Immigration and Migration

The annual opening of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) is a noisy affair and, like Churchill’s pudding, often lacks a coherent theme. This year is different. World leaders will convene two special sessions to address the flood of refugees and migrants from global conflict zones—and make promises to alleviate their suffering. Expectations for the first meeting, hosted by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, are low. It will produce no more than a consensus declaration that is long on platitudes and short on action. The second, led by President Obama, is more promising. It should generate meaningful national pledges of aid. But to make a real dent, the assembled nations must get serious about ending chronic displacement, by focusing on cures rather than palliatives. And that, alas, is unlikely to happen. Globally, humanitarian needs have never been greater. From Afghanistan to Syria, Libya to the DRC, and South Sudan to Yemen, grinding conflicts have driven a record 65.3 million people from their homes. Nearly two-thirds, or 40.8 million, are internally displaced persons (IDPs). The remainder include 21.3 million refugees who have fled across national borders and 3.2 million asylum seekers. This displacement surge has outstripped the response capacities of the international system.  Emergency appeals by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Action secure only a fraction of the financing required to meet basic human needs. Last January a UN high level panel documented a $15 billion annual shortfall in global humanitarian funding. Lacking sufficient money, agencies like the World Food Program have slashed rations and other services to displaced populations. Unfortunately, lack of funding is just one of several cracks in the foundations of humanitarianism. Six others stand out. First, combatants are increasingly targeting aid workers and their civilian beneficiaries, in violation of international humanitarian law. This is most egregious in Syria, where Bashar al-Assad’s army has repeatedly bombed hospitals and attacked relief convoys destined for beleaguered residents of Aleppo and other cities. But it is a worldwide phenomenon, and its perpetrators are not being held to account. And it is leading aid groups to pull out of some of the most desperate situations, leaving civilians in peril. A second defect is the failure of UN member states to live up to their obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention. Human rights groups, for instance, accuse Australia of shirking its responsibilities by holding asylum seekers indefinitely in offshore detention centers (including on Nauru, where some have been victims of child abuse) and transferring refugees to third countries (like Cambodia) where their safety cannot be guaranteed. On the other side of the world, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has criticized the EU-Turkey deal to stem the flow of refugees and other migrants as a potential violation of the legal principle of non-refoulement, since it risks returning refugees to countries where they have a legitimate fear of persecution. Third, the Refugee Convention itself has troubling gaps. It offers protections for refugees but not for IDPs, and it does not address the often blurry line between refugees and economic migrants—categories that begin to merge the farther refugees get from their country of origin. Nor does it address the growing phenomenon of “survival migrants”—those who cross international borders to escape deprivation, even death, thanks to collapsing governance or climate change-induced famine. A fourth deficiency is a churlish resistance by many UN member states to admitting refugees in situations where return to home countries or integration in place are not options. Globally, the number of refugees officially resettled amounted to 107,100 in 2015, according to UNHCR, a drop in the bucket considering the worldwide caseload. Rising populism and nativism are partly to blame. Last year EU member states, led by Eastern European countries, rejected a proposed quota system to share the refugee burden equitably. Bucking the trend is the United States, long the world leader in refugee admissions. The Obama administration recently announced its plans to raise the annual ceiling for admissions to 110,000 (up from 85,000 in FY16 and 75,000 in FY15). This could quickly be reversed, however, if the next occupant of the White House is Donald Trump, who like congressional Republicans has roundly (if speciously) criticized refugees as a threat to U.S. national security. Fifth, existing arrangements for assisting refugees have not adapted to the reality of prolonged displacement. Today, the average duration of displacement is an astonishing seventeen years. Rather than simply warehousing populations until they can be returned or resettled, humanitarian actors must take a longer view, working with aid agencies to encourage development in place. This includes investing in health and education, as well as working with host governments to provide livelihoods that leverage the skills and initiative of the displaced and contribute to local economies, and in a manner that benefits host nations. Most egregiously, UN member states continue to employ humanitarian action as a substitute for riskier forms of diplomatic and military intervention that might reduce, contain, or even end the underlying violence that is the root cause of this human suffering. This indictment may come across as glib, as if there were some straightforward, cost- and danger-free way