COUNTRY PAPERS

This Report, structured in three sections, explores the status, vulnerabilities and the right to work of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and, in the process, reveals their precarious lives. Section I looks at the precarious status of Rohingya in Bangladesh. Section II explores the various categories that highlight the multifaceted vulnerabilities of members of the Rohingya and host communities and critiques some major assessments designed to identify and alleviate those vulnerabilities. Section III examines the right to work of Rohingya refugees, a right that the Bangladesh Government has not formally granted but is a right that is informally operative due to which refugees can earn small amounts of money through informal labour and as ‘volunteers’ of key partners.

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Bangladesh has not been a party to any legally binding international instrument dealing with the protection of refugees. Its domestic law also does not provide for granting asylum or refugee status, nor has the government established a formal system for providing protection to refugees. In fact, the domestic legal framework concerning refugees is devoid of any consistent or organised development. In the absence of a national asylum mechanism, the 1946 Foreigners Act remains the key legislation governing the status of refugees and other persons under UNHCR’s mandate. Notwithstanding the fact that the Bangladesh Constitution guarantees certain fundamental human rights even to foreigners, the Foreigners Act refuses even to acknowledge refugees as a special class of vulnerable people deserving protection. However, Bangladesh has ratified the 1984 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, without any reservation/declaration on its provision on non-refoulement.

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In Brazil, the recognition of refugees is governed by Law 9474/97. This law implements the 1951 Refugee Statute, as well as an expanded definition based on the Declaration of Cartagena, which was recently applied to grant prima facie recognition to nationals of Venezuela.
The fieldwork demonstrates that actors dealing with refugees in Brazil consider the Refugee Status Determination (RSD) process to be impartial. The main reason given is the plurality of actors in the tripartite composition of the National Committee for Refugees (CONARE), and the presence of some invited members with voice, which would favour technical discussion and the exposure of multiple points of view and would reduce political biases in decision-making.
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Brazil is a party to the main international instruments regarding refugee protection. At the global level, it has ratified the 1951 UN Convention and its 1967 Protocol. At the regional level, it has signed every instrument of the Latin American regional network, with non-binding character, such as the Cartagena Declaration of 1984, the San José Declaration of 1994, the Mexico Declaration of 2004 and the Brasilia Declaration of 2014. Conversely, Brazil has not ratified the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families. Domestic law dealing with the protection of refugees became a reality in 1997 (Lei 9474/1997), and it entails a comprehensive framework of refugee protection (Brasil 1997).
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The Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) recognises complementary pathways for admission to third countries as an additional ‘solution’ to resettlement and as an expression of solidarity towards countries and communities hosting large numbers of refugees. The 2019 UNHCR ‘Three-Year Strategy on Resettlement and Complementary Pathways’ calls for a sustainable and predictable growth in complementary pathways, with the goal of expanding access to those channels up to two million people by the end of 2028, a target that is double the one million places for resettlement aimed for during the same period.
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Canada implements its Refugee Convention obligations through the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) and the accompanying Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (IRPR). The IRPA and its regulations govern resettlement and asylum. Resettlement addresses overseas selection of refugees, and is oriented toward facilitating the movement of those chosen in advance. Laws concerning asylum address the entry and status determination of refugee claimants who arrive on their own initiative.
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This report explores status, vulnerability, and rights for people seeking international protection in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Jordan). It examines how they become recognised as asylum seekers and refugees (or not), the role that vulnerability plays in asylum governance, and the extent to which people seeking international protection meaningfully have the right to work, which is a right that provides an important litmus test for protection standards. It is focused on Syrian, Iraqi, Sudanese and Yemeni protection seekers (i.e. the nationalities that potentially fall under UNHCR’s mandate and are present in Jordan in the largest numbers).
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Jordan constitutes one of the key migrant host states in the Middle East. In terms of the country’s foreign populations overall, Jordan’s latest population census (2015) reported 2,918,125 foreign nationals (31%) in a total population of 9,531,712. Currently Jordan has the highest Palestinian refugee to citizen ratio in the world (Mencütek 2018, 189). Following the 1948 Arab – Israeli War Jordan hosted the largest number of Palestinian refugees, who fell under the responsibility of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The state responded by granting citizenship to those Palestinians who wished to become Jordanian citizens in 1950 – as well as their descendants, who would automatically be granted citizenship according to the Family Book of Jordanian Law – but not to those seeking refuge in the country after 1950.
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This report analyses the political, legal and financial instruments through which the EU and Niger cooperated in the field of asylum between 2015 and 2021. The analysis is based on a document review, a literature review and 19 interviews with actors involved in asylum in Niger (Annex 1). This analysis focuses on the main instruments: the European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF), established during the Valletta Summit in October 2015 at the height of the refugee crisis (the EUTF finances the ETM and the provision of asylum in Agadez), and Law 2015-36 implementing the Palermo Protocol on migrant smuggling. The instruments are analysed in six points.

