UNHCR – Protecting refugees or protecting borders?
Based on the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention, the core mandate of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) lies in ensuring the protection of refugees, returnees, and stateless people worldwide.1 The UN agency, initially founded during the aftermath of Second World War, was created to help millions of Europeans who were forced to flee or had lost their homes. Although being an intergovernmental agency, it was also assigned the role of a watchdog for states’ migration policies, a legal entity to intercede on behalf of refugees, to monitor states’ compliance with international law in refugee protection, and to criticise states in case of potential non-compliance.2 UNHCR describes these aspects of its own mandate as “unique” and “integral part of the core mandate”.3
While the number of forcibly displaced people has been growing ever since UNHCR’s foundation 4, its actual work has become increasingly state-oriented, making UNHCR ever more part of states’ containment and management policies and diluting its mandate of being a strong voice for refugees. Nevertheless, we view UNHCR as the internationally most recognized actor to advocate for refugee rights and to provide protection for displaced people on a global scale. Yet, refugees are being forced to witness on a daily basis how UNHCR fails to live up to its legal mandate and the associated crucial tasks of providing assistance and safety to those who need it most.
In reality, UNHCR has become part of a “global police of populations”5, managing migration with states’ money and defending and strengthening a capitalist and racist border regime based on colonial continuities. This development is due to several interlinked factors, among them a severe lack of funding, a loss in political leverage, a shifted focus of UNHCR’s work, and the inherent and practical weaknesses of resettlement.
UNHCR is chronically and severely underfunded.6 Approximately 85% of its funding comes from individual states and the European Union (EU).7 Each year, UNHCR only receives around 50% of the money actually needed to fulfil its mandate.8 The constant lack of financial resources contributes to UNHCR’s state dependency, especially with regards to big donors such as European member states. This vulnerability also leads to UNHCR staying increasingly silent in the light of deadly European migration policies and border crimes. However, we refuse to accept UNHCR's alleged ‘neutral silence’. Remaining silent in the light of injustices is tantamount with being complicit.
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Remaining silent in the light of injustices is tantamount with being complicit.
We can also observe that UNHCR’s political leverage in today’s migration policies is decreasing with UNHCR having a very limited say in many of today’s most urging political debates concerning migration, as for example the reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), the European “Voluntary Solidarity Mechanism”, or the “Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration” (GCM), among others. At the same time, European states are increasingly externalising their legal obligations and openly violate international human rights standards. 9
With this limited funding, the growing state dependency, and the loss of political leverage, UNHCR has shifted its focus away from refugee protection and the fight for legal and safe migration to so-called “consented repatriation”.10 As such, UNHCR is persuading and assisting people to return to their countries of origin instead of supporting them to reach safety in a third country. This shift of focus also expands UNHCR's complicit role in “border management”. Rather than enforcing refugees' rights and interests, the UN agency has grown into an authority “protecting” the borders of Europe and other countries of the Global North. This deviation from its initial role and mandate can partly be explained by the constrained conditions under which UNHCR operates, but also heavily depends on policy decisions by UNHCR staff and the failure to act up against these trends.11
UNHCR provides a fig leaf to externalisation policies
The effects of these developments can also clearly be seen in UNHCR’s role in resettlement. With its activities in numerous countries, UNHCR upholds refugees’ hopes for resettlement to a safe third country. In fact, the chances for resettlement in reality are extremely low: less than 2% of all individuals qualifying for resettlement are actually resettled.12 This “abstract hope” that is merely more real than a dream, keeps people stuck in countries where they are not safe and cannot build a future, often for many years. With this “dream of resettlement”, UNHCR provides a fig leaf to externalisation policies of states in the Global North, keeping people far away from its territories and therefore finally assisting these countries in sealing off their borders.
