26 July 2013
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres addressed gaps in the protection of Syrian refugees who are fleeing to Europe, and urged European states to burden-share and maintain a more generous and consistent approach.
Mr. Guterres said it should be a priority for every EU member state to ensure adequate standards of treatment for Syrian refugees who seek safety in Europe. He observed that only two European states, Sweden and Germany, have received almost two-thirds of the Syrians who are seeking protection in the entire European Union, and highlighted Turkey, which has received more than ten times as many Syrians as have claimed asylum in other countries in Europe.
In order to ‘demonstrate concretely the European commitment to responsibility-sharing with Turkey and other host countries’, it is crucial to find means to ensure that those who seek protection at the borders of the EU have access to procedures, safety and territory, according to Guterres.
He urged that the ‘EU must engage in more burden-sharing initiatives so as to help mitigate the crushing impact which the refugee crisis is having on Syria’s immediate neighbours’.
Source: UN News Centre | As Syrian exodus continues, UN official urges Europe to help shoulder refugee burden
Source: UNHCR News | UN's High Commissioner for Refugees urges Europe to do more for Syrian asylum-seekers
2012
This report summarizes the presentations and following discussions from the Expert Seminar on Shared Responsibility in International Refugee Law held in Amsterdam in May 2011. The overall aim of this Expert Seminar was to map and examine principles of collective … Read more
7 July 2011
Do States – and other subjects of international law – have a collective obligation to protect refugees? And if this is the case, does a breach of this obligation lead to shared international responsibility? At a time when the burdens and responsibilities that flow from massive displacement of people have been distributed so unevenly among the world’s regions and countries (see UNHCR Global Trends 2010), these two questions have attracted growing interest and were discussed at the Expert Seminar on Shared Responsibility in International Refugee Law that the SHARES Project organized on 30 May 2011 (see Programme). (more…)
20 June 2011
UNHCR’s 2010 Global Trends report, released on World Refugee Day, reveals that there are deep imbalances in international refugee protection. Four-fifths of the world refugee population is being hosted by developing countries. In a reaction, High Commissioner Guterres said that “[d]eveloping counties cannot continue to bare this burden alone and the industrialized world must address the imbalance”, for example by increased resettlement qoutas.
Source: http://www.unhcr.org
8 June 2011
Secretary-General Rasmussen wants more countries to share the burden of the operation in Libya and will push for wider participation and more involvement of States at NATO Ministry of Defense meeting of 8-9 June 2011.
Source: english.aljazeera.net