The United Nations(UN) is an international organization which was established on 24th

October 1945. It is headquartered at Manhattan, New York city and is currently made up of
193 member states.1 One of the most challenging issue faced by the UN is that of the refugees
and displaced persons. Both the meetings, namely the first one of the Economic and Social
Council, where a constitution for an International Refugee Organization(IRO) was drafted
and the second one, of the Third Committee of the UN Assembly, faced many fundamental
difficulties. Among several others, the most crucial obstacle, was the difference of opinion of
different member states as to how the term refugees should be defined. 2 The first agency
during the Second World War, which was concerned with refugees and displaced persons
was the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). It was established in 1943
and its chief objectives were relief, maintenance, rehabilitation and, ultimately, repatriation of
nationals who had been displaced as a result of the war. The problem was made more acute
and pressing by the two world wars. After the UNRRA came the International Refugee
Organization (IRO), which was created to deal with the crisis that followed as a result of the
Second World War, namely creation of 40.5 million refugees. The first major post-war
movement of refugees was in Eastern Europe, due to a coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948.
60,000 refugees fled to western zones of Germany and Austria. The UN General Assembly
approved the constitution of this organization in December 1946, and it started functioning in
July, 1947. It took over the functions and activities previously performed by UNRRA.
Though the IRO ceased to function in 1952, it had resettled more than a million displaced
persons and refugees in new homes throughout the world, had assisted approximately 73,000
people in returning to their former homelands, and had given some form of help to about
1,600,000 persons. Inspite of the fact that this organization ceased its operation, the UN could
not give up its responsibility for giving international protection to the refugees. Hence the
General Assembly decided to establish the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR). UNHCR came into existence in January 1951, months before the Refugee
Convention of 1951, held in July.3

Presently, the total population of refugees is about 65.3 million, i.e. 1 out of every 113
persons is a refugee. The Syrian Republic is the largest source country of refugees with a

1
United Nations. “Overview.” accessed September 13, 2016.
http://www.un.org/en/sections/about-un/overview/index.html
2
Coldwell, M. J. "Refugees and the United Nations." Int'l J. 2 (1947): 102.
3
Jacques-da-Silva, F. "The World Refugees And The United Nations." Pakistan Horizon 19, no. 4 (1966): 330-
338.
total refugee population of 4.9 million at the end of 2015. Invariably, Syrians constitute the
largest group of asylum-seekers across the globe, with 373,700 new asylum applications
registered during 2015. In symmetry to this, Turkey, for the second consecutive year, has
hosted the largest number of refugees worldwide, with 2.5 million people. 4 The creation of
the aforementioned agencies has fulfilled the need for an international authority to safeguard
the interests of the world refugees. However, the prime concern of these entities has been to
ensure legal and other protection to the refugees which they had enjoyed in their countries of
origin and have not been able to acquire in the countries where they have taken shelter
temporarily.5 Since the issue of refugees is dynamic, they need to keep working consistently.
It is essential to understand the intricacies of the complex and multi-faceted problem of
refugees by developing a firm will and by keeping the administration flexible, in order to
ensure smooth functioning.

4
UNHCR. “Facts and Figures about Refugees.” accessed on September 20, 2016.
http://www.unhcr.ie/about-unhcr/facts-and-figures-about-refugees
5
Jacques-da-Silva, F. "The World Refugees And The United Nations." Pakistan Horizon 19, no. 4 (1966): 334.
HOST COUNTRIES DURING REFUGEE CRISES

Broadly speaking, the international refugee law framework comprises international

instruments, case law, customary international law, and UNHCR guidelines. Together, the
1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the
Status of Refugees form the basis of modern international refugee law. The Convention
against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 6,
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) 7, and customary international
law operate complementarily to protect anyone from refoulement – being returned to a place
where he or she faces serious abuse (torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment). Hence, it has been established by various tribunals around the world that non-
refoulement is a principle of international customary law.8

Hence, the prohibition of refoulement, as explicitly given under Article 33 of the 1951
Convention relating to the status of Refugees, and international law create an obligation on
states for non-refoulement. But international law is not Austinian in its enforcement and
hence, the policies of host countries towards refugees are subject to their unique legal
frameworks and inevitably in consonance with their political will or requirement. To
understand the mandate of international law, and the parallel difference in national policies is
evident in the European case.