Moreover, UNHCR often claims to be the “voice of refugees” or to speak on behalf of “all refugees”, which, not least, also reflects in their Twitter username “@Refugees”.13 Nevertheless, knowing that there is no system to hold UNHCR accountable for its actions, UNHCR in many instances has ignored the voices of refugees or their protest to bring attention to the violation of their rights has been silenced or invisibilised. No matter if in recent examples in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt or elsewhere in the past, self-organised and peaceful protests against UNHCR, in the vast majority of cases, have resulted in collective punishments, suspension of services, brutal evictions, and not rarely also in the detention of the demonstrators, enforced by UNHCR’s very own security personnel or national authorities.14
We would like to underline that, even in light of all these criticisms, we strongly believe in the importance of UNHCR’s mandate and work. Yet, looking at the future of refugee protection, we must ask ourselves: What will happen after UNHCR has lost all of its political leverage? Undoubtedly, it would be a decisive win for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), an organisation without any clear legal mandate to protect and speak up for those in need. This competition for funding and areas of operation between the two agencies, however, should not lead to UNHCR shying away and practically copying IOM’s role in migration management and border protection. Instead, UNHCR must hold up its mandate and stay true to its role of being an advocate and protector to displaced people and not a service provider in national border control policies.
Despite the standards and goals UNHCR claims to stand for, most of the general criticism brought forward against the agency also applies to its office in Libya. However, in the specific case of Libya that throughout the past years has become a major hub for so-called “irregular” migration to Europe, UNHCR has shown to particularly fulfil its unofficially assigned role as gatekeeper of the Global North.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
UNHCR Libya – Unable or unwilling to protect?​​
According to UNHCR official data, nearly 900,000 forcibly displaced people are in need of humanitarian assistance in Libya.15 Nonetheless, the estimated number of people in need of protection is believed to be significantly higher.
The situation in Libya, for more than a decade, has been dominated by political instability, daily violence, war, and continuous impunity.16 Besides, the interests of UNHCR donor states and the associated tightening of the EU border regime along the Central Mediterranean are contributing to the further destabilisation of the situation, reinforcing informal actors as well as criminal structures, and fueling an endless cycle of violence and repression against those who are trying to escape the Libyan hell.17
The reports of insufferable living conditions in which people are struggling to survive range from the constant risk of arbitrary arrests, forcefull pullbacks, kidnappings, to enslavement, sexualised violence, a lack of medical assistance, and a wide scope of other human rights violations. The Libyan Ministry of Interior describes these endeavours, in which many people in the past were either killed or wounded, as security campaigns against ‘undocumented migration’.1
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Although UNHCR Libya is aware of and in the past even has condemned the brute force enacted by the so-called Libyan security forces against refugees 19, this still does not prevent the staff members from cooperating and making use of Libyan authorities themselves. As for example when UNHCR Libya, in January 2022, decided to close its Community Day Center (CDC) in Tripoli, leaving even those who had escaped or remained outside detention centres until then without assistance.20 Shortly after the announcement, many of the 1,500 people that gathered in front of the CDC to demand their voices for evacuation and better living conditions to be heard by the agency, were brutally evicted and detained.21
​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​In fact, asylum seekers in Libya often end up in one of the numerous either state-run or unofficial detention camps within the country that, until today, remain places of violations and abuse, including beatings, rape, torture, and starvation.22 As a result, life-threatening attempts to escape 23, but also suicides of people inside the detention camps occur on a regular basis. 24 Not only has it been found that a significant number of detention centers are run or affiliated with armed militias, private gangs, and Islamist groups that highly profit from their cooperation with Libyan authorities.25 UNHCR reportedly also has lost control over a so-called Gathering & Departure Facility (GDF) it funds. Consequently, this official refugee housing facility became merely a detention centre run by Libyan authorities on UNHCR budget.26 In many instances, UNHCR was even denied access to the detention facilities. Especially in the South-East of Libya, the agency has no access to detention camps at all.27 In order not to lose the limited access it currently has, but also to preserve its own image and that of the agency, UNHCR staff members commonly refrain from reporting mistreatment and human rights violations.28 Although we acknowledge the restricted monitoring possibilities UNHCR finds within Libya, it is concealing the massive human rights violations committed inside detention camps in Libya, and must therefore be held accountable and considered complicit.
To preserve its own image and that of the agency, UNHCR staff members commonly refrain from reporting mistreatment and human rights violations.
