The Need to Address Conditions in Regions of Refugee Origin
Gil Loescher
This publication formed part of a report on the conference 'Listening to the evidence: the future of UK resettlement', held in London on 6 February 2003. As the United Kingdom embarks on a new refugee resettlement programme, it is important to consider the conditions of reception, the protection environment and quality of asylum, the processing of refugee claims, and resettlement opportunities in regions of refugee origin. To ignore what is happening in these regions is to risk future failure of resettlement policy and to place refugees and asylum seekers in greater danger. In 2001 and 2002, as part of a team of researchers for the European Council on Refugees and Exiles and the US Committee for Refugees, Professor Loescher conducted field research in Kenya, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon in order to examine what is possible in these regions of refugee origin in terms of conditions of reception, protection environment, and quality of asylum, processing of refugee claims and resettlement opportunities. While refugee status determination (RSD) is carried out in all these states, primarily by UNHCR, and resettlement to the West does take place, including by a selective number of European states, the conditions to carry out refugee processing and resettlement in these regions are barely permissible by international standards and are extremely undependable.