The “Brexit” vote represents a triumph of fear over reason. “Leave” campaigners mendaciously and recklessly capitalized on popular distrust of the ruling elites and discontent about growing inequality and rapid social change to advance their own interests. In a relentless anti-immigration campaign, the Brexiteers, together with tabloid media, peddled distorted facts and outright lies about the impact of migration, thereby convincing fearful and frustrated voters that immigration and the EU, which requires freedom of movement among member states, are responsible for virtually all of Britain’s social woes. Many of the Leave campaign’s leading actors have been antagonistic toward the EU for decades.

It is a trend that can be seen in much of the developed world. Populist demagogues are arguing that migration is draining national resources and eroding national sovereignty. The only way to regain control, they claim, is to batten down the hatches and retreat from international alliances, behind national borders.

It is not that all of the those who voted to leave the EU, or others around the world who also feel left behind, were acting simply out of intolerance and extreme nationalism. But many have embraced the ludicrous story, served up by the populists, that their countries are being overrun by migrants, who will exacerbate the social and economic challenges that they face. In Europe, the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean – fueled largely by the forced displacement of people fleeing war and criminal violence – has heightened such concerns in recent months.

A cool-headed debate on migration first requires challenging the corrosive narrative promoted by xenophobes. The truth is that, far from being a drain on a country’s budget, migration can inject new dynamism into aging host societies. While integrating migrants undoubtedly presents challenges, they can be overcome.

But, so far, the positions taken by some members of the international community, especially the EU, have undermined an adequate collective response to the refugee crisis. And yet the EU has suffered a failure not of its institutions, but of many of its member states. In fact, the European Commission has proposed largely appropriate responses to the crisis, and many member states, especially Germany and Sweden, have responded adequately.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in particular, has urged EU members to show human decency and abide by their international obligations to protect asylum-seekers. Yet leaders in other EU member countries, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, have not demonstrated anything close to constructive leadership.

Around the world, 250 million people are living outside their countries of origin. Sixty-five million were displaced by conflict, natural disaster, and other dire circumstances. So far this year, some 227,000 people have reached Europe by land or sea. Nearly 3,000 more have drowned in the Mediterranean while attempting to reach safety. Tens of thousands of migrants and refugees are still stranded at the edge of the continent.

It is a humanitarian crisis. Yet many wealthy states have yet to live up to their obligations and to fulfill even their limited pledges on resettlement. As the Brexit vote makes painfully clear, it is time for the international community, and especially the EU, to change its approach to migratory flows, or it could face even higher costs.

Crucially, no one is arguing in favor of uncontrolled migration. Instead, advocates of migration, including me, promote protection for refugees and managed flows of people by making legal pathways more accessible. This will require international-level cooperation, backed by the right national and local measures.

Such an approach would involve improved border controls, but its focus would extend far beyond limiting migrant inflows to include creating opportunities and providing enough resources to public services to mitigate the new arrivals’ impact and ensure that local residents are not disadvantaged by welcoming migrants into their communities. Germany recently adopted new measures to provide language training and facilitate the integration of refugees. In Canada, communities can embrace new arrivals through private sponsorships.

Research shows that the initial investment can be recouped in as little as five years, thanks to the increase in economic activity brought about by the newcomers. The key is to enable legal migration. That way, instead of allowing smugglers and exploitative employers to pocket billions at the expense of migrants, states can collect more taxes through formal employment.

A bold new vision, bolstered by committed leadership, is urgently needed to tackle these complex issues, offering reassurance to voters and thus preventing more countries from turning inward and jeopardizing decades of multilateral progress on human rights. As the ripple effects from the British referendum are demonstrating, no country – not even the UK – is an island in today’s globalized world.

There is reason for hope. The fact that Britain’s younger generation voted overwhelmingly in favor of remaining in the EU suggests that traditional perceptions of national identity and sovereignty do not have the same emotional hold on millennials as they do on older generations. Brought up with greater access to the outside world through travel and the Internet, young people are more at ease with cultural diversity and multiple identities. They also have a better understanding of the opportunities that globalization offers, even if youth employment remains a chronic problem in many countries.

Like Britain’s young people, we must look to the future, not the past, and embrace international cooperation, not isolationism. The task of devising innovative solutions is daunting, but a better approach to migration – one that benefits everyone involved – can be achieved. The alternative is too costly, in human, political, and economic terms, to consider. Fear must not win the day.

The post Defusing Migration appeared first on Peter Sutherland.

