War refugee

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A war refugee is a person who leaves their home country to flee armed conflict . The term “conflict” includes interstate acts of war as well as internal civil wars and similar military and paramilitary (armed) conflicts.

In the countries that host the refugee movement , the protection of war refugees is guaranteed under international law only under a few conditions.

Escape in the First World War

The First World War brought hunger, displacement and death to the civilian population first in Poland , then in Belgium , the Baltic States , western Russia and south-eastern Europe . In a short period of time, around a quarter of the population of around 7 million in Belgium fled to the Netherlands , France and Great Britain . In Serbia , a third of the three million Serbs fled. The people of Russia were exposed to the scorched earth strategy employed by the retreating Russian forces. In 1916 five million were on the run in Russia. The Russian Revolution drove a comparatively small number of nobles, politicians and entrepreneurs into exile in the West. During the civil war that followed, Ukrainian and other national movements emerged . Before these battles, many fled to Finland and the Baltic States, to Istanbul , Syria and Palestine . Russian exiles came to Harbin and Shanghai , and emigrant colonies arose in Turkestan , Manchuria and Outer Mongolia .

After the First World War, the dynastic multi-ethnic states of Europe disintegrated : the Habsburg Empire, the Tsarist Empire, the Ottoman Empire and that of the Hohenzollerns. New nation states emerged. Refugees returned to these countries, ethnic minorities had to flee or were expelled. Tens of thousands emigrated to North America from the war-ravaged areas.

Position under international law

War refugees are not recognized as refugees within the meaning of Article 1 of the Geneva Refugee Convention (Convention on the Status of Refugees) of 1951. Therefore, a war refugee as such does not fall under the scope of the agreement. For this reason, all asylum procedures that are based on the UN Refugee Convention as a legal basis must carry out a case-by-case assessment to determine whether the war situation leads to such a specific personal threat - or, according to the Convention, at least a “justified fear” of it. In particular, the question of whether in wars the fact of belonging to this nation, and in ethnically based armed conflicts, belonging to an involved group alone constitutes a reason for flight and a threat within the meaning of the Convention, since this specifically relates to the act of Persecution.

International law often does not apply to domestic military conflicts. For example, refugees before acts of war often come not only from regions of war but also from regions of civil war , and the scope of the Geneva Convention on Refugees in such cases is controversial.

In addition, international humanitarian law sees fundamental differences between the uninvolved (civil) population and refugees who have participated in hostilities themselves.

Differentiation from convention refugees

The international law treaty of the Geneva Refugee Convention in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 - still completely influenced by the events of the Second World War - explicitly bases purely personal and social reasons as legitimation for an escape, namely "persecution on the grounds of race, religion, Nationality, belonging to a certain social group or because of his political convictions ”. However, material personal emergencies such as hunger or serious economic problems and all external circumstances such as natural disasters or war are not recorded.

The 1967 Protocol on the Legal Status of Refugees , in which the temporal and spatial limitations originally set out in the Geneva Refugee Convention were rejected, also follows this concept. These agreements have been ratified by around 150 of the around 200 countries worldwide and are therefore considered the international standard in asylum.

Internally displaced persons , i.e. those within a country, are also not covered by the UN Refugee Convention. According to international law, protection zones for the civilian population can be designated (neutral zones in accordance with Article 15 of the Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilians in Times of War ).

Differentiation from other forms of flight

It is often difficult to distinguish between war refugees and economic refugees, as acts of war usually lead to an impairment of direct economic supply and even more of economic future prospects. Particularly in the case of protracted conflicts and unclear course of the front line, and even more so in the case of irregular disputes, it is hardly possible to determine after the escape how direct an immediate military threat was.

If regional tensions and even armed conflicts arise due to environmental factors, the transition to becoming an environmental refugee is fluid. The 2015 wave of refugees from the Syrian conflict can already be seen as a phenomenon of climate flight - in the area of ​​tension there is an extreme drought of several years , which is why the civil war there is also understood as a struggle for distribution of water and cultivated land. The German Climate Consortium contradicts this view, however, since it was not drought-related migration movements but political measures by the Assad government that triggered the conflict.

These questions are particularly problematic because, with regard to all forms of temporary property rights, the economic recovery in the area of ​​origin is much more long-term than simply ending the dispute. In the context of global warming, environmental factors may even be irreversible over the next few decades.

Legal situation of war refugees in receiving countries

European Union

An established practice in the European asylum system is another form of granting asylum, namely subsidiary protection according to Article 15 of the Qualification Directive ( Recognition Directive, 2004/2011). This term refers to people who do not have a right to protection under the international convention, but not in their country of origin as refugees pushed back may be, if they there "serious harm" threatened by persecution. The extent to which this subsidiary protection claim relates to people fleeing war is currently under discussion in view of the European refugee crisis of 2015 , which was primarily triggered by refugees from the war / civil war-like conflicts in Syria . Here, too, it is necessary to check on a case-by-case basis whether a war situation in the area of ​​origin represents a personal threat.

