Refugee Crisis in Mediterranean

United Nations, Concept of Human Security and European Union Borders

United Nations have had been established on October 24, 1945 which was the second multipurpose international organization established in the 20^th century that was worldwide in scope and membership. According to the UN Charter it aims to;

…to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights…to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.

After two World Wars’, atrocities against humanity and mass destruction, it was seen as a must to establish such an organization in order to protect fundamental human rights and security around the globe. Initially succeeding in maintaining the order, the organization has faced many other challenges which in fact forced it to evolve in a way that to solve newly arisen issues. The initial aim of the United Nations when it was established focused on preventing wars among states however at the beginning of 21st century it struggled to address new issues such as humanitarian crisis, new types of wars- civil wars, international terrorism, refugee flows, devastation, and global financial disruptions. In order to adopt these new challenges, initially in 1994 the concept of human security was established UNDP’s Global Human Development Report (HDR) which was followed at 66th General Assembly (UNGA) in 2012. In 2016, United Nations prepared a handbook in order to guide policymakers who plan to integrate human security approach into their work. The main thing that makes this different from the orthodox definition of security is that people have ‘the right to live in freedom and dignity, free from poverty, despair, and fear…with an equal opportunity to enjoy all their rights and fully develop their human potential (Koprulu, 2018). Territorial security is not as important as the human security for this approach (Intriligator, 2011). The Handbook identifies 6 important points which the General Assembly endorsed in order to create common understanding of human security within the United Nations System. Initial point that handbook underlines is that people have the right to live free from poverty and despair where everyone enjoys their rights with equal opportunities. Secondly it supposes that people oriented policies and responses should be taken in order to empower all. Thirdly, human security should develop and adhere to human rights. Most important point is that human security does not replace State security.

Upon these principles the handbook states that governments retain the primary role and responsibility for ensuring the survival, livelihood and dignity their citizens. The role of the international community is to complement and provide the necessary support to governments, upon their request, so as to strengthen their capacity to respond to current and emerging threats. Human security requires greater collaboration and partnership among governments, international organization and civil society.

It is important that, since 1945 United Nations have started mention human security apart from state security which affected the academic papers as well. It can be identified that human security embraces far more than the absence of violent conflict which encompasses human rights, good governance, access to education and health care and ensuring that everyone has opportunities and choices to fulfil his or her potential (Koprulu, 2018). In contrast to state security, human security puts the individual at the centre of debate, analysis and policy. The state is a collective instrument to protect human life and enhance human welfare. The fundamental components of human security of people against threats to personal safety and life which can be put at risk by external aggression but also by factors within a country including ‘security forces’ (Spijkers, 2007). In his book, Barry Buzan (1983) divided states into two categories; maximal state and minimal state. Minimal state arises from the John Locke’s concept of social contract where state should not contradict with its people as it has been founded in order to provide security for its’ citizens. On the other hand, maximal state grows from the assumption that the state is or should be either considerably more than sum of its parts or something different from them and therefore it has own interests (Buzan, 1983). Therefore, taking Barry Buzan’s definition on two concepts of views of states towards security, United Nations’ is pursuing to make nation states’ more close to ‘minimal state’ concept by assuming the leadership in promoting the humanitarian security concept with its’ declaration’s and new agenda. On the other hand, Welsh School, which is based on the pioneering work of Ken Booth and Richard Wyn Jones, sets out from a criticism of traditional security studies and its state- centric nature where they focus on human emancipation while reconceptualising security studies. For Ken Booth and Wyn Jones, the realist understanding of security as ‘power’ and ‘order’ can never lead to ‘true’ security where true security can only be achieved by people or groups if they do not deprive others of it (Booth, 1991; Jones, 1995). Both authors indicate that sovereign states are not the main provider of security where states are actually the main causes of insecurity. It should be identified that current refugee crisis was caused by the unstable Syrian regime which caused suffering among it’s’ citizens where other states’ one way or another involved in those atrocities. Furthermore, many states’ have closed their borders for refugees where many have died and the UN, supposed promoter of the security of human lives, was not able to stop human suffering. Many states’ have had choose to conceptualize their own national agenda for the crisis where many human rights and human security had been ignored and interests of states were put forward. As it will be identified below, European Union member states have also followed the UN where they chose their own interests’ which deprived many civilians of their lives.