Clearly, the international response to the refugee crisis has done little to mitigate it. The surge of people risking their lives to cross from North Africa has confirmed that, regardless of targeted arrangements like that between the European Union and Turkey, flows of people across the Mediterranean are set to continue.

That should come as no surprise. The migrants from North Africa who have reached the shores of Italy fled war in Iraq and Syria, forced conscription in Eritrea, permanent conflict in Afghanistan, and criminal violence in other parts of Africa. Some may not technically be refugees, as defined by the 1951 Refugee Convention. But nearly all of them are fleeing dire situations caused by interstate conflict, internal strife, natural disasters, and economic collapse. Whatever their legal status, they deserve dignity and protection from abuse – and for every effort to be made to ensure their safety.

It is time to accept the facts: walls, fences, and patrolling warships cannot stop the flight of desperate people. What they do is aggravate the dangers migrants face on their journey and benefit the smugglers who prey on them; last year alone, human traffickers earned $5-6 billion from migrants crossing into Europe.

With nearly 60 million people displaced worldwide, international cooperation and, above all, political leadership is urgently required to make migration safer. To put a stop to the needless deaths, the international community must step up orderly resettlement programs and provide safe routes for asylum-seekers.

The global annual target for the resettlement of refugees is 100,000 – far short of what is needed. And, even so, EU member states and other developed countries have failed to fulfill even that limited obligation. Much more must be done.

The situation in the Mediterranean region is challenging, but not hopeless. The EU has a population of more than 500 million and great wealth; it will not be undone by taking care of a million – or even a few million – asylum-seekers. It cannot turn its back on migrants left stranded for months in unsuitable facilities in Greece and Italy, while their children are denied the right to an education.

Rather than pandering to fear-mongering xenophobes, the EU’s leaders must speak out and correct erroneous perceptions about migrants. They must not only clearly declare that the developed world has an obligation to protect the world’s refugees; they must also explain why aiding refugees, if done well, can help build healthier communities and stronger economies.

In a recent report, the economist Philippe Legrain demonstrated how countries that invest in newcomers’ successful and rapid integration into the workforce can, within five years, reap economic benefits that are twice as large as the initial outlay. Accomplishing this requires a comprehensive strategy that enables migrants to use their skills to become productive members of society as they rebuild their lives.

Germany seems to understand this, having recently committed to spending more than $100 billion to integrate refugees over the next five years. It also recently adopted an integration law designed to provide language skills, prevent the formation of ghettos, and ease access to the job market for recent arrivals.

It is important to remember that many migrants who are not officially refugees can sometimes be at risk in their home countries. Next week, the Migrants in Countries in Crisis Initiative – a successful example of mini-multilateralism, led by the United States and the Philippines – will unveil new guidelines to help states improve their ability to protect migrants (regardless of their status) before, during, and after the emergence of a crisis.

Similarly, at the G7’s summit in Japan in May, the leaders of the world’s major advanced economies pledged to “increase global assistance to meet immediate and long-term needs of refugees and other displaced persons as well as their host communities.” Funds must be made available to help host and transit countries house, educate, and employ migrants in distress.

Human beings have always crossed borders, and as the world becomes ever more globalized, they will continue to do so. Demagogues claim that opening the door to migrants transforms host nations beyond recognition; in fact, the impact of migration is strongly positive. Migrants rejuvenate aging societies and create much-needed economic activity.

Turning Europe into a fortress, undermining freedom of movement across the continent, tightening borders, and ignoring legal – as well as moral – obligations to protect the vulnerable is a failing strategy. It undermines the EU’s hard-won gains and poses heavy costs to the world economy.

Action is needed now. Summer is just beginning. Unless the international community provides a clear alternative, more migrants can be expected to crowd onto rickety vessels and risk their lives to reach Europe. For the sake of their humanity and ours, it is time to stop the carnage.

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The refugee and migration crises in the Mediterranean, Asia, Africa, and Central America have led to widespread and appalling human suffering. The significance of this can hardly be overstated, for the world’s failure to help its most vulnerable people reflects an extraordinary breakdown of morality in the international community.

We are at risk of losing our collective understanding of why the multilateral system and international cooperation matter. When we refuse to protect those facing persecution, we not only endanger them; we subvert our principles of civil liberty and put our own freedom at risk.

Last year, we were offered literally a million reminders that the system of refugee protection was failing. Each asylum-seeker bravely crossing the Mediterranean was telling us that something was wrong in countries of first asylum.

