Constructing Legal Discourse at the UN Security Council Related to Refugee Crisis and Refusal of Countries to Enter Migrants

Principle Issues: Ethical, Moral, and Legal Issues

One of the main ethical issues that arise from the refugee crisis is the moral obligation of developed countries in accepting refugees. The current study aims to analyse this moral obligation using deontological ethics and the United Nations Convention Relations to the Status of Refugees

(1951)¹². The Refugee convention sets up two normative obligations for states:

1. Obligations related to actions required by the states when asylum seekers arrive on their territory¹³.
2. Obligations towards refugees who have fled home countries and are currently residing in refugee camps or informal settlements¹⁴.

Based on a preliminary review of available literature, there is an asymmetrical view of the two sets of obligations. The former is stronger and widely recognised than the latter. This is because the signatories of the Refugee Convention have no obligation to fund the protection of

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• Resolution 2198 (XXI), United Nations General Assembly
• Catherine Dauvergne, Making People Illegal: What Globalization Means for Migration and Law (reprint, Cambridge University Press 2008) p. 125
• p. 126

refugees and any contribution to the issue are considered strictly voluntary¹⁵. This voluntary stance needs to be analysed based on international law and ethical theories such as deontology to comprehend how this stance leads to the collective violation of human rights that have been defined and legally agreed upon. There is also the absence of moral and legal obligations to refugees that reach EU states regarding discrepancies arising from burden sharing¹⁶. Burden sharing refers to the Global South¹⁷ playing a larger role in hosting refugees than Western democracies responsible for largely funding this scheme in which 87 per cent of refugees are hosted in the Global South. In comparison, less than one per cent of refugees are resettled in Western countries¹⁸. Lastly, there is no morally or legally accepted obligation to resettle refugees with a majority remaining in protracted refugee situations in the Global South, primarily in the long-term encampment. It has turned into a de facto solution to the global refugee crises.

Theories

The proposed study can be defined as interdisciplinary in combining international law with political science, international relations, and human rights to explore and discuss the current issues faced under the refugee crisis. Theories associated with political science and international relations give rise to four main schools of thought including; realism, liberalism, institutionalism, and constructivism¹⁹. These four main schools examine through an interdisciplinary approach the content of legal rules and institutions to explain legal institutions’ origins and their effectiveness. The methods have resulted in legal scholars reconceptualising international law from a more general perspective.

The proposed study uses theories of the international legal process to conduct research and answer the developed research questions. The classical international legal process is the method of

• Anna Sergeevna Matveevskaya, “”Modern Trends of European Union’s’ Migration Policy”” (2016) 0 Krasnoyarsk Science 29.
• Sergio Carrera, Leonhard D Hertog and Joanna Parkin, “”EU Migration Policy in the Wake of the Arab Spring: What Prospects for EU-Southern Mediterranean Relations?” ”

<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256031941_EU_Migration_Policy_in_the_Wake_of_the_Arab_Spring _What_Prospects_for_EU-Southern_Mediterranean_Relations>.

• Reference to countries of the rest of the world mostly located in the Southern Hemisphere, such as Turkey which holds the largest refugee population as of 2016.
• Yasin Kerem Gumus, “”What Explains Differences in Countries” Migration Policies?”” (2016) 4 International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science (2147-4478) 51.
• J Samuel Barkin, “Realist Constructivism” (2003) 5 International Studies Review 325.

studying how international law is practically applied, functions with international policy, and studying how international law can be improved. According to O’Connell’ (1999)²⁰, classical International Legal Process “”concentrates not so much on the exposition of rules and their content as on how makers of foreign policy actually use international legal rules””. This particular theory is also used to measure the extent to which individuals are held accountable for abuses in international conflicts.

The proposed study will base its premises on most heavily liberalism, the school of thought which revolves around three interrelated principles;

1. Rejection of power politics as the only possible result of internal relations while also questioning realism principles, especially in terms of security and warfare²¹.
2. Emphasize mutual benefits and international cooperation²².
3. Uses international organisations and non-governmental actors for shaping state preferences and policy choices²³.

Under this thought, international institutions such as the UN Security Council, a primary component for the current study; plays a key role in cooperation among states.

The current study will also implement the theory of institutional liberalism to formulate arguments. This modern theory of international relations claims that international institutions such as the United Nations and European Union can increase and aid cooperation between states²⁴. Using this theory, states will be treated as rational actors operating in an international political system in which no hierarchy is enforced.