The Middle East and the refugee crisis: Towards a new refugee protection regime?

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse the international refugee protection regime and to revisit the principle of 'sovereignty as responsibility' on behalf of refugees, with reference to one of the most dramatic crises of our times - the refugee crisis in the Middle East. The starting point of our analysis is an assumption that the international refugee protection regime, based on the 1951 International Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, does not provide an adequate response to the large-scale refugee influxes and does not guarantee a just burden-sharing to protect refugees. In this paper we argue for a decisive shift from the traditional refugee 'protection' regime to a more demanding and challenging 'responsibility' and 'responsibility-sharing' regime. The paper argues that this is the best way to raise commitment, awareness, and to demonstrate solidarity of the international community with both the refugees and host countries and communities in the Middle East, including Turkey and Lebanon where most of the Syrian refugees fled, Europe, and elsewhere. We consider and advocate the use of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) mechanism to protect refugees - the Responsibility to Protect Refugees (R2PR). The way this research is pursued combines elements of positive and normative analysis and a number of methods. It involves the analysis of primary sources - the texts of instruments regulating the situation of refugees, secondary sources, documentary analysis as well as comparative, contextual and historical analysis. © Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH 2020. All Rights reserved.