How could we have allowed Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey to bear the burden of hosting almost five million refugees with negligible backing from the rest of the world? It costs at least $3,000 a year to provide a refugee with a decent level of support; the international community provided just a small fraction of this. When the cracks in the protection system became gaping holes, refugees voted with their feet.

Then, in a panicked effort to deter arrivals, the European Union – the birthplace of the international protection system – jeopardized its tradition of human rights and the basic standards of asylum law. The signal this sends to frontline countries – that they need not fully respect the rules of protection – could be devastating.

In the misguided belief that safeguarding sovereignty means acting unilaterally, governments have resisted an international approach to migration. But as events in the Mediterranean have starkly demonstrated, this approach is self-defeating. It leads to paper-tiger sovereignty, undermines the credibility of democratic governments and the multilateral system, and empowers smugglers and authoritarian populists. We must bring this downward spiral to a halt.

A systemic global crisis demands a systemic global response. By the time world leaders meet in September at the United Nations Summit on Addressing Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants, the global community must acknowledge what went wrong – and agree on how to fix it.

Rather than shifting the burden, we need to start sharing responsibility. The smartest way to safeguard national sovereignty is to minimize the risks migrants face when trying to reach safety, and to maximize the means at their disposal to build productive lives.

Accomplishing this require three things. First, we must use the political momentum around the refugee issue to generate commitments to specific improvements in the international protection system and to reduce the vulnerability of all migrants.

It is simply unacceptable that just ten countries are forced to bear the lion’s share of the burden, that 86% of refugees reside in the developing world, and that fewer than 100,000 per year are resettled. Supporting refugees is not optional, and we cannot allow responsibility to be defined merely by proximity to a crisis.

We must no longer go from year to year, crisis to crisis, begging for pledges (which all too often go unfulfilled). We should calculate what it costs to support forced migrants and the countries that host them – as if we were preparing a family budget – and then collectively contribute the necessary funding within the context of a long-term plan.

We also must expand our capacity to host refugees through resettlement and other legal pathways – such as student, work, and family reunification visas.

Second, strengthening the international protection system requires us to rethink the very idea of our responsibility toward refugees. We can no longer afford to treat them as deadweight in permanent camps. Instead, we must help them become active, contributing members of our communities. Our model must be based on refugees’ full inclusion, as soon as possible, in labor markets and schools. And we must vow never to hold children in detention.

Finally, the UN system must develop greater capacity to address migration and provide migrants with a stronger voice at the global level. Only then will we be able to agree on a set of commitments to reduce the risks that all migrants face, ensuring rescue at sea, offering safe pathways to relocation, and providing legal identities.

The degree of public and political attention that refugees and migration are receiving this year is not likely to be repeated in my lifetime or in that of the next generation. The condition of many humans – not to mention the human condition itself – will improve or worsen depending on how we use this opportunity.

The post Helping Refugees Together appeared first on Peter Sutherland.

Last autumn, I was in Malta at the Valletta Summit on Migration, attended by European and African heads of state and government. I was invited as United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General for International Migration. As is customary at such events, there was a group photograph, in which I ended up beside German Chancellor Angela Merkel. I took the opportunity to whisper to her that, in my opinion, she was a heroine for her action on the migration issue. Her reply was to the effect that she was doing what was “necessary for Europe.”

Since then, I have reflected on her actions and what she, not just then but over the many months of Europe’s migration crisis, has said. In essence, Merkel has called this an existential crisis for Europe, and more serious than the Greek debt imbroglio. She has also repeatedly cited the moral (and legal) obligation that we all owe to refugees.

Much of the world is surprised that a German chancellor is speaking in these terms. Altiero Spinelli, the late Italian European federalist, wrote that German racism, which incited World War II, may have been occasioned by, but was not caused by, economic motives. He argued that, in historic terms, “the absurd anarchy of European international organization” has been “the most propitious terrain imaginable for the full expression of racism.” That suspect terrain is clearly visible once more in the absence of support for the EU’s proposed migrant quota system, which would allocate refugees to the member states on the basis of fair criteria.

It is clear from Merkel’s comments and actions that she wants to take the lead on this issue not just in Germany, but in Europe as a whole. It is also clear that many Europeans (and others) appreciate her courageous and principled stand. Europe needs leadership, and its institutions require its member states – particularly the most powerful ones – to address an issue that goes to the heart of the values we profess to hold.

