2. A NEW ASYLUM MODEL
The entire global context has changed which provides a backdrop to the new asylum regimes. Regimes in distinct regions of the world are more interdependent and interconnected so that one can speak of a convergence towards a single regime. It is characterised by the search for solution rather than protection, by the diversified categories of persons of concern to refugee agencies such as UNHCR, by its humanitarian rather than human right bias, by the trans-sovereign character of initiatives and many other features examined below. A new discourse carefully chisels an ethical and ideological foundation to the new regime. Finally one aspect of the regime which is often not mentioned is the significant role of refugees as deliberate or unwitting movers of international policy and intervention; they have become one of the central political issues of the end of this century. The foundations of this regime are being forged by industrialised countries which influence the agenda world-wide through co-ordinated action. For some scholars the regime is the result of experimentation in refugee protection and humanitarian response, giving rise to unplanned, crisis-driven experiments (Newland 1999) rather than a deliberate concerted plan. What is perceived as the failure of alternative methods leads to the assessment that the 90s are characterised by a deterioration of the general observance of principles of international law (Newland 1999). One lawyer speaks of ‘threats’ to refugee protection (Goodwin Gill 1996 pp 3 and 5)) while another fears ‘an impending fundamental breakdown of the protection regime’ (Hathaway et al 1996 p.4). It has also been argued that the multi-faceted dimensions of the new regime concur to maintain refugees away from industrialised countries (Joly 1999). However, UNHCR describes it in a more positive light as ‘proactive, homeland-oriented and refugee specific’ (quoted in Joly and Surkhe 1997). There is a fair consensus on the policy features which typify the new regime among scholars. Chimmi (1998) selects in country protection, preventive protection, the right to remain, temporary protection (TP), closer co-operation with the Security Council and safe havens /safety zones. Mertus (1998) stresses states refusal to grant asylum, containment, temporary protection, secondary holding states, repatriation; for Roberts (1998) the key aspects of the new regime comprise preventive action (also in countries at war), safety zones, UN Security Council authorised military intervention, temporary protection, voluntary/forced repatriation, monitored repatriation, Western states reluctance to grant asylum.

In Europe, a set of factors have brought about the new asylum regime over the last 20 years.By the end of the seventies it became clear that economic recession had replaced economic expansion and that the closure of Europe's borders which had occurred in the mid‑seventies was to continue. This coincided with a substantial increase in the number of asylum‑seekers reaching Western Europe; the number of applications for asylum in Europe rose almost every year from 1983, when there were 73 700 applications to reach a peak of 692 685 in 1992 (Secretariat 1997). Meanwhile, the perspective of a borderless Europe entered the public scene with the preparation of the Single European Act towards a European Union (EU) without internal frontiers. The unequal distribution of refugees led the ‘Northern' countries to get together in order to tighten up policies for 'fear' that asylum‑seekers might enter the EU through Southern Europe and migrate freely to the North (Joly 1989). At this time 80 per cent of asylum‑seekers were then received by France and Germany. This generated intensive activity at inter-governmental level. At the same time the character of refugee movements reaching Europe had been changing to include a greater proportion of 'humanitarian' refugees which could not be accommodated under a strict interpretation of the Geneva Convention definition.

At the end of the 1980s a momentous upheaval shook Europe with the collapse of the Berlin wall and the dismantlement of communist regimes: the Cold War was over. Eastern European frontiers were then open for their nationals but Western European countries were closing theirs as the numbers of both actual and potential asylum seekers from those regions had increased dramatically (Applications from European nationals made up 65.2 per cent of applications made in Europe (Joly et al. 1997); moreover no ideological gain could warrant their acceptance in a post-Cold War era. Tragic ethnic conflicts generated a mass movement of refugees in Europe of a scale unheard of since the Second World War and its aftermath while on the whole values of solidarity were replaced by individualism and protectionism in reception countries (Brochman 1993). Before convergence and harmonisation became prevalent several Western countries took individual initiatives to introduce measures to control the arrival and acceptance of asylum‑seekers which might in turn be emulated by others. The contours of the new asylum regime were drawn throughout this long period but it is the introduction of temporary protection (TP) which tilted the balance and made it a qualitative change . The main features of the regime are now clearly defined and are examined below.

back