Global refugee crisis: history, international law, and its impacts

 as we concluded ‘the best we could do’, I have gotten really interested with the refugee crisis and it’s history

To start I need to define what a refugee is, according to the 1951 convention:

Who is a refugee?

 U.N. definition (1951 Convention): A refugee is a person who "owing to a well- founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country" 

As seen in in ‘the best we could do’ Thi Bui’s family perfectly fits this definition, due to them having fled with a "well-founded fear of being persecuted" due to the political instability and collapse of their home country.

getting into the history of it, The term ‘refugee’ was formally coined in 1951 in the UN refugee convention, is was created to address and help the massive humanitarian crisis left by World War II and formally defined a refugee as someone facing persecution for specific reasons. But, it’s important to know that the original document was geographically limited, which mainly focused on events that occurred in Europe and before 1951. As global crises began to escalate worldwide, particularly those resulting from decolonization and the Cold War (like the Vietnamese Boat People crisis seen in ‘the best we could do’), the UN was forced to adopt the 1967 Protocol. The 1967 protocol remove the original geographic and time limitations of the original 1951 convention (it basically restructured and rewrote it) by getting rid of the requirement of an individual being within Europe and displacement occurring before 1951, this change in the classification, made refugee status universal which directly applies to the mass displacement of the Vietnamese Boat People and other Cold War / proxy war refugees.

            * photo of the signing of the 1951 convention — source: https://www.unhcr.org/about-unhcr/overview/1951-refugee-convention

Examples Of application of these laws can be seen all throughout modern history, such as the Syrian Civil War, were an estimated 6.7 Million where displaced in the duration of 13 years (2011 to 2024), or the Venezuelan crisis, which has displaced over 8.6 million sense 2014 and it’s still ongoing, or current Sudanese Civil War, which has displaced 3.5 million people in the span of 2 years and is currently ongoing as well

Some statistics:

120 Million — The unprecedented total number of people forcibly displaced worldwide due to persecution, conflict, violence, and human rights violations at the end of 2023. — UNHCR, Global Trends Report 2024

43.3 Million — The total number of people recognized as refugees (individuals who have crossed an international border and fall under the 1951 Convention's protection). — UNHCR, Global Trends Report 2024

40% — The percentage of the world's forcibly displaced population who are children (under the age of 18). — UNHCR, Global Trends Report 2024

75% — The percentage of the world's refugees and other people in need of international protection who are hosted by low- and middle-income countries. — UNHCR, Global Trends Report 2024

               * Satellite image of zaatari, the largest refugee camp during the Syrian Civil War — source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-10/inside-zaatari-one-of-worlds-largest-refugee-camps/5506792

What the millions of displaced individuals in these conflicts share in common is the massive, long term, destabilizing experience of losing their sense of home, stability, and control (over there rights & liberties), forcing them into uncertain transit just like Thi Bui's family decades earlier.