It goes without saying that the principles of shared sovereignty and solidarity that underpin European integration are an expression of a moral vision that contradicts the nationalist principle of earlier times, with its taint of racism. So, when Merkel argues that European integration is threatened by the public’s negative reaction to the mass flow of desperate people, it is the fate of the post-nationalist vision that she has in mind.

She is right to worry that Europe’s states and peoples have lost the will to remain united in (and by) a system based on law and morality, including the application of the concepts of human dignity and equality to the question of our obligations toward refugees. Democracy demands that politicians respect their voters; but an increasing number of politicians are respecting the often odious views of the public toward refugees, adopting brutal responses toward those seeking shelter in Europe.

And now, in response to the crisis, borders are being reinstated in the Schengen Area, which not too long ago symbolized European unity and freedom of movement for its citizens. Inevitably, new borders will lead to the creation of large refugee camps in member states like Greece. Elsewhere, too, refugees are to be kept, it seems, under lock and key. Indeed, in Denmark, “valuables” are to be confiscated from migrants at the border in order to help defray the costs of their “sanctuary.”

Meanwhile, statements by some Central and Eastern European governments indicate that they reject, outright, the obligation enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention. Some have said that they will consider asylum only for “Christians.” Such language is a gift to the Islamic State.

Merkel stands in the tradition of Walter Hallstein, the first president of the European Community, who once spoke of a Europe “without military divisions relying on the rule of law.” But the rule of law in Europe cannot be a restaurant where member states pick and choose, à la carte, the laws they will obey.

It is essential that all member states – and their voters – recognize that there is no option when it comes to the binding nature of legal commitments within the EU: Either comply with European law or leave. The supremacy of European law commands the support of national governments and enforcement by national courts.

That will not be possible with a Europe of demagogues and, worse, spineless establishment politicians who pander instead of lead. That is what Merkel has recognized, and it is why she now embodies the leadership Europe needs.

The post Europe’s Necessary European appeared first on Peter Sutherland.

The European refugee debate reached a new nadir with a proposal to expel Greecefrom the Schengen zone and effectively transform it into an open-air holding pen for countless thousands of asylum seekers. The idea is not only inhumane and a gross violation of basic European principles; it also would prove vastly more costly than the alternative – a truly common EU policy that quells the chaos of the past year.

Six countries have already reimposed border controls, and the European commission is preparing to allow them, and presumably others, to do the same for two years. The financial price of this alone is enormous – in the order of at least €40bn (including costs to fortify borders and those incurred by travellers and shippers). It would be much less expensive, financially and politically, to establish a common EU border and coastguard, and a functioning EU asylum agency.

This has proved to be, effectively, a zero-sum game. The rush by member states last year to seal their own perimeters left them unable to help shore up the EU’s external borders. They failed to send Greece the personnel and ships it had been promised. As such, the need for national border controls has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A selfish, unilateral approach to borders constitutes a repeat of the tragedy of 2015, when EU member states individually spent about €40bn to address the crisis after it had reached European shores. In early 2015, the UN asked for a small fraction of that to feed, house and school the four million refugees in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon, but the international community and Europe failed to deliver (and many EU members still haven’t paid their share). Unable to feed and educate their children, thousands of refugees ceded their savings to smugglers for a chance to reach Europe – precisely what you and I would have done had we been in their place.

Europe cannot afford another such failure. The EU, working with the international community, must reassert humane control over the chaos around the Mediterranean. This entails immediate action on three fronts: first, raising the necessary tens of billions to allow refugees in frontline countries to live, work, and go to school there; states and the private sector must also help to create jobs both for refugees and natives through investments in the region and free-trade regimes.

Second, EU members must agree to accept several hundred thousand refugees directly from the region via safe, secure pathways and to match them to communities in Europe able to host them; failing to do this will alienate the frontline countries that bear most of the burden. Third, EU states must focus on creating a common-border regime, coastguard and asylum agency rather than return to the era of the Berlin Wall.

The EU is hurtling towards disintegration, not due to some insurmountable challenge or outside force. It is instead succumbing to a self-induced panic that has paralysed its common sense. It is time to end the nightmare.

The post The EU must reassert humane control over chaos around the Mediterranean appeared first on Peter Sutherland.

That is why vigorous action at the European and global levels is essential this year. In September, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will convene an extraordinary summit dedicated to building a fair global system for protecting refugees and vulnerable migrants. One hopes that countries will come prepared to make tangible, enduring commitments.