to end war in Syria, say, or in South Sudan. But the hard truth, as David Rieff has written, is that there are no humanitarian solutions to humanitarian problems. The causes and solutions to these complex emergencies are inherently and fundamentally political. Viewed in this light, the current global displacement crisis is the logical outcome of political choices by powerful nations, including the United States, that have calculated that the cost of alleviating symptoms is less risky and onerous than attempting to end violent conflicts through other, more coercive means. Given this dynamic, we should expect no breakthroughs in New York. Monday’s “Summit on Addressing Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants”, hosted by Ban, will be a vapid affair. Member states will endorse by consensus an “outcome document.” The final draft, released in early August, contains some important language on upholding humanitarian law and treating refugees and migrants with respect. But overall it is a disappointing mélange of high-minded banalities with little operational significance. To his credit, the Secretary-General had pushed for something more substantive—notably, a commitment by UN member states to resettle 10 percent of the global refugee caseload annually. European nations, as well as Russia, shot down that idea. More generally, countries deferred specific commitments for protecting refugees and migrants until 2018, at which point member states are to draft two separate global compacts (one for refugees and another on migrants). The end result is a missed opportunity. Those hoping for more concrete action will need to wait a day longer. On Tuesday, September 20, the United States will convene a smaller meeting of several dozen UN member states. The event, cosponsored by the governments of Canada, Ethiopia, Germany, Jordan, Mexico, and Sweden, is designed to generate firm national pledges from participants to do more to confront the global humanitarian crisis. In calling for this meeting, President Obama is hoping to replicate the successful special session on peacekeeping he held at last year’s UNGA, and which generated major new commitments from troop contributing countries (including China), among other breakthroughs. The president is employing the same pragmatic “mini-lateral” model of international cooperation this year, convening a subset of UN members who share common objectives and have tangible capacities to bring to the table. Call it “global pay to play.” The White House has established several tangible goals for the event, seeking commitments to: Increase global response to UN humanitarian funding appeals by 30 percent Increase the number of regular humanitarian donors by at least ten Double (at a minimum) the number of slots for refugee resettlement globally Increase by at least ten the number of countries admitting refugees Enroll one million refugee children in school and provide one million refugees with lawful employment Hitting these targets would go a long way toward alleviating the immediate plight of the world’s more than twenty million refugees. But to turn the tide of the global displacement crisis, UN member states will need to devote more than resources. They will need to get serious about preventing and ending the violent conflicts that generate such misery in the first place.

Rachel Brown is a research associate for Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.  Migration across the U.S.-Mexico border is the source of polarizing debate in American politics, but rarely is it coupled with another touchy political topic: China. News of an uptick in the number of Chinese citizens smuggled across the border into southern California thus came as a surprise. In June, the San Diego Border Patrol sector reported stopping approximately 663 migrants from China over the past eight months, a 1,281 percent increase from the previous year. A spokeswoman for the Border Patrol explained, “We just weren’t getting [Chinese citizens]” before. In fact, unauthorized immigration from China is hardly a new phenomenon. Now, however, it has metastasized to different locations and taken on new, more sinister dimensions following the development of closer ties between Chinese and Latin American criminal groups. Concerns over human smuggling from China to the United States – both by land and by sea –are long-standing and have reappeared often over the last four decades. A 1993 article in the LA Times reported the arrest of over four hundred smuggled Chinese in the San Diego area and noted that “the boom in illegal immigration by sea from China’s Fujian province [the source of many unauthorized Chinese migrants in the United States] has prospered largely because of an alliance between Chinese and Latin American smuggling rings.” Despite law enforcement efforts, smuggling continued, and in 2010, Border Patrol in Tucson announced an increase by a factor of ten in the number of Chinese citizens stopped while illegally transiting through the Sonoran Desert. These numbers are large, but they represent only a small portion of the overall phenomenon. The Migration Policy Institute estimated that there were 285,000 unauthorized Chinese immigrants living in the United States, the most from any nation outside Latin America. In part, this large number speaks to the difficulty of immigrating to the United States through traditional channels. While most unauthorized immigrants simply overstay their visas, for those who are smuggled, popular routes include going by boat or flying for various legs before arriving in Mexico City or the Yucatán Peninsula