With the mass influx directive  (2001/55 / ​​EC), the EU directives provide for another form of protection that has not yet been used in any case, namely the temporary protection of displaced persons. The term displaced person is broadly defined, wider than the concept of (state) displacement : In particular, it includes those seriously threatened or affected by systematic or widespread human rights violations - thus refugees within the meaning of the Geneva Convention - as well as persons who have fled from areas in armed conflict or ongoing violence. This protection does not apply until the Council of the European Union decides by a qualified majority that there is a mass influx . This protection ends after one year (can be extended to a total of up to three years) or ends at any time as soon as the Council decides, so there is no long-term prospect of staying. Those affected are not prevented from applying for asylum in accordance with the Refugee Convention.

Germany

In 1993, as part of the asylum compromise, a special status for war or civil war refugees outside of the asylum procedure was created and included in the Aliens Act: According to § 32a AuslG, these persons could be granted a temporary residence permit by order of the highest state authorities, provided that there was agreement with the Federal Ministry of the Interior Admission will be granted. On January 1, 2005, the Aliens Act was replaced by the Residence Act.

Persons who are threatened with serious harm such as the imposition or execution of the death penalty, torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment or a serious individual threat to the life or the integrity of a civil person as a result of arbitrary violence in the context of an international or domestic armed conflict are, according to § 4 para. 1 AsylG eligible for subsidiary protection .

As of October 2015, however, refugees from civil war countries were almost automatically granted asylum in Germany; the individual examination had been suspended. In 2015, for example, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees granted almost 99% refugee status according to the Geneva Convention in its positive decisions. The Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann demanded that the criteria for the recognition of civil war refugees must be tightened and that asylum seekers from Syria should no longer be recognized across the board: "The Geneva Refugee Convention actually requires individual concern."

The temporary protection for mass influx directive is by § 24 Residence Act implemented. Protection against deportation is provided by the humanitarian right of residence after an 18-month toleration under Section 25 (5) of the Residence Act.

In Germany, a foreigner is granted temporary protection in accordance with Section 24 of the Residence Act on the basis of a decision by the Council of the European Union in accordance with Directive 2001/55 / ​​EC if he / she detects the existence of a mass influx. The length of stay is a maximum of three years. However, the temporary protection can be terminated at any time by a decision of the Council.

In October 2015, the FDP proposed that war refugees in Germany be given a tolerance and that the compulsory asylum procedure be waived in order to relieve the authorities. Germany cannot use the instrument of temporary protection as long as the necessary EU decision cannot be foreseen.

In 2005, the Conference of Interior Ministers adopted the “Principles for the Return of Afghan Refugees” and presented them to the public on June 24, 2005. 16,000 refugees were to be flown from Germany to Afghanistan. At the end of October 2015, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière also wanted to increasingly deport people from Afghanistan to their home country; the youth and the middle class should stay in Afghanistan to rebuild the country. His paper on "Curbing Asylum Migration" contained proposals for a change in the law. Tom Koenigs , human rights commissioner in the Bundestag parliamentary group Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen and UN special commissioner for the peace mission in Afghanistan, rejects the deportation of Afghan refugees as a matter of principle, as any region in Afghanistan could quickly become a war zone.

Austria

In Austria there are no explicit legal regulations, the term "war refugee" only appears in some decisions, for example by the Administrative  Court (VGH) or the Asylum Court  (AsylGH), which was closed in 2014 .

In 1992, on the occasion of the Bosnian conflicts , a pragmatic solution was chosen and the (civil) war refugees were given de facto equality with refugees in accordance with the Geneva Convention, which became known as the Bosnia de facto support action ( de facto action for short ) is. This measure ran until August 1998. At that time around 90,000 people were admitted, around two thirds of whom stayed in Austria.

In 2015, in the context of the EU refugee crisis , this procedure was not chosen because Germany had started its analogous “welcome campaign” and Austria primarily became a transit country for almost one million refugees. Of the approximately 80,000 asylum applications in Austria itself this year, around three quarters were from people from the civil war countries of the time (up to October: 30% Syria, 24% Afghanistan, 16% Iraq, 3% Eritrea). The handling of these procedures is not yet foreseeable solely because of the unclear implementation of the Dublin Agreement on the country of first reception at the time , nor is the scope of the mass flow directive (2001/55 / ​​EC).

Switzerland

In Switzerland, war displaced persons who cannot prove that they have been individually persecuted are not recognized as refugees. The majority of Syrian asylum seekers in 2015 were therefore only temporarily admitted instead. Anja Klug, the head of the UNHCR office in Switzerland and Liechtenstein , criticized in 2015 a “policy that is too restrictive” towards Syrian asylum seekers.

Turkey

Turkey took in around two million civil war refugees from Syria by September 2015. Another 250,000 refugees came from Iraq. Since these people are not officially granted asylum status, the refugees are not allowed to work legally.

African Union

The Refugee Convention of the Organization for African Unity of 1969 is based on the Geneva Refugee Convention, but extends the term refugee, among other things, to people fleeing conflicts. In post-colonial Africa it was already evident at that time that, alongside famine, the consolidation struggles of the young states were the main source of mass migration.

