[imText1]Fifty-sixth session of the Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Program
On October 3-7, the 56th session of the Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s programme met in Geneva to review and approve the agency’s programmes and budgets and to advise on protection matters. Made up of 66 countries, the UNHCR’s Executive Committee (ExCom) sets international standards with respect to treatment of refugees and provides the framework for discussion on exchanges among governments, UNHCR and its partner agencies.
The annual ExCom sessions are also a venue for airing the latest tendencies in the UNHCR policies and mindset. For this reason, HRWF Int. has been carefully following those sessions for the last couple of years in the hope of detecting some signs foreboding positive changes in the UNHCR policies towards North Korean refugees.
At the 54th ExCom session in 2003, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Mr Ruud Lubbers recognized for the first time that “North Korean defectors may well be considered refugees”. At the 55th session, a year later, Mr Ruud Lubbers stated: “The plight of North Korean asylum seekers is an abiding preoccupation of my Office. In China, we continue to request access to those North Koreans who are of concern to us and I would welcome the chance to discuss with Chinese authorities this issue and opportunities I see for China to assist the region.”
This year, however, the newly appointed UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr Antonio Guterres, was disturbingly careful in his statement.
Firstly, he avoided to refer to North Korean defectors as refugees or asylum-seekers by invoking the vague term of “population displacements” resulting from the human rights violations in DPRK.
Secondly, the naming of China as an important actor in solving the North Korean refugee issue has been obviously deliberately omitted. Without pointing to concrete countries, the UN High Commissioner committed the UNHCR to “being very attentive to situations of direct and indirect refoulement, governed by bilateral agreements which disregard international law or by the treatment of bona fide asylum seekers as illegal immigrants”. With its policies of forceful repatriation of North Korean refugees, China qualifies easily for UNHCR scrutiny. The failure to name concrete countries, first and foremost being China, will confine this commitment undertaken by the UN High Commissioner to the realm of lofty statements with no result-oriented follow-up, thus leaving no hope for refugees and asylum-seekers trapped in such situations.
On the other side, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees did not spare words to elaborate on the protection mandate of the UNHCR and to define a modern concept of protection which “emphasizes the need to create a space where rights can be enjoyed to the full and where the Rule of Law prevails”. “In that sense”, Mr Guterres continued, “all our actions must be protection-minded and be judged by their protection implications, and all staff members must see themselves as protection agents”.
Protection, however, is the least thing North Korean refugees can expect from the UNHCR.
Interview with MEP Dirk Sterckx (Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, Belgium), Chairman of EP Delegation for relations with People’s Republic of China
HRWF: Mr. Sterckx, thank you for taking the time to speak with us. Let’s begin by talking about concerns for North Korean Refugee seeking asylum in China.
STERCKX: Yes, of course. I’m not going to go into specifics on certain dossiers because I’m not enough of a specialist to do that. I’m not prepared to judge on specific cases.
Of course, China is not the only country that has a problem with refugees. And I imagine that as China further develops and gets richer this problem is not going to go away. In the case of North Korea and North Korean refugees, it has of course a bit of a special and historical connotation, and I think it’s necessary that – and that’s one of the weaknesses structurally, if I may say – that China involves itself more closely with the UN and the UN framework of human rights and on refugees.
HRWF: What is the European Union’s opinion of the forceful repatriation of North Korean refugees?
STERCKX: Well, it would be difficult for us to judge a country on that because we have the same policy towards other countries. We bring back people who we don’t accept as refugees, and we bring them back to their original country. So I think it would be difficult for us to condemn a county for things that we ourselves practice.
HRWF: In the eyes of the EU, who is responsible for the protection of North Korean refugees in China?
STERCKX: That’s one of the difficult questions. In the case of North Korea, of course you deal with a country that is not, let’s say famous, for its respect of human rights. We have the same problem. In principle you shouldn’t bring back people to their home country if they’re in danger. So it is clear that China has to deal very carefully with this case. But I wouldn’t condemn just across the board any return of refugees – well not refugees, not recognized refugees – but people who are in your country who do not qualify to be refugees. You must be able to bring them back to their country of origin.
What we try to do is have agreements with the country of origin, repatriation agreements. That’s one of the discussion points between the EU and China – I mean for people who have come here from China – because it is of course a problem of illegal immigration from China towards Europe. And one of the discussion points is to have an agreement with China and to have repatriation of these people to China. So it’s comparable to the problem that the Chinese have with North Korea. But of course historically and politically North Korea is a very special case in its relationship to China.
I’m not prepared to judge on specific cases, but if you look at it in general I think most of these cases are dramatic and difficult, and traumatic for the people of course. If you look at it from the personal point of view, the individual point of view, these are people that run away because they weren’t too happy in the place where they were. So it’s always difficult to deal with these kinds of situations. But I think the problems the Chinese have are comparable to some of the problems we have. You just have to look at what happens in Morocco, with the two small Spanish territories in Morocco, and hundreds of people trying to flea to Spain and even getting killed doing that. So don’t ask me to judge.
HRWF: Who should be responsible to intervene when rights of North Korean refugees are not protected?
STERCKX: In general the world community is responsible. The United Nations has programs on this, has rules on this. I think every member state of the United Nations has a responsibility in this. The European Union and its members and the United States have, let’s say leading powers, a special role in this. But I think that the country that accepts the refugees has a responsibility towards the wellbeing of these people. They shouldn’t send them back if there’s a reasonable doubt about their security. This is always a difficult discussion. We have the discussion in my country, in Belgium, very often about people being sent back, and the discussion then is will you send them back to a place where they probably are going to run into big problems. Now as far as I know, in my country the administration that is responsible for this reviews every case carefully. There may be exceptions, some people have different views on how to deal with this, but it’s always a difficult problem. But I think that in this case, China has a responsibility for the wellbeing of these people. But also, North Korea has of course in the first place a responsibility. But that’s another point, that’s a big discussion. But I think China also has a responsibility for the wellbeing of these people. They cannot just say it’s not our problem.
HRWF: How is the issue of North Korea refugees discussed in the ongoing EU-China human rights dialogue?
STERCKX: It is one of the subjects that is treated by the European Commission in its human rights talks with the Chinese authorities. It’s not the only subject, and for the moment focus with talks with North Korea are focused on nuclear proliferation and the nuclear problem, and not so much on the refugee problem.
Interview taken by Mr Che Tabisola, HRWF Research Assistant, on 5 October 2005