and then moving north. Smuggling Chinese across the southern U.S. border appeals to traffickers because it is more lucrative than smuggling individuals from Mexico or Central America. A longer journey commands a steeper price and the going rate per person is believed to be somewhere between $50,000 and $70,000; the total value of the trade for the Chinese mafias involved has been estimated at $750 million. The role of Chinese mafia groups (triads) in bringing migrants across the border has also deepened their exposure to and ties with Latin American narcotics cartels, both in human smuggling and beyond. An “alliance between Chinese and Latin American smuggling rings” was noted as early as 1993, but today the scope of this “alliance” encompasses not just smuggling, but also other illicit activity including the sale of drug precursors from Asia and pirated materials. In Mexico, contact between triads and cartels occurs in various regions including those ruled by the ruthless Los Zetas syndicate and the Gulf and Juarez cartels, depending on what routes are used for migrants. Triad groups are believed to operate in the Mexican state of Chiapas and the Red Dragon triad, which operates in Peru, is involved not only in smuggling, but also in extortion and drug trafficking within Latin America. The wide-ranging activities of transnational organized crime groups generate additional law enforcement concerns beyond border security. Addressing the challenge of smuggling and trafficking of Chinese through Latin America will require the United States, China, and Latin America, particularly Mexico, to work together. The United States and China already operate the Joint Liaison Group on Law Enforcement Cooperation, which was established in 1997 to address a variety of issues including “drugs, and repatriation of illegal immigrants.” During President Xi’s state visit in September, he and President Obama reiterated their commitment to expand law enforcement collaboration. Meanwhile both economic ties and other exchanges between China and Mexico have expanded in recent years. Trilateral law enforcement cooperation on immigration and drugs could be a natural extension of these existing relationships. Indeed in 2013, R. Evan Ellis of the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies at the National Defense University, proposed the establishment of a “multinational anticrime mobile assessment and training team.” Such a team could help share information, address language issues, and coordinate strategies specific to each country involved. While the media often portray the relationship between China and the United States in Latin America as more competitive than cooperative, perhaps the often fractious debate over unauthorized immigration could generate a new source of collaboration.

The three North American leaders meet tomorrow in Ottawa, the new Trudeau government reviving an annual summit. As a recent poll of U.S. perceptions of its neighbors by Vianovo and GSD&M confirms, they face public opinion headwinds. Canvassing 1,000 U.S. adults through YouGov, the survey reveals the deep suspicions Americans hold of their neighbors, especially Mexico. Less than one in four Americans have a positive image of Mexico, and fewer still believe it has a modern economy or is safe for travel. Many see Mexico as an economic drain—when removing those who say they don’t know enough, a similar number want to leave as stay in NAFTA (mirroring the Brexit divide). A majority of Americans see the Mexican government as corrupt, the nation as unstable, and believe illegal immigration is increasing. Over half want to build a wall to shield the United States from these perceived problems. For them, Mexico is a problem, not a partner. These views divide sharply along partisan lines. By a two-to-one margin Democrats say they want to preserve NAFTA, compared to pluralities of Republicans and independents who would prefer to abandon it. Feelings about Mexico in particular differ depending on one’s politics. Republicans overwhelmingly see Mexico as the source of problems for the United States rather than as a good neighbor; Democrats are split between the two views. These perceptions don’t reflect reality. Since 2009 migration flows from Mexico have been net zero to negative (more people leaving than coming). Instead the largest sources of U.S. migrants are China and India. Economically, North American supply chains undergird much of U.S. manufacturing and support the jobs of millions of Americans. Without NAFTA the auto, electronics, and machinery industries would likely shut down, moving wholesale to other regions. Overall the majority of Americans miss the fundamental transformations Mexico has undergone over the last few decades. Now the eleventh-largest global economy, Mexico boasts top research universities, highly successful multinational companies, tens of millions of middle class consumers, and GDP per capita topping $18,000 (in PPP terms). Though cold comfort, American suspicions aren’t limited to Mexico. One in five Americans want to wall themselves off from Canada. These isolationist views aren’t driven by Trump—perceptions haven’t changed much in four years (the last time the firms conducted a survey). Few respondents even mentioned him, though when asked a strong majority thought he would worsen relations with our neighbors. What did emerge is that Americans that know Mexico—having visited for work or fun—feel better about the country. Time to encourage more visits—on top of the estimated 22 million trips by U.S. citizens each year. Perhaps that can change perceptions.

