the Global Compact have a similarly catalytic role over the coming decades.

The first section of this chapter examines the literature on the refugee/migrant distinction, and whether upholding it is accurate and justifiable. It highlights the increasingly overlapping and interconnected motivations and contexts driving forced migration. Section 2 focuses on the mounting barriers refugees face to reach safety, noting that difficulties in finding durable solutions may result in secondary movements, in turn further blurring the distinction between migrants and refugees in political and media discourse. Section 3 explores the avenues to safeguarding and promoting access to asylum and refugee rights. It explains why the special status of refugees in international law does not guarantee their effective protection (given the absence of durable solutions for so many). Section 4 contends that migrants (including refugees) benefit from the international human rights regime, which sometimes offers a more robust protection to refugees than the international refugee regime. Section 5 articulates the role that freedom of movement should play in protecting the rights of all migrants (including refugees). The chapter concludes with a plea for increased facilitated mobility for all, as championed by the Global Compact for Migration.

Keywords: migration, asylum, migration law, refugees, refugee law, international law, mobility