Such commitments were sorely lacking in 2015. Indeed, the international community could have blunted last year’s crisis by providing even modest support for the three frontline countries – Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan – which together host some four million Syrian refugees. With only around EUR 10 billion (USD 10.8 billion), these countries could have provided better housing, food, and education for refugees, thereby reducing the incentive to flee to Europe. That failure could end up costing Germany alone upwards of EUR 21 billion annually for years to come.

But the financial implications of the crisis pale in comparison to the human and political costs. More than a million people risked their lives crossing the Mediterranean last year, and then endured grueling journeys through the Balkans. Almost 4,000 people died on the way, and many European countries turned their backs on those who survived, refusing them safe haven.

Cynical political leaders ruthlessly capitalized on popular anxiety by promoting an odious nationalist vision that either ignores or distorts real-life experiences with immigration. In the United States, for example, not one of the 780,000 refugees resettled since September 11, 2001, has executed a terrorist attack. Meanwhile, immigrants typically pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits.

Nonetheless, extremist forces are dangerously close to taking political power in some European states, and are gaining traction even in formerly liberal bastions. Anti-migrant parties already are in power in Hungary and Poland. Their success is compelling mainstream parties to adopt anti-migrant policies as well.

All of this has seriously undermined European cooperation. The EU’s program to process the million refugees who arrived on its shores has succeeded in “relocating” a mere 190 of them. Checks at the borders of six countries within the Schengen Area have been reinstituted, at least temporarily. To the rest of the world, the EU appears chauvinistic and inept.

Of course, the crisis is not solely for Europe to solve; responsibility is not defined by proximity. But the EU might now face an existential threat, which it can overcome only with a strong show of solidarity and global leadership. That is why its member states must take the lead in proposing solutions.

The most urgent priority is to create safe and legal paths for refugees to reach Europe. This does not imply that every vulnerable migrant must be accepted. But the EU should be more systematically generous in determining how many to admit, and it should implement organized ways to facilitate their entry. Such a system would protect migrants and safeguard Europe (by enabling it to vet applicants fully).

Beyond reducing the incentive for asylum-seekers to risk their lives and life savings to cross the Mediterranean, such an approach would show solidarity with the frontline countries, which will continue to host most of the refugees. Equally important, it would put pressure on the rest of the international community to contribute.

That brings us to the second priority for 2016: building a robust global system to protect refugees and other vulnerable migrants. This requires, first and foremost, agreement by more countries to accept refugees. In recent years, the UN Refugee Agency has been able to resettle fewer than 75,000 of more than 20 million refugees annually. Millions end up in protracted displacement, spending an estimated 25 years, on average, stuck in limbo, unsure when they might return home.

In 2016, developed countries should agree to accept a combined total approaching a million refugees annually, either through resettlement or by issuing humanitarian, student, labor, and other visas. With Canada alone saying that it will resettle 50,000 Syrian refugees this year, it is clear that this target is achievable.

At the same time, the international community must support the integration of refugees in major host countries like Turkey, Kenya, Lebanon, and Jordan. As it stands, such countries receive just a fraction of the USD 3,000-5,000 per refugee required annually to provide adequate housing, food, health care, schooling, and job training during the first few years of displacement. And that does not account for the costs of building or upgrading infrastructure. Lebanon’s water-supply system, for example, is faltering under the strain of the massive influx of refugees. In exchange for funding, host countries should agree to integrate refugees fully into their schools, labor markets, and civic institutions.

But integrating migrants effectively will be impossible unless European and other countries change how they perceive migrants. If migrants are viewed as a burden or, worse, a security threat, reactionary political forces will continue to gain ground, cutting off opportunities for newcomers and turning such fears into a self-fulfilling prophesy. If, however, host countries enthusiastically integrate migrants, everyone will benefit – including home countries (for example, through remittances).

Last month in Paris, the international community proved that it could subordinate national self-interest to a greater global goal: confronting climate change. In 2016, the same thing must happen to forge a better system for protecting migrants. It is a matter of life and death for 20 million refugees and millions of other vulnerable migrants – and a profound test of the civic health of democratic societies worldwide.

The post A Better Year for Migrants? appeared first on Peter Sutherland.

But the EU’s failure to devise a cohesive response has had another dire, if less commented-upon, consequence: As Europe’s leaders stumble from one inconclusive summit to another, they have handed the rest of the world an excuse for similar inaction. If the EU cannot get its act together to confront a crisis directly affecting its member countries, why should others leap into action?