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In registering asylum seekers, UNHCR even agreed to the Libyan government’s condition after which only nine nationalities may be registered 29 as persons of concern to UNHCR: Oromo Ethiopians, Eritreans, Iraqis, Somalis, Syrians, Palestinians, and Sudanese from Darfur.30 This systematically strips people seeking international protection of their right to asylum and has not only lead to unfair selection processes and structural discrimination based on nationalities, but also to forced deportations to the countries they had fled from.
Those that are being registered and receive an “asylum seeker certificate”, wait for extended periods of time before their refugee status determination is finalised – often up to ten years. During these lengthy periods of waiting and constant uncertainty, asylum seekers receive very little support or protection by the agency. Even after their refugee status determination is completed, most refugees are confronted with no possibility for resettlement to a safe country.31 In line with its core mandates, UNHCR’s task here is to hold states accountable for the lack of reception of refugees and to find alternative solutions, since staying in Libya is clearly not an option. In addition, the very limited capacities for resettlement are often not communicated to refugees. On the contrary, UNHCR staff in the past repeatedly made false promises about when and how asylum seekers will be resettled. Although UNHCR’s resettlement possibilities largely depend on the receptivity of donor states, the actual lack of resettlement options is neither made sufficiently visible through the agency’s publications, nor through their social media platforms.
While UNHCR’s resettlement programs in the past were either suspended or carried out very sporadically and without any transparency towards those that have been awaiting their evacuation for many years, UNHCR’s involvement in “voluntary” repatriation programs has expanded exponentially in recent times. 32 However, the Libyan situation raises many doubts about UNHCR’s and IOM’s ability to adequately screen for return risks, given the inhumane conditions refugees in Libya are faced with. The genuineness of the consent to repatriation seems at least equally doubtful, especially where – in the absence of alternatives – so-called assisted voluntary return becomes the only effective possibility to escape daily abuses and a situation of unprecedented violence. This perplexity is in line with UNHCR’s guidelines, according to which repatriation can be considered voluntary only when a person has the right to remain in the host country, is free from detention, and their rights are fully respected. 33
Furthermore, UNHCR Libya also shows a lack of efficiency and unprofessional handling of emergency situations, as when it comes to providing persons of concern with cash assistance that, as a matter of fact, may be suspended on short notice and without the arrangement of alternative solutions at any given time. 34 We recognize the limitations to the agency’s possibilities within Libya, but strongly believe that the existing options are not used to their full potential. Neither do we think that refugees should be the ones suffering under UNHCR’s inefficiency and failures to handle and address the prevailing circumstances.
At the same time, through UNHCR’s presence and European programs of so-called bilateral assistance, i.e. the boosting and rebuilding of Libyan institutions involved in “migration management”, the EU aims to pretend that the situation in Libya is under control and changing for the better. 35 However, in the light of unprecedented human rights violations, recurrent armed clashes between rival militias 36, and the persisting political crisis in Libya, this is far from the actual truth. UNHCR, in fact, has served Western countries as a mostly silent observer on the ground and welcome opportunity to shirk or even deny responsibility for the situation of refugees trapped inside the country. It is therefore also hardly surprising that the underfunding UNHCR is faced with globally, also prevails in Libya. As of 18 October 2022, UNHCR Libya has thus received only 44% of its financial requirements for 2022 (USD 70 million). 37
Even against the background of the highlighted criticisms and shortcomings, we still remain hopeful that UNHCR will comply with its legal mandate and will actually live up to its crucial role in refugee protection. After all, we are aware that we will, amongst others, also need UNHCR’s support, in Libya and globally, to fight racist border regimes. In solidarity with all people on the move and in order to stop the suffering in Libya, the deaths at the borders and at sea, we demand from UNHCR and its regional office in Libya:
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to take on responsibility for all people on the move detained in Ain Zara as well as within all other detention camps in Libya and to ensure their immediate release
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to promote community-based alternatives to detention and to provide humane and dignified reception and living conditions for refugees in Libya and elsewhere until resettlement is possible
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to guarantee all people on the move in Libya and elsewhere have access to a fair and transparent refugee status determination process, as it is the legal procedure that represents the first step towards the granting of international protection
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to ensure justice and equal access to rights among all refugees in Libya, independent of criteria of vulnerability, nationality, age, sexuality, or gender
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to repeatedly call on safe countries to increase resettlement quotas and to accelerate and ease evacuation procedures
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to engage in exchange and sincere dialogue with "Refugees in Libya" and other grassroot networks on the ground and to recognize them as equal negotiation partners
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to facilitate access to humanitarian and legal aid services in Libya and elsewhere and to refrain from the suspension of its services at all times
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to create transparency and to openly communicate their own limitations rather than upholding false expectations
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to cease any collaboration with criminal structures and to put clear and rights-based conditions on cooperations with Libyan government actors
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to call on the Libyan government to sign and ratify the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol in order to create a legal basis for refugee protection within the country.
