- Relevance: Mains: G.S paper II: Effect of Policies & Politics of Countries on India’s Interests
Context
The costs incurred by the host states in housing refugees are largely ignored. A cost-benefit analysis from the perspective of states can go a long way in making refugee law more efficient.
Why in news?
- With the Supreme Court refusing to interfere in the deportation of the Rohingya and the Centre ordering the sealing of Indian borders to prevent a refugee influx from Myanmar, India’s refugee policy has undergone a significant shift in orientation.
Analysis
- Despite not being a contracting party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, India has historically had a rich tradition of welcoming, resettling and according rights to refugees, from those displaced in Partition to Tamils, Tibetans and those part of the 1971 exodus from Bangladesh.
- However, India now finds itself grappling with compassion fatigue due to the economic burden, ecological degradation and ethnic strife that has ensued from hosting millions of refugees over the years.
- Unrestrained refugee intake has neither adequately served the refugees, many of whom live in abject conditions, nor citizens, who often deal with the erosion of their electoral, land and employment rights inter alia. The current discontent in the Northeast is a case in point.
- While the problems faced by India in this regard are severe, they are not unique.
- According to Amnesty International, more than half of the world’s 21 million refugees in 2016 were housed in just 10 countries, all of which were from the global south and struggle with high rates of poverty.
- Therefore, a select few countries, particularly those bordering volatile regions, are disproportionately bearing the burden of refugees today.
- The 1951 Refugee Convention was signed with the sole intent of accommodating refugees from the two World Wars and thus, had a cutoff date of January 1, 1951.
- The 1967 Protocol sought to broaden the scope of the convention by doing away with the cutoff date and making it applicable to all refugee situations.
- The 1951 Convention was a landmark, as states acknowledged for the first time that the plight of refugees was a matter of concern for the entire international community.