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to determine the fate of millions of undocumented immigrants and could influence how future presidents wield power.

Coauthored with Theresa Lou, research associate in the International Institutions and Global Governance program at the Council on Foreign Relations. The first-ever World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) concluded this week in Istanbul with mixed results. Although a few significant initiatives emerged, including on financing and education, the summit made little headway on other urgent priorities. These include mobilizing a new crop of humanitarian donors, ensuring compliance with the 1951 Refugee Convention, and getting states to uphold international humanitarian law, including the safety of relief workers. Progress on these fronts will await the opening of the seventy-first session of the UN General Assembly in September, when world leaders convene for real intergovernmental negotiations. The Istanbul summit was merely the first step in mobilizing global attention and political will on the need to rescue a world in flight. The most pleasant surprise was a Grand Bargain between donor countries and aid organizations to get more assistance directly in the hands of local humanitarian organizations. Today, the vast majority of emergency aid is channeled through international agencies and service providers, with the six largest UN agencies managing nearly 50 percent of that aid. By contrast, national and local humanitarian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) receive only a pittance—perhaps 0.2 percent. Under the new arrangement international actors pledged to increase the share going directly to local on-the-ground NGOs to 25 percent by 2020, reducing bureaucratic inefficiencies and saving an anticipated billion dollars over the next five years. They also agreed to provide more aid to beneficiaries in the form of cash rather than vouchers, which aid experts say provide more bang for the buck. By endorsing this agreement, donors and aid organizations are committing to work together to increase financial transparency and efficiency. In another bright spot, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) launched the “Education Cannot Wait” fund to better coordinate support for education for children affected by the protracted crises. The UNICEF initiative responds to a bleak reality: Children now comprise more than half of the global refugee population, and their displacement risks contributing to “lost generations” of uneducated school-age children from Syria to Yemen, Mali to Somalia. Donors in Istanbul made an initial down payment of $90 million, but the real money is yet to come. Finally, the WHS also launched the Global Preparedness Partnership, as well as the World Bank-sponsored Global Financing Response Platform. These aim (respectively) to prepare fragile states against future shocks and promote their economic resilience. These initiatives reflect a lesson of experience: Tomorrow’s flows of refugees and internally displaced persons are most likely to emerge from today’s stock of poorly governed, conflict-prone developing countries. Protecting these vulnerable nations from sudden-onset crises, whether natural or man-made, is central to preventing displacement. Both initiatives seek to employ longer-term development assistance in a fashion that reduces the likelihood of future humanitarian crises. They build on another financing initiative launched jointly last October by the World Bank, the United Nations, and the Islamic Development Bank Group to meet the financial needs of Middle East and North African countries coping with the costs of housing millions of refugees. But that is, unfortunately, where the good news ends. Despite acknowledging that “humanitarian action cannot be a substitute for political action,” participants did little more than reaffirm the importance of political will in preventing and resolving conflicts and the need to uphold international humanitarian law. Weeks before the summit commenced, the prominent NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF or Doctors Without Borders) announced that it would not be participating, precisely because it did not believe member states would be held accountable for their repeated violations of humanitarian principles. Two main factors limited progress in Istanbul: First, this was essentially a UN-run show, rather than an actual intergovernmental summit. Indeed, world leaders were conspicuously absent, with only fifty-five heads of state or government in attendance. Among the Group of Seven (G7) leaders, only Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany chose to attend. The summit brought together thousands of participants from the private sector, civil society, and NGOs, but no-shows by President Barack Obama and other prominent leaders suggested that they did not take it seriously and were skeptical that it could deliver substantive change. Second, the United Nations unwisely chose to hold this event without prior agreements among member states on critical agenda items. In the run-up to the event, the United Nations did conduct extensive consultations with governments, aid agencies, NGO service providers, and host governments. In February, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon released a report to guide discussion and action. Unfortunately, the summit agenda was too sprawling, and the United Nations failed to generate traction among member states for concrete policy decisions. Luckily, the year is yet young. September will provide two more opportunities for breakthrough. First, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) will host a plenary meeting on refugees and migrants. Beyond building worldwide support for the various WHS commitments, this intergovernmental session provides an opportunity for UN member states to recommit themselves to the legally binding asylum principles under the 1951 Refugee Convention, which are under increasing threat, to judge from the EU-Turkey refugee deal and Kenya’s threat to close the Dadaab refugee camp (the world’s largest). In parallel, the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council should pass new resolutions reaffirming international humanitarian law, which has been routinely violated in Syria and in other recent conflicts. Second, President Obama intends to use his last UNGA appearance to host a more selective meeting of current and potential donors to the humanitarian enterprise, which continues to be dominated by a handful of countries, led by the United States. Modeled on the successful “pay to play” approach the president used at last September’s special session on UN peacekeeping, the U.S.-led meeting offers the best opportunity to generate new financial commitments from major emerging countries such as China and India, as well as Persian Gulf nations, to bridge an estimated $15 billion annual shortfall in humanitarian spending.  