Let there be no misunderstanding: Europe alone is not responsible for the wellbeing of all the people fleeing persecution in Afghanistan, Eritrea, Syria, and elsewhere. These desperate souls are the collective responsibility of the entire world community, as the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees makes abundantly clear. But the immoral and xenophobic posturing of a handful of EU states has allowed other countries to be bystanders, in turn damaging the global refugee system – of which Europeans have been the main beneficiaries over the past 64 years.

So, regardless of what European leaders decide at their latest summit, it is past time for the international community to act in support of the world’s refugees and others who have been forcibly displaced. A few countries already have stepped up. Brazil has issued thousands of humanitarian visas to Syrians. Venezuela has offered to take in 20,000. But most have been noticeably silent.

Today, just 100,000 out of 20 million refugees benefit each year from the UN refugee agency’s resettlement program, which provides permanent new homes in stable countries (a mere 26 participate). Most of the rest languish in conditions that offer generally dismal prospects.

Expanding resettlement capacity, therefore, should be one goal of global action. The potential is enormous. In Iceland, 11,000 families have offered to host refugees, as have many thousands of others throughout Europe. Resettlement via “private sponsorship” – whereby individuals, communities, and NGOs take responsibility for families – is stymied only by governments’ failure to set up systems to vet and match refugees with sponsors.

Equally important, adequate support must finally be given to frontline states, like Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. This is the best way to stem refugees’ dangerous efforts to cross the Mediterranean. Incomprehensibly, the world has failed to provide funds for even basic needs like food and housing, let alone for the schools, health care, and training that would persuade refugees to stay closer to home.

The UN refugee agency’s funding for Syria, which supports humanitarian agencies and development aid for neighboring countries, has received about one-third of the $4.5 billion needed this year. The World Food Program, a backbone of the refugee system, has met only two-thirds of its 2015 funding needs, compelling it to slash support to hundreds of thousands of Syrians.

But global action must go well beyond offers of temporary or permanent refuge for the displaced, or funding for frontline countries. Countries could contribute in many other ways as well.

Perhaps the single most effective contribution would be to establish less cumbersome means for asylum-seekers to reach safety. Providing humanitarian visas – which can be issued with minimal delay – constitutes one clear commitment countries could make immediately. Over time, countries could also establish procedures enabling asylum-seekers to apply more easily for labor, student, or family reunification visas.

Meanwhile, special economic zones could be established in frontline countries to attract investment and create jobs for refugees, with the G-20 offering preferential trade status. Tax breaks and other support could be given to companies offering opportunities to refugees.

A global response also must harness the extraordinary potential of civil society and the private sector. Indeed, the real leadership in this crisis has come from millions of European citizens, whose everyday acts of compassion have put their craven leaders to shame.

Then there the bold actions of moral entrepreneurs like Jim and Regina Catrambone, who created the Migrant Offshore Aid Station to rescue people at sea; the founders of Refugees Welcome, the Airbnb-type platform to match asylum seekers with families willing to host them; and Refugee Air, a pioneering Swedish effort to enable qualified asylum-seekers to fly to Europe.

These and similar civil-society initiatives need to be supported, coordinated, and amplified.

The potential on the corporate side is immense as well. Google is matching public contributions to a variety of organizations responding to the crisis. The Ikea Foundation is a major partner of the UN refugee agency in providing shelter to refugees. And Turkish-American Hamdi Ulukaya, founder of Chobani yogurt, has pledged $700 million to support refugees. There is no reason that thousands of companies cannot make similar commitments.

The Syrian exodus is the largest refugee crisis for a generation, and the EU should be doing much more than it is. But not all solutions will come from Europe – and there is no legal or moral reason why they should.

This article first appeared on Project Syndicate.

The post Europe’s Bad Example appeared first on Peter Sutherland.

Rather than calmly handling an eminently manageable situation, they have made Europe appear incompetent, near hysterical and without integrity.

This is not to deny credit where credit is due. Under the leadership of Angela Merkel, chancellor, Germany has welcomed hundreds of thousands of people — not without controversy but in relative calm. Berlin also has been honest in

declaring that the European asylum system is not working. “If Europe fails on the question of refugees, if this close link with universal civil rights is broken,” Ms Merkel stated bluntly this week, “then it won’t be the Europe we wished for.”

Greece and Italy, which have rescued more refugees than any other member states — and Sweden, the EU state that has taken in most per capita — also have acted honourably. Countless thousands of private citizens and non-governmental organisations have done the same.

