9/16/2015 Strangers in strange lands | The Economist http://www.economist.com/node/21664217/print 1/6 It has all been seen before Europe’s challenge Strangers in strange lands The world’s institutional approach to refugees was born in Europe seven decades ago. The continent must relearn its lessons Sep 12th 2015 | From the print edition IN 1951 a group of diplomats in Geneva committed their countries to absorbing huge numbers of refugees from a region plagued by ethnic hatred, fanatical ideologies, and seemingly interminable war: Europe. The second world war left millions of people wandering across the ravaged continent. Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union deported 14m Germans in the years after Germany’s defeat. Redrawn borders saw millions of Ukrainians, Serbs and others kicked out of their homes. Six years on, 400,000 people were stranded in “displaced persons” camps with no clear prospect of resettlement. The UNmandated Geneva conference came up with a convention that required its signatories to assess claims to refugee status made by anyone in their territory, and to grant it whenever a refugee had a “wellfounded fear of being persecuted” in his or her country of origin. To begin with the right of asylum was limited to Europeans, but this limitation was removed when a new protocol gave the convention global scope in 1967. The Refugee Convention has now been ratified by 147 countries; over 64 years it has framed the international response to humanitarian crises around the world (see chart 1). The convention’s adoption marked one of the “never again” moments of the postwar era, with states pledging themselves to overcome the modern evils their war had made manifest. The hundreds of thousands of refugees who have streamed across Europe this summer have both recalled that pledge and called it into question. For months refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and Eritrea have been retracing the routes used by European refugees in the 1940s. They pick
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Europe’s challenge Strangers in strange landsrangergeo.weebly.com/uploads/3/0/6/3/30634791/article...where most of Syria’s refugees remain (see chart 2). Neither Lebanon nor Jordan
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9/16/2015 Strangers in strange lands | The Economist
http://www.economist.com/node/21664217/print 1/6
It has all been seen before
Europe’s challenge
Strangers in strange landsThe world’s institutional approach to refugees was born in Europe seven decadesago. The continent must relearn its lessons
Sep 12th 2015 | From the print edition
IN 1951 a group of
diplomats in Geneva
committed their
countries to absorbing
huge numbers of
refugees from a region
plagued by ethnic
hatred, fanatical
ideologies, and seemingly interminable war: Europe. The second world war left millions of
people wandering across the ravaged continent. Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union
deported 14m Germans in the years after Germany’s defeat. Redrawn borders saw millions of
Ukrainians, Serbs and others kicked out of their homes. Six years on, 400,000 people were
stranded in “displaced persons” camps with no clear prospect of resettlement.
The UNmandated Geneva conference came up with a convention that required its signatories
to assess claims to refugee status made by anyone in their territory, and to grant it whenever a
refugee had a “wellfounded fear of being persecuted” in his or her country of origin. To begin
with the right of asylum was limited to Europeans, but this limitation was removed when a new
protocol gave the convention global scope in 1967. The Refugee Convention has now been
ratified by 147 countries; over 64 years it has framed the international response to humanitarian
crises around the world (see chart 1).
The convention’s adoption marked one of the “never again” moments of the postwar era, with
states pledging themselves to overcome the modern evils their war had made manifest. The
hundreds of thousands of refugees who have streamed across Europe this summer have both
recalled that pledge and called it into question. For months refugees from Syria, Afghanistan
and Eritrea have been retracing the routes used by European refugees in the 1940s. They pick