Central America’s Northern Triangle is one of the most violent regions in the world. Last year’s murder rate of roughly 54 per 100,000 inhabitants surpasses Iraq’s civilian death toll. El Salvador alone registered 103 homicides per 100,000—making it the deadliest peacetime country. While victims are often young men, women and children die too. Kids face a murder rate of 27 per 100,000 in El Salvador—making the country as dangerous for elementary and middle schoolers as it is for an adult in the toughest neighborhoods of Detroit or New Orleans. Its neighbors Honduras and Guatemala are also among not just Latin America’s but the world’s most dangerous nations. This violence is one of the main factors driving massive migration. In 2014, U.S. border patrol detained a record 239,000 Central Americans on the southern border. In 2015, this figure fell, in large part because Mexico stopped those leaving—sending back some 150,000 migrants caught along its border with Guatemala. In the last three plus years over 136,000 unaccompanied minors and 140,000 more family members have come north—enough to populate Cincinnati. Tens of thousands are fleeing to neighboring countries—Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Belize have all seen asylum applications skyrocket. Less than five months into 2016, 56,000 new unaccompanied minors and others are already in U.S. custody, suggesting another record surge in the making. The challenges facing Central America won’t diminish soon, meaning migration flows to the United States and elsewhere won’t end. Proposed solutions—strengthening public prosecutors, training police, cleaning up prisons, building community centers, and developing alternative jobs programs —will only make a difference in the medium to longer term. And though the U.S. Congress has approved $750 million for programs to reduce violence and boost economic development, those taking a historical perspective know this isn’t the first time the United States and others have tried to buttress these fragile nations, with few results. Yet what might be different this time comes from these societies themselves. Even as many justifiably flee, other Central Americans (notably not many of their elites, at least yet) are raising their voices against the poverty, inequality, corruption, and violence. Investigative journalists, armed with freedom of information acts, digital paper trails (such as the Panama papers), and other tools within these budding democracies have uncovered deep-seated corruption—including powerful Guatemalan politicians using their office for personal gain, and the expansive ties between Honduran elites and organized crime. Local prosecutors and judges too have stepped up to make sure justice is done, even if it involves the powerful. In Guatemala, the attorney general—working closely with the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG)—brought down the former president and vice president for running a customs fraud scheme. El Salvador’s Supreme Court is going after two former presidents for graft. And citizen protests have grown. In Guatemala, the peaceful demonstrations by tens of thousands led to the resignation of President Otto Pérez Molina. In Honduras, citizen outrage over $200 million missing from the social security system forced the government to accept a new Mission Against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras, modeled after CICIG, to investigate that and other alleged wrongdoings. Ongoing protests following the assassination of environmental and indigenous activist Berta Cáceres are forcing the government to investigate. These steps, while fledgling, could matter for these nations’ future. Their successes or failures will also likely matter in shaping future decisions to exit—through migration—or to stay and raise one’s voice, for change at home.