But Europe’s failure to measure up to the human disaster has radically increased the human, financial and political costs of the crisis. One of the bedrocks of the EU, the Schengen free-movement zone, is now in jeopardy. It is not too late for the bloc to recover from a crisis largely of its own making. As hardline, anti-migrant parties surge in many countries, European governments must show they can work together to tame the chaos, uphold international law and show compassion to those in need.

Europe’s leaders and media need to start calling the situation what it is: a refugee crisis, not a migration crisis. At least two-thirds of those crossing the Mediterranean come from Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan and other states from which they are legitimately fleeing persecution. Refugees have inalienable rights under international law, and their plight is well understood by the European public. Only a minority of those taking to the seas are economic migrants.

The EU also needs to give far greater help — starting straight away — to Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, which together host 4m Syrian refugees. Such aid will be far more effective than military missions or yet more dogs and barbed wire at border posts. Most refugees prefer to stay close to home. But, if there are no schools or jobs for them in frontline countries, they will move on. Four years into the Syrian conflict, this is what is happening .

Simultaneously, the EU must make every effort to establish safe and legal means for asylum seekers to seek protection in Europe without risking their lives. This could be done through massively expanded resettlement; by establishing private sponsorship programmes so that individuals, churches and NGOs can take responsibility for integrating refugees; by issuing humanitarian, labour, family reunification and student visas — or a combination of all these.

Finally, EU member states should agree to a permanent system of sharing responsibility for processing and hosting asylum seekers and refugees. The European Commission’s plan to relocate 40,000 asylum seekers from Greece and Italy, rejected by member states, needs to be expanded and made mandatory. There are many details to work out, but such a programme is within reach.

This would be the first, necessary step towards a single European asylum system — not a hodgepodge of 28 systems that produce vastly different outcomes. So far this year, Hungary has granted asylum to just 278 out of 148,000 applicants — barely 0.2 per cent. By contrast, Germany has accepted 40 per cent of applications. This chasm makes a mockery of both the law and the notion of a common system.

An emergency meeting of EU interior ministers scheduled for September 14 needs to make inroads on this. But the rest of the world also needs to do far more. The world’s 20m refugees, a historic high, are a shared responsibility — one that at present falls most heavily on the developing world, where 86 per cent of refugees live.

The global refugee system was originally created to help Europeans, and it has helped save and rebuild the lives of millions of them. Now, with the system strained, faltering and outdated, Europe should reciprocate. It is time for the

EU to rescue its integrity and dignity before they, too, perish in the Mediterranean.

This article first appeared in The Financial Times on 3 September 2015.

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Faced with a tragedy in the Mediterranean, the EU risks transforming it into a self-inflicted political crisis that could divide the union.

After 900 people died on a single day, Europe was shocked into expanding its maritime presence. The carnage slowed: more than 1,500 died in April; just a few dozen in May. The European Commission then offered proposals to impose greater order on the chaos of human flows into Europe. It broke the crisis into three challenges: saving lives; protecting refugees; and thwarting smugglers.

The first was addressed by permanently expanding the seaborne search-and-rescue campaign. Member states did not want the moral taint of having desperate refugees die on their watch.

The commission’s proposal for protecting asylum seekers after rescue was equally commonsensical. Brussels said responsibility for processing asylum applications and hosting refugees should be shared across all EU states. Yet this set off a firestorm. At present, a handful of countries bear most of the burden. Politicians in countries that benefit from the status quo refused to support it. Estonia and Slovakia – each of which would have to take a few hundred refugees – are resisting. One wonders what the eastern

European refugees embraced by the west during the cold war might think.

Others obfuscated, dubbing the commission proposal a “migrant quota”, blurring the line between migrants and refugees. This is fiction. The commission has not suggested distributing economic migrants across the EU. This is about asylum seekers, who enjoy safeguards under international law.Economic migrants do not; the EU regularly returns them to their countries of origin.

Reasonable people might disagree about the details of the plan. Its so-called “distribution key” relies on a formula that takes into account a country’s population, economic output, unemployment rate, and how many refugees and asylum seekers it has accepted since 2010. But reasonable people would sit down to fine-tune it, not reject it outright. That only makes a future compromise even more difficult.

The response to the commission’s plan to resettle refugees was equally irresponsible. Resettlement involves taking refugees who have undergone rigorous health and security screening, which can take two years, and bringing them to host countries. This would save lives, by obviating the need for at least some risky sea crossings. It would signal to Europeans that an orderly system is in place. Twenty thousand people would be resettled. Compare this to the 1m refugees shoehorned into tiny Lebanon, with a total population of 4m, or to the 800,000 in Jordan, almost as small. These countries are overwhelmed.

