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Frequently Asked Questions about Refugee Warehousing and the Campaign to End it

1.  What is “warehousing”? 

This is a term we and others before us use to describe the denial of human rights found in the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and other instruments to live lives as normal as possible while in exile, especially the right to earn a livelihood and freedom of movement.  Warehoused refugees are typically, but not always, confined to camps or segregated settlements where they are virtually dependent on humanitarian assistance.  But even refugees who are free to move are still warehoused, in effect, if they are not allowed their rights to work, practice professions, run businesses, and own property.

Such conditions are sometimes described as “protracted refugee situations”--the all-too-typical circumstances of refugees for whom the international community has failed to find a durable solution.  “Protracted” has no legal definition nor are most rights under the Convention conditioned upon any particular length of stay.  The main question is whether refugees enjoy their rights.  For more information, read "Warehousing Refugees: A Denial of Rights, a Waste of Humanity."

2.  Isn’t refugee status temporary?  Why not wait for repatriation or resettlement?

Repatriation and third-country resettlement are durable solutions for which millions of refugees have been waiting decades.  We vigorously promote them, as ever, but recognize that they can be difficult to achieve, as they often require fundamental regime change in source countries or much greater will to resettle refugees in third countries beyond the present fraction of a percent.  The remaining question is, How are refugees to live in the meantime: like captives with their lives on hold or like dignified, free human beings?

Refugees who are self-supporting and acquire marketable skills probably resettle more easily and repatriate more productively than those kept idle.  Would enjoying their rights while in exile make refugees less willing to return?  Perhaps, but if country conditions really change they may have no legal choice.  A more crucial question is what if conditions are so deliberately bad as to induce their premature return?  This would be a constructive form of refoulement—the illegal forced return of refugees to their persecutors.

3.  What does the “right to work” mean?

The Convention doesn’t guarantee anyone a job; it merely says refugees should have the right to work on a par with nationals.  This includes not only wage-employment but also self-employment, professional work, running businesses, and owning property.  In the first three years of a refugee’s stay, the Convention permits some restrictions to protect the national labor market but not thereafter and not at all if the refugee has married a national or has a child who is a national.  Parties to the Convention must grant treatment “as favourable as possible” to refugees seeking to practice professions or to run businesses.

4.  What about property ownership?

The Convention also requires treatment “as favourable as possible” to refugees seeking to own, to lease, or to acquire other rights to moveable and immovable property.  This is a crucial right if refugees are to rise above wage labor and be able to farm, run businesses big and small, and practice professions.  There is a big difference between mere access to land on a usufructary (use) basis and the right to hold legal title.  All businesspersons need credit but farmers are especially dependent upon it both short term (seeds, fertilizer and other inputs) and long term (equipment) because they typically do not see the money until harvest time several months later.  Only title can serve as collateral for such credit; non-transferable access rights cannot.

5.  What is meant by “freedom of movement”? 

Freedom of movement (Article 26) includes the right to choose one’s place of residence and to move freely within the territory of the host country.  This is important not only for the freedom to live where you want but also crucial to the exercise of the right to earn a livelihood (i.e., to go where the jobs are, to travel and transport goods from sources to markets, etc.)

The Convention also provides for international travel through Article 28 Travel Documents but their exercise depends upon destination countries granting visas and honoring other Convention rights.  The Convention envisions refugees taking up residence in other countries providing that, if they do so, the new host country becomes the one responsible for issuing such documents. At present, these documents are rare and the visas to travel on them are limited.

6.  What is the difference between enjoying these rights and “local integration”?

Local integration is one of the three “durable solutions” to refugee situations and requires a host country to grant refugees permanent status in their country as citizens.  When that happens, they are no longer refugees.  Many countries are reluctant to grant citizenship to large numbers of refugees.  Fortunately, the Convention does not require this.  It only requires hosts to allow them the freedom to live decently while they await durable solutions.

7.  What happens when refugee status is over?  Would refugees have to go home then?

Cessation of refugee status and its determination are not functions of warehousing or of refugee rights.  In any event, when status ends refugees may be obliged to return.

8.  Should refugees in camps get assistance?

Yes.  In fact, it is all the more imperative to assist persons who do not have the right to support themselves.  What is objectionable is making assistance conditional on confinement.  This creates perverse incentives to warehouse for aid dollars.

There maybe legitimate reasons, particularly in emergencies, where camps are appropriate.  But we shouldn’t just assume this.  Sometimes local communities can host refugees without international interference though they do deserve compensation. 

It is more realistic to assume that the situation may be protracted and to try to get refugees on their feet as soon as possible.  To take the short-term situation as the default value puts refugees on a path to indefinite warehousing.

9.  Some refugees say they want to be in camps.  Should we support them in this?

Refugees may say this because they are not allowed to engage in livelihoods, and assistance may be restricted to those in camps.  In this context, it is wrong to say that refugees “want” to be in camps.  We support life-saving assistance to refugees wherever they are and do not ask them to trade their rights for food.

10.  Are refugee camps “terrorist breeding grounds”?

Not generally but camps can be recruiting grounds for guerillas and warehouses for their family members and, as such, serve to make many violent struggles more intractable.  Whatever the merits of their particular causes, it is not the business of the international humanitarian community to subsidize them.

11.  What if locals discriminate against refugees in the markets?

The Convention states that States shall apply its provisions without discrimination as to race, religion, or country of origin.  This may not cover every act of discrimination by private actors and that may be a real problem but it is important to keep in perspective: few practices are more discriminatory against refugees than warehousing itself.
 
12.  Are you saying that the UN, UNHCR, UNRWA, and the U.S. have been doing the wrong thing for 30 years?

In some ways, perhaps, but not because they are ill-intentioned.  They are political entities limited by the political will of states and other actors; some are unimaginative and stuck in a rut through self-limiting aid structures and institutional self-interests.  But civil society also plays a role in creating political will favorable to refugee rights.  This is our duty!
 
13.  What would UNHCR’s role be if warehousing were ended?

Protection—its original mandate.  Ensuring that refugees enjoy all the rights of the Convention.  One uniquely new role UNHCR could play in this regard is that of a broker between host governments and donors.  It is the international community’s responsibility to make poor host countries that honor the Convention whole for any expenses they may thereby incur (e.g., due to refugee exercise of the rights to public education, public assistance, access to courts, etc.).
UNHCR should ensure that refugees actually enjoy these rights and calculate the costs to the host government.  These should be presented as credible bills to donors for reimbursement to the host government.
 
14.  Does granting refugees their rights let the refugee-generating, human rights-violating sending countries off the hook?

All humane solutions for refugees other than repatriation can also be construed as taking a “problem” off the hands of offending governments.  We advocate them anyway for a number of reasons but mainly because human beings are ends in themselves and not means to other ends.  They should be free to lead normal lives.  Politicians and governments should not use refugees as props or waste their lives just to make a point.
 
15.  What about the burden shifting from wealthy countries to countries of first asylum, poorer countries?

We reject the notion that free human beings are “burdens” to anyone.  To the extent that some vulnerable cases may not be able to support themselves they may require support and the international community should compensate host governments for this. 

But there is no reason refugees should all have to be in the country that happens to neighbor the sending one.  Refugees are entitled to international travel documents.  Given visas and the portability of their Convention rights, refugees could be agents of regional economic integration.  This would not have to be the same as refugee resettlement, one of the durable solutions whereby refugees receive permanent status in a third country, but would be one way to diversify the options available to refugees, and their hosts, while they remain in exile.