Rachel Brown is a research associate in Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. In February, $81 million stolen from the central bank of Bangladesh’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was laundered through the Philippines. Most observers worried about the security of the institutions involved. But equally if not more important is the potential impact on overseas Filipino workers. Increased scrutiny of vulnerabilities in the Philippines’ anti-money laundering provisions could make it harder for the over ten million Filipinos working abroad to send remittances home, as has occurred in many other developing nations. Globally, the Philippines is the third-highest recipient of remittances, which compromised 10 percent of GDP in 2014. These funds help fuel domestic consumption, and anything that affects the cost or ease of sending money to the nation will have significant economic implications. The Bangladesh Bank scandal highlights flaws in the Philippines’ current anti-money laundering regime. While the government strengthened regulations in 2013, highly secretive banking laws remain. Additionally, the 2001 Anti-Money Laundering Act does not cover the Philippines’ thriving casino industry, the destination of the pilfered funds. The revelation of these flaws and the parties involved may taint the image of the firms Philippine workers use to send money home. Philippine Senate investigations found that PhilRem, a Filipino remittance company in the United Kingdom and United States, converted and transferred the money into the accounts of one casino tour operator at the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC). In theory, the Philippines’ Anti-Money Laundering Act encompasses businesses like PhilRem that send or receive funds from workers overseas.  In practice, the funds are small and hard to track, and firms may misidentify themselves. (PhilRem originally listed as a land-transport company). PhilRem partners with major foreign banks such as Barclays and Lloyds to facilitate goods and cash transfers, but its involvement in the scandal could make banks wary of remittance firms’ capacity to monitor for suspicious transactions. The scandal has also sparked concern that the Philippines will be blacklisted by the inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF). The Philippines was on the FATF blacklist in the early 2000s. When the FATF previously considered sanctioning the Philippines, officials worried about the repercussions for remittances. Senator Serge Osmeña noted this March that if re-blacklisted, “We will be at a loss because our banks will not be able to transact with their counterparts in New York and London.” Sending money to a blacklisted nation may entail higher fees, delays, and even denial of service. Even if the Philippines is not blacklisted, remitters could still face challenges. The experiences of other countries perceived as weak on money laundering reveal potential risks. After September 11, requirements to monitor stringently the paths and recipients of money – and penalties for not doing so – increased. Some foreign banks simply ended partner relations with firms in suspect nations, as there was little incentive to risk incurring fines given the small profits. These changes hit particularly hard in Somalia as by 2015, most major American, British, and Australian banks ceased remittance services. Remittances also dropped considerably in Guyana when the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force blacklisted it. Already, Philippine firms feel the squeeze of heightened suspicion. In late March, the Cebu Daily News reported greater scrutiny of remittances sent through a Filipino company in Australia. Even prior to the scandal, nearly forty banks shut down accounts of Filipino remittance firms in sixteen nations. In early 2016, RCBC, the Bank of the Philippine Islands, and Philippine National Bank all lost relationships with correspondent banks in Italy. If more firms lose relationships with international partners, reduced competition could lead to higher fees. Further closures or increased fees would also deal a blow to already weakening Philippine remittances. In July 2015, remittances grew at 5.9 percent their slowest rate in half a decade. Falling oil prices, in particular, have hurt remittances, roughly a third of which come from the Gulf. So what are the prospects for reforms that might forestall such closures? Last Thursday, the Philippine Central Bank’s governor announced efforts to minimize the damage to remittances from foreign banks limiting risk exposure. An inter-agency assessment of terrorist financing and money laundering weaknesses is underway, and the scandal has also revived interest in a biometric national ID system to better track who ultimately receives remitted funds. There is no question that the Philippines’ genuine money laundering vulnerabilities necessitate closer supervision, but lasting changes will occur only after the next president’s inauguration. Until then, banks should avoid too hastily curtailing services, otherwise families of overseas workers may pay too high a price.