European Union borders both internally and externally has faced important challenges during mass influx of refugees. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has issued various action plans for European Union in order to be able to manage influx in a way that refugees’ will not face human rights violations according to the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 66/290 in 2012 (UNGA 2012). Initial point was to protect people’s right to safety and asylum. Secondly it has identified that refugees should quickly be identified in order to provide asylum and support. Thirdly, solidarity among European Union member states to be provided in the processes of mass influx of refugees. The other points that were mentioned by the UNHCR included offering legal options to refugees in order to prevent them from taking dangerous journeys which can put their lives at risk, to save lives at sea, to welcome them to their new homes along with proper integration procedures and to assist refugees thriving in their settled location.

However European Union Member States have securitized refugee issue where human security disregarded which caused many criticisms against the European Union. As mentioned above, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon have faced many challenges while receiving mass refugees- financially, culturally which in turn refugees have also had difficulties where they had hard times finding jobs and also faced xenophobia. It can be argued that refugees faced the same problems in European Union Member States. Despite the fact of common act on border issue by the European Union, many EU Member States have taken arbitrary decisions which made legitimacy of European Union to be questioned. Several academics via United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) have discussed about the current refugee crisis. Laura Zanfrini argued that even though the European Union depicts itself as the cradle of human rights it is still dominated by the securitarian logic. Throughout its’ history European Union have pursued a more unified approach where borders among the member countries nearly been abolished (United Nations, 2021). Until the beginning of mass influx of refugees, no border controls among Member States took place. As Zanfrini argued, Syrian refugee crisis have shown to the world that logic of human rights conflicted with nation state’s exclusion of undesirables where this has shown that our ‘national fences’ are clearly limiting the ability to protect poor and vulnerable (United Nations, 2021).

Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, refugee crisis became a phenomenon that deeply affected the borders of European Union Member States where security threats permeated political discourse focusing on border closures where centre-right political leaders often depicted refugees as criminals not to be accepted in European Union territory and adopted exclusionary policies and most of the research on EU border security has focused on securitization, conceived of as the capacity to control borders, manage threats and identify spheres of orders (Panebianco, 2021). In their paper Stefania Panebianco (2021) indicated that Central Mediterranean route between Libya and Italy represents the epicentre of the migration crisis in the Mediterranean and in 2018 when Italian Ministry of the Interior declared ‘closed ports’ policy which ensuing refusal to let SAR NGOs’ vessels enter Italian ports, marked a peak in tense relations between the Italian government and humanitarian actors broadly involved in migration management at the peripheries. Reports from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and SOS Mediterranee (SOS Med) have denounced at least 1,151 refugee seekers, including children, have died and more than 10,000 forcibly deported to Libya since the Italian government closed its ports to humanitarian ships arriving to Europe from across the Mediterranean Sea.

In Central Europe, Hungarian government lost three court cases regarding breaches of international obligations. Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that Hungary had failed to fulfil EU law obligations by refusing to relocate asylum-seekers within the mandatory scheme set up in solidarity with Italy and Greece where a month later the Court also ruled that Hungary’s automatic detention of asylum-seekers in border detention centres known as ‘’transit zones’’ breached EU legislation as the detention measures were disproportionate, exceeded the maximum time limit, and could not be challenged in court and while initially protesting the judgement, the government vacated the transit zones the same month. On the other side currently refugees and asylum seekers at the Poland-Belarus border, the UN rights and office and UN refugee agency on Friday urged all parties to respect human rights and refrain from using them for political ends. Many refugees have been crossing Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland through Belarus where tensions arisen between Poland and Belarus which Polish government refused entrance of refugees. Humanitarian agencies have indicated that 13 people have died at the border, where many have suffered in a cold, damp forest with little food or water as frigid winter sets in.