Warning: The UN’s Refugee Pact is even worse than its Migration Pact and both will be signed in December

Voice of Europe – by Emma R.

In parallel with the highly criticised migration pact, the UN has also prepared a refugee pact. Both these treaties are intended to be signed at the conference in Morocco on 10-11 December.

Even if the pact is not legally binding, it refers to obligations. Thus, a kind of soft laws that restrict the sovereignty of the countries. Some of the points included in the refugee pact are as follows:  

• The refugee concept is extended to people affected by climate change and environmental destruction (paragraph 12).

• Every four years starting in 2019, a global refugee forum will check and produce an index for how each country has lived up to the agreement’s obligations (paragraphs 17-19).

• A global academic network with universities, academic associations and research institutes will be established to create opportunities for refugees for education, research and scholarships (paragraph 43).

• Promote a positive attitude towards refugees being transferred from one country to another (paragraph 90).

It is not only the UN that works actively to bring about changes in migration issues, but also the EU and other actors. A relevant element is the EU document which concerns the promotion of relocation of refugees within the Member States.

The document uses terms like “compulsory measure”, “legal instrument” and “hard sell”, which suggests a binding character and that the authors of the document have recognised the difficulty of convincing the public of the proposals.

In this document, the EU has also calculated the maximum absorption capacity of each country and concluded that, for example, Germany is estimated to have a capacity of 274 million people and Sweden of 440 million (Table 12).

The treaty text of the UN refugee pact can be read in its entirety here.

Voice of Europe