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The EU’s role in managing migration and asylum in Serbia has been increasingly gaining in significance since 2015, linked with increasing EU funding (in particular Pre-Accession funding and the Madad Fund) to Serbia. Thus, the EU is becoming the dominant initiator of developments in the field of Serbian migration, asylum, and border management policies, and directly influences the commitment of state institutions thereto. With the Western Balkan Statement of 2015, the EU’s policies toward the Western Balkans and Serbia became formalized for the first time in one political instrument.

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The object of this Report was to consider the temporary protection granted to Zimbabweans by the South African government under the so-called Zimbabwean Dispensation Program. Further, it was considered if this temporary protection amounted to a ‘complementary pathway’ as enshrined in the United Nations Global Compact on Refuges (GCR), or if it was a form of containment.
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South Africa hosts the third-largest asylum and refugee population in southern Africa after the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the United Republic of Tanzania (UNHCR Global Trends 2019). The Department of Home Affairs, (National Assembly 2019; Department of Home Affairs 2017) records 186 210 documented asylum seekers and 88 694 documented refugees. However, the exact amount of asylum seekers within South Africa is unknown as scholars note that a large number of persons in need of protection are u ndocumented due to major gaps and barriers to the asylum system (Fatima and Lee 2018). The majority of documented asylum seekers are from Bangladesh, DRC, Ethiopia, Pakistan and Zimbabwe whereas documented refugees are from Burundi, DRC, Ethiopia, Somalia and Zimbabwe (Department of Home Affairs 2017).
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Before giving a more detailed overview of the findings, one overarching finding merits attention. The most significant factor undermining the protection of vulnerable populations in Tunisia is the absence of a national asylum law specifying the state’s legal obligations towards refugees and asylum seekers on its territory, and transferring responsibility for refugee status determination to the state. While the Asylum law has been drafted and reviewed by local and international legal experts for its alignment with the 2014 Tunisian constitution and international refugee law, it has been blocked by government due to several reasons.

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The Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) provides a political framework for protecting persons in need of asylum and complementary pathways for UN Member States. This framework includes instruments for responsibility sharing, such as resettlement and financial contributions. Through a multifactorial and relational approach, this Report focuses on the ramifications of externalisation policies of the EU and the instruments that facilitate keeping refugees and asylum seekers in the Turkish asylum regime, the instruments’ impacts on those in need of international protection, and how the EU defies GCR principles. The Report aims to explore the respondents’ opinions and experiences about the asylum governance system in Turkey in line with ASILE Project’s section that focuses on refugees’ rights, status and vulnerabilities.
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This report analyses the political, legal and financial instruments through which the EU and Turkey have cooperated in the field of migration and asylum between 2015 and 2021. The analysis is based on document analysis, a literature review and stakeholder interviews. The analysis focuses on the three main instruments: the EU-Turkey Statement of March 2016, the EU-Turkey Readmission Agreement, and the Facility for Refugees in Turkey (FRiT). The instruments are analyzed on six points.

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