PUTTING REFUGEES FIRST

Baldy Center speaker reviews how to improve treatment for displaced persons

  Arthur C. Helton visits UB Law

               Some heartfelt ideas for rethinking how the world treats political refugees were the topic of a talk by Arthur C. Helton in the Law School Faculty Lounge. Helton is director of peace and conflict studies, and senior fellow for refugee studies and preventive action, at the Council on Foreign Relations, in New York City.

            Helton’s address, which was sponsored by the Baldy Center Program on International and Comparative Legal Studies and the Buffalo Human Rights Law Review, was called “The Price of Indifference: Refugees and Humanitarian Action in the New Century.”

            That is also the title of his recently published book, and Helton drew extensively on the book in discussing how governments and non-governmental organizations deal with people made homeless by strife within and between nations.

            In writing The Price of Indifference, Helton said, “I decided that we had had quite an extraordinary decade in the 1990s. There were vast displacements all the way from the mountains of northern Iraq in 1991, with Kurdish asylum-seekers rejected by Turkish border forces; to Somalia in 1993; Haiti; the former Yugoslavia and Kosovo; East Timor; and then on to Afghanistan more recently. And who knows, we may simply come full circle with Iraq again.

            “I tried to write a book that was accessible to the wider community of concerned, relatively smart but not always well-informed decision-makers.”

            Among the topics Helton addressed in the lecture and the book: why refugees matter; the complexities of dealing with displaced persons and refugees; and the difficulties that attach themselves to repatriation of refugees.

            Helton spoke of two broad trends among international organizations that deal with refugees: “Organizations are more frequently coalescing around particular problems, particular actions; and international organizations are trying to invent ways to be more thoughtful about how they are doing their work.”

            The speaker concluded by recommending “consolidation of the humanitarian agencies involved in post-crisis work within the United Nations. Our system is very much like a hospital emergency room or a first-aid tent: It does not do very much to address the causes of people’s distress. The entire system is built on the assumption that it will not be needed again. And it is not very good with after-care: It does not do very much to help people establish themselves in new homes or repatriate themselves.”

            He also proposed creation of a think tank called Strategic Human Action and Research (SHARE), which “would reflect the like-mindedness trend with the idea of focusing on specific issues and the desire to be smarter.”

            Finally, Helton suggested four areas for further thought:

·        Refugee repatriation: “Now 1.6 million people have returned to Afghanistan, but I am surprised by how blind refugee agencies are to risks posed by returning refugees and opportunities they pose.”

·        Small projects: “There is this huge chasm between relief and development. Because there is pervasive insecurity in Afghanistan, I suggest a small-projects approach. That is all that will work in Afghanistan.”

·        A human rights strategy for non-governmental organizations. “In Afghanistan, this could be a hedge against incapable or potentially corrupt government.”

·        Improving capabilities: “Even to be a decent adviser on the rule of law, these international organizations just have to have better capacity. For a variety of reasons, we have not accepted that this is going to be a significant element of international action.”

            In conclusion, Helton said, “This is not just hardship for the individuals caught in this trap of protracted exile. It is a world made more dangerous. We have to do something smart about these humanitarian problems, not just ignore them, but accept that they are part of our reality and part of the policy landscape, a proper subject of statecraft, and we have to do something effective about them. If we do not, we really are creating a world more dangerous.”