No one is calling on the EU to do the impossible. But surely 500m EU citizens have enough generosity and resources to help at least a few hundred thousand — or even a few million — people who have lost everything. Not so long ago, Europeans themselves were desperately asking for such help.

The third commission proposal targets smugglers. But even if the EU stops all smugglers, an unlikely prospect, where would that leave the world’s 16.5m refugees? Europe will have cemented a reputation as being hostile to foreigners, and it will leave angry partners throughout Africa and the Middle East bearing almost the entire burden of the refugee crisis. These are conditions that would only elevate the far right and its principles.

Most Europeans are neither mean-spirited nor racist. They do not want to see families perishing in the seas. They want their governments to be in control of who enters Europe, and how. European leaders can deliver this while doing right by international law, and without undermining the union’s economy and foreign relations.

This article first appeared in The Financial Times on 22 May 2015.

The post Europe has made tragedy a political crisis appeared first on Peter Sutherland.

The EU is in disarray. Faced with waves of asylum seekers from conflict-ridden states, too many European countries have acted selfishly and unilaterally, undermining any chance of an effective collective response to the crisis.

Rather than calmly handling an eminently manageable situation, they have made Europe appear incompetent, near hysterical and without integrity.

This is not to deny credit where credit is due. Under the leadership of Angela Merkel, chancellor, Germany has welcomed hundreds of thousands of people — not without controversy but in relative calm. Berlin also has been honest in declaring that the European asylum system is not working. “If Europe fails on the question of refugees, if this close link with universal civil rights is broken,” Ms Merkel stated bluntly this week, “then it won’t be the Europe we wished for.”

Greece and Italy, which have rescued more refugees than any other member states — and Sweden, the EU state that has taken in most per capita — also have acted honourably. Countless thousands of private citizens and non-governmental organisations have done the same.

But Europe’s failure to measure up to the human disaster has radically increased the human, financial and political costs of the crisis. One of the bedrocks of the EU, the Schengen free-movement zone, is now in jeopardy. It is not too late for the bloc to recover from a crisis largely of its own making. As hardline, anti-migrant parties surge in many countries, European governments must show they can work together to tame the chaos, uphold international law and show compassion to those in need.

Europe’s leaders and media need to start calling the situation what it is: a refugee crisis, not a migration crisis. At least two-thirds of those crossing the Mediterranean come from Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan and other states from which they are legitimately fleeing persecution. Refugees have inalienable rights under international law, and their plight is well understood by the European public. Only a minority of those taking to the seas are economic migrants.

The EU also needs to give far greater help — starting straight away — to Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, which together host 4m Syrian refugees. Such aid will be far more effective than military missions or yet more dogs and barbed wire at border posts. Most refugees prefer to stay close to home. But, if there are no schools or jobs for them in frontline countries, they will move on. Four years into the Syrian conflict, this is what is happening.

Simultaneously, the EU must make every effort to establish safe and legal means for asylum seekers to seek protection in Europe without risking their lives. This could be done through massively expanded resettlement; by establishing private sponsorship programmes so that individuals, churches and NGOs can take responsibility for integrating refugees; by issuing humanitarian, labour, family reunification and student visas — or a combination of all these.

Finally, EU member states should agree to a permanent system of sharing responsibility for processing and hosting asylum seekers and refugees. The European Commission’s plan to relocate 40,000 asylum seekers from Greece and Italy, rejected by member states, needs to be expanded and made mandatory. There are many details to work out, but such a programme is within reach.

This would be the first, necessary step towards a single European asylum system — not a hodge­podge of 28 systems that produce vastly different outcomes. So far this year, Hungary has granted asylum to just 278 out of 148,000 applicants — barely 0.2 per cent. By contrast, Germany has accepted 40 per cent of applications. This chasm makes a mockery of both the law and the notion of a common system.

An emergency meeting of EU interior ministers scheduled for September 14 needs to make inroads on this. But the rest of the world also needs to do far more. The world’s 20m refugees, a historic high, are a shared responsibility — one that at present falls most heavily on the developing world, where 86 per cent of refugees live.

The global refugee system was originally created to help Europeans, and it has helped save and rebuild the lives of millions of them. Now, with the system strained, faltering and outdated, Europe should reciprocate. It is time for the EU to rescue its integrity and dignity before they, too, perish in the Mediterranean.

The post A brief chance for Europe to rescue its integrity appeared first on Peter Sutherland.