See also

literature

  • David James Cantor, Jean-François Durieux: Refuge from Inhumanity? War Refugees and International Humanitarian Law ( International Refugee Law Series , Volume 2, ISSN  2213-3836 ). Brill, 2014, ISBN 978-90-04-26159-4 ( brill.com )
  • Nora Markard : War Refugees: Violence against civilians in armed conflicts as a challenge for refugee law and subsidiary protection ( Jus Internationale et Europaeum , Volume 60). Verlag Mohr Siebeck, 2012, ISBN 978-3-16-151794-5 ( limited preview in Google book search, ( ISSN  1861-1893 ))
  • Helmut Kodydek: The Balkan conflict and the Bosnia de facto support campaign in Austria 1992–1998.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On this, reference Markard, 2012: C.1. Recognition as a refugee , p. 125 ff.
  2. ↑ Lit. Markard, 2012, Intensity of the injury: Individual case-oriented approach , p. 172 ff.
  3. ↑ See also Lit. Markard, 2012, Section B Violence against the civilian population in new wars , p. 57 ff; esp. 1.b. The concept of non-international armed conflict in international humanitarian law , p. 61 ff.
  4. ↑ See refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, climate migrants . UNHCR: Refugees and Asylum Seekers . Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development: bmz.de → Topics → Refugee crisis → Background → Definitions and explanations ; accessed December 12, 2015.
  5. ↑ Lit. Markard, 2012, section Concept of the civil person and loss of protection: Direct participation in hostilities , p. 163 f.
  6. ^ Lit. Markard: Kriegsflüchtlinge , 2012, p. 16.
  7. ↑ a b Lit. Markard, 2012, p. 13.
  8. ↑ Cf. for example Stefan Rahmstorf: Security Risk Climate Change - First Drought, Then War . In: zeozwei , 2/2015 (online, taz.de).
  9. ^ German Climate Consortium: Syria: Researchers contradict thesis of climate change as a cause of war. In: Spiegel Online . February 15, 2016, accessed September 14, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Lit. Markard: War Refugees , 2012, p. 14 et seq. And Chapter Harmonized Legal Protection of Refugees in Europe , p. 28 et seq.
  11. ↑ Lit. Markard, 2012: Subsidiary Protection against War Risks , p. 303 ff.
  12. ↑ Asylum Package II and family reunification: Hardly any impact on Germany's asylum seekers. (No longer available online.) BR.de, February 8, 2016, archived from the original on March 6, 2016 ; accessed on March 6, 2016 .
  13. ↑ Asylum: CSU wants stricter criteria for civil war refugees. Welt N24, October 25, 2015, accessed September 14, 2017 .
  14. ↑ a b c Lower Saxony Refugee Council: Refugees with temporary protection (Section 24 AufenthG).
  15. ↑ Council Directive 2001/55 / ​​EC of July 20, 2001 on minimum standards for the granting of temporary protection in the event of a mass influx of displaced persons and measures to promote a balanced distribution of the burdens associated with the reception of these persons and the consequences of such reception , on the Member States.
  16. ↑ FDP wants to exclude war refugees from asylum procedures. In: Die Zeit, October 19, 2015
  17. ^ Decision of the Presidium of the FDP, Berlin. (PDF) October 26, 2015, accessed on September 14, 2017 . P. 2.
  18. ↑ Back to the war . In: Die Zeit , No. 11/2006.
  19. ↑ Refugees: Federal government wants to increasingly deport Afghans . In: DW Akademie, October 28, 2015
  20. ↑ Thomas de Maizière (Ed.): BMI proposals for legal changes to curb asylum migration. (PDF) (No longer available online.) In: PGAFA-22000/2 # 22. August 21, 2015, archived from the original on April 22, 2016 ; Retrieved September 14, 2017 (original paper). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / fragdenstaat.de
  21. ↑ Matthias Gebauer: De Maizière relies on deterrence. In: Spiegel Online . August 26, 2015, accessed September 14, 2017 .
  22. ↑ Tom Koenigs (Greens) on Afghanistan: “Do not deport refugees to a war zone”. In: Deutschlandfunk, December 2, 2015
  23. ↑ Overall query . in the legal information system ris.bka .gv
  24. ↑ a b Lukas Zimmer: Why 1992 worked out what fails today: The republic did what had to be done . ORF News , August 10, 2015.
  25. ↑ Köksal Baltaci: Bosnians in Vienna: Come to stay . In: Die Presse , April 5, 2012 (online).
  26. ↑ BMI: Asylum Statistics October 2015 . (PDF) bmi.gv.at; accessed December 12, 2015.
    Norbert Mappes-Rieder: Who's coming? UNHCR creates facts. The UN refugee agency asked Syrians arriving in Greece what kind of training they had . In: Salzburger Nachrichten . December 11, 2015, Weltpolitik, p. 4 .
  27. ↑ a b c How Switzerland made itself unpopular with refugees . Welt Online , September 24, 2015
  28. ↑ Thomas Seibert: Refugees in Turkey. "Why aren't they happy with us?" In: Tagesspiegel, September 16, 2015
  29. ↑ Diploma thesis. (PDF) University of Vienna. Faculty of Social Sciences, 2011