The establishment of the Common European Asylum System in 1999 within the EU
legal framework9 was a unanimous step towards the cause of securing the refugees in dire
need of help, as per the mandates of various international instruments and laws. But this did
not establish a uniform policy towards refugees for all countries in the EU. 10 This may be
seen from various individual policies:

6
Article 3(1), Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment.

7
Article 7, ICCPR.

8
Hirsi Jamaa and Ors v. Italy, App no 27765/09 (ECHR, 23 February 2012), ¶ 23, ¶ 134.

9
Article 78, Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

10
Cynthia Orchard and Andrew Miller, ‘Protection in Europe for refugees from Syria’, Refugee Studies
Centre, Oxford Department of International Development, accessed on October 5, 2016.

https://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/files/publications/policy-briefing-series/pb10-protection-europe-refugees-syria-
2014.pdf
TURKEY
Turkey has in the past been had a policy in favour of refugees, such as in April 2011 when
the influx of Iraqi refugees was permitted. But with reference to the Syrian crisis, Ankara
provided a temporary protection status rather than a legal status at the initial juncture of the
11
crisis. In April 2014, a new migration law entered into force granting them “conditional
refugee status”, or temporary asylum. The government in November 2014 then established an
‘open door’ policy towards Syrians fleeing from the Syrian crisis.
An expenditure of over $4 billion on humanitarian aid, raises questions in any
democratic framework and similar was the case in Turkey. There was a great deal of
discourse on the expenditure as well as the role of the Turkish in the Syrian crisis. This also
raised the issue of tension with the refugees with accusations of terrorist infiltrations in the
form of refugees, as well as sectarian tensions as the majority of the population has been
Sunni Arabs.12

GERMANY
The German legal framework explicitly enshrines the right to seek asylum from fear of
persecution, as Germany’s has stated its willingness to fulfil its humanitarian obligation.
Article 16(a) of the Basic Law of the country enshrines this right. 13 The admission procedure
for asylum seekers is governed by the Asylum Procedure Act (AsylVfG).

Angela Merkel has been hugely criticised for such pro-refugee policies as the German
population has faced terror scares in the previous few weeks, and have attributed it to this
very policy. 14 Germany saw an axe attack on a train, a mass shooting in Munich that left nine
dead, a machete attack in which a pregnant woman was killed and a suicide bomb in
Ansbach. Three of the attacks were carried out by refugees. 15

11
Souad Ahmadoun, ‘Turkey’s Policy toward Syrian Refugees’, German Institute for International and
Security Affairs, accessed on Ocotober 5, 2016.

https://www.swp-berlin.org/fileadmin/contents/products/comments/2014C47_ahmadoun.pdf

12
Ibid.

13
Unknown Author, ‘Asylum and Refugee Policy in Germany’, Federal Ministry of the Interior, accessed on
October 5, 2016.
http://www.bmi.bund.de/EN/Topics/Migration-Integration/Asylum-Refugee-Protection/Asylum-Refugee-
Protection_Germany/asylum-refugee-policy-germany_node.html
14
Guy Chazan, ‘Merkel critics turn on refugee policy as Germans confront terror, Economic Times, accessed on
October 5, 2016.
https://www.ft.com/content/7eb992a6-5317-11e6-befd-2fc0c26b3c60
 Germany has also given over 440 million Euros in Humanitarian aid, which has been
one of the biigest donations made to the Syrian victims. 16

15
Kate Connoly, ‘Angela Merkel defends Germany's refugee policy after attacks’, The Guardian, accessed on
October 5, 2016.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/28/merkel-rejects-calls-to-change-germanys-refugee-policy-after-
attacks

16
Cynthia Orchard and Andrew Miller, ‘Protection in Europe for refugees from Syria’, Refugee Studies
Centre, Oxford Department of International Development, accessed on October 5, 2016.

https://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/files/publications/policy-briefing-series/pb10-protection-europe-refugees-syria-
2014.pdf