In places around the world, migrants and asylum seekers are being blocked from reaching their destinations or are being forcibly removed from them. Borders have become both militarized and externalized, and migrants have been beaten, stripped, attacked with water cannons, and subjected to other brutal treatments to halt their movement.

Such are the findings contained in a new report on migrant pushbacks by UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants Felipe González Morales, which will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council later this month. By failing to provide individual assessments of migrants’ situations or taking other procedural safeguards, González wrote, “pushbacks result in human-rights violations incompatible with states’ obligations under international human-rights law, in particular, the prohibition of collective expulsion and refoulement.”

The general findings will not be surprising to most people following international responses to asylum seekers and other migrants. There have been extensive reports of pushbacks, defined broadly as any effort to prevent migrants from reaching a territory or removing them without conducting an individual assessment. Among them have been European initiatives on land, in the Mediterranean, and in the Aegean, as well as numerous incidents at the U.S.-Mexico border, in the waters around Australia, between Algeria and Niger, and elsewhere.

Pushbacks are “widespread” and have been reported “along most migration routes from all regions of the world experiencing mixed movements of migrants,” González reported. Many situations have been aggravated during the overall chill on global movement prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The new report is further evidence of the strain on the international humanitarian protection system. As it marks its 70th anniversary next month, the Refugee Convention continues to look unsuited for the changing times. The Global Compacts on Refugees and for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration, meanwhile, remain works in progress.

My colleagues with MPI’s International Program recently launched a three-year project examining new ways to advance global protection, called the Beyond Territorial Asylum Initiative. Their research will be helpful in advancing new thinking about effective strategies to update the global protection system.

In the meantime, reports of pushbacks and other abuses of vulnerable migrants are likely to continue. Despite a few promising measures, including legal changes in many countries to codify protections for refugees and asylum seekers, the new UN report makes clear that the picture is overall a bleak one.

Best regards,
Julian Hattem
Editor, Migration Information Source
[email protected]