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to clearly and openly condemn the European externalisation politics and to resist being abused for the EU’s isolationist policies
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to advocate for the end of violent pullbacks, pushbacks, and all other organised practices of border violence
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1 https://www.unhcr.org/protection/basic/526a22cb6/mandate-high-commissioner-refugees-office.html
2 See UNHCR Statute, as well as Article 35 of the 1951 Refugee Convention and Article II of the 1967 Protocol.
3 https://www.unhcr.org/5a1b53607.pdf
4 https://www.unhcr.org/globaltrends.html
5 Scheel, S., & Ratfisch, P. (2014.: Refugee Protection Meets Migration Management: UNHCR as a Global Police of Populations. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 40 (6), 924-941.
6 https://reporting.unhcr.org/underfunded-report-2022
7 https://www.unhcr.org/figures-at-a-glance.html
8 https://www.unhcr.org/frequently-asked-questions.html#howisunhcrfunded.
9 Crisp, J. (2020). UNHCR at 70. An Uncertain Future for the International Refugee Regime. Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations, 26(3), 359-368.
10 https://www.unhcr.org/voluntary-repatriation-49c3646cfe.html
11 Scheel, S., & Ratfisch, P. (2014.: Refugee Protection Meets Migration Management: UNHCR as a Global Police of Populations. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 40 (6), 924-941.
12 https://reliefweb.int/report/world/resettlement-gap-record-number-global-refugees-few-are-resettled
13 Crisp, J. (2020). UNHCR at 70. An Uncertain Future for the International Refugee Regime. Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations, 26(3), 359-368.
14 Harrell-Bond, B. (2008). Protests Against the UNHCR to Achieve Rights: Some Reflections. In K. Grabska, & L. Mehta (Eds.), Forced Displacement. Why Rights Matter (pp. 222-243). Palgrave Macmillan.
15 https://data.unhcr.org/en/documents/download/96095
16 https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/10/1129827
17 https://alarmphone.org/en/2022/08/15/rising-arrivals-continuous-struggles
18 http://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/42644/dozens-of-migrants-detained-in-libya-during-police-raids
19 https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/35713/un-condemns-violence-against-migrants-in-libya
20https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/37746/libya-unhcr-closes-two-migrant-centers-in-tripoli
21 https://data.unhcr.org/en/documents/download/96095
23 https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/01/21/no-escape-hell/eu-policies-contribute-abuse-migrants-libya
24 https://twitter.com/RefugeesinLibya/status/1533666309317316609
26 Markous, A. (2019). Humanitarian Action and Anti-migration Paradox: A case study of UNHCR and IOM in Libya. Available at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17N2EIPlWyt-mLO6zyri74FLOuRRRy0U5/view
27 Any information not specified further can be attributed to anonymous informants on the ground.
28 Markous, A. (2019). Humanitarian Action and Anti-migration Paradox: A case study of UNHCR and IOM in Libya. Available at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17N2EIPlWyt-mLO6zyri74FLOuRRRy0U5/view
29 https://help.unhcr.org/libya/registration/
30 https://www.unhcr.org/593e9ed47.pdf
31https://reliefweb.int/report/libya/unhcr-libya-monthly-response-factsheet-2022-10252022-enar
34 Markous, A. (2019). Humanitarian Action and Anti-migration Paradox: A case study of UNHCR and IOM in Libya. Available at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17N2EIPlWyt-mLO6zyri74FLOuRRRy0U5/view
35 https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/eu-libya-relations_en
36 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/27/armed-clashes-erupt-in-central-tripoli