Coauthored with Theresa Lou, research associate in the International Institutions and Global Governance program at the Council on Foreign Relations. A record-setting sixty-million individuals are currently displaced due to violent conflict. While the world’s attention has been gripped by the million who have reached Europe’s shores over the past year, the global crisis of displacement is vastly greater in scope. In anticipation of the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, Turkey in May 2016, the International Institutions and Global Governance program held a workshop to diagnose shortcomings of the current humanitarian regime and propose recommendations for its reform. Here are five important takeaways. 1. Limited responsibility sharing is unsustainable. The 1951 Refugee Convention outlines states’ obligations to protect asylum seekers, but it fails to establish mechanisms for member states to equitably distribute the responsibilities and monetary costs of hosting refugees. Accordingly, the burdens for providing emergency relief and hosting refugees fall disproportionately on neighboring countries. To make matters worse, these hosting countries are often fragile states with weak capacities to provide essential services. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, developing countries today host more than 86 percent of the world’s refugees. Allowing geographic proximity to determine refugee burdens generates tensions between states forced to accept refugees and those that can turn the other cheek, jeopardizes the safety of asylum seekers, and undermines the legitimacy of the humanitarian regime. 2. The humanitarian regime needs to adapt to the times. Established in the wake of World War II, the international humanitarian regime is no longer fit for purpose. It has failed to adapt to a world of fragile states and nonstate actors, in which humanitarian crises are more complex and protracted. Being a refugee is no longer a temporary situation: today the average duration of displacement is a shocking seventeen years. Instead of offering short term assistance, international actors must increasingly seek durable solutions. They must also adjust to the communications revolution. As the Syrian experience shows, today’s refugees often have access to satellite based navigation technologies and social media communication, which they can use to guide themselves toward hospitable destinations and services. But these same technologies also encourage secondary movements, whereby asylum seekers transit potential asylum countries for more desirable onward destinations. This trend exacerbates backlogs in processing asylum claims and complicates the task of distinguishing refugees from economic migrants. Indeed, today’s complex emergencies blur the distinction between those who qualify as refugees under the 1951 convention and those who do not deserve asylum. For example, what should be the status and legal protections afforded so-called “survival migrants”—those who cross international borders to escape deprivation, even death, thanks to collapsing governance or climate change-induced famine? Likewise, the existing humanitarian regime fails to offer adequate protections for the roughly 40 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) who continue to reside within their country’s borders, in often desperate circumstances. Although IDPs are often among the most vulnerable individuals, aid organizations struggle to access and protect them, in a world still organized around state sovereignty. 3. The world must bridge the gap between humanitarian and development aid. In the immediate wake of crisis, affected populations require emergency assistance. As displacement persists, however, refugees and IDPs increasingly need development assistance so that they can rebuild livelihoods and homes and gain access to essentials services from water and sanitation to health and education. Bridging the gap between humanitarian and development action requires agencies to break out of their bureaucratic boxes and get more comfortable both with doing things differently and doing different things. In one promising step, the World Bank, the United Nations, and the Islamic Development Bank Group jointly launched a new financing initiative in October 2015 to meet both the humanitarian and development needs of the Middle East and North Africa countries coping with the impact of the Syrian refugee crisis. 4. Opportunities for education and employment must be part of the long-term solution. Finding durable solutions to the global humanitarian crisis requires us to think more creatively about the linkages between states, markets, and refugees. By providing refugees with employment opportunities, host countries are empowering them to become self-reliant economic actors. Such an approach not only benefits the local economy, but also may minimize the level of secondary movement, because refugees now have the means to support themselves and their family in place. It also provides them with skills they can take back to their homes when conflict subsides. This approach has proven successful in studies conducted by the University of Oxford in Uganda, where refugees were found to make “a positive contribution to the host state economy.” Today, children make up more than half of the global refugee population. All too often, they have limited access to education in host countries, due to shortages of schools, lack of transportation, and other obstacles. This is a ticking time bomb, inasmuch as children not enrolled in school are more likely to end up working in hazardous conditions or to be recruited into militant organizations. At the 2016 conference on Supporting Syria and the Region in London, participants committed to provide education to all Syrian refugee children by the end of the 2016–17 school year. Though such an endeavor will cost at least $1.4 billion annually, it seems a reasonable price to prevent the emergence of a “lost generation.” 5. The world must seize upon upcoming opportunities to harness global momentum for change. Given the growing number of fragile states, as well as the strains of climate change, mass human movements are likely to be the wave of the future. The world needs to act accordingly. Fortunately, the remainder of 2016 offers at least three opportunities for humanitarian actors and member states to focus on pressing reforms. In May, the United Nations will host the world Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul. In September, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will host a plenary meeting on humanitarian issues at the seventy-first session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA). Finally, President Barack Obama will host a high-level summit on the sidelines of UNGA to “secure new commitments” for humanitarian action. The United States has established the following laudable goals: Increase global response to UN humanitarian funding appeals by 30 percent Increase the number of regular humanitarian donors by at least ten Double (at a minimum) the number of slots for refugee resettlement globally Increase by at least ten the number of countries admitting refugees Enroll one million refugees children in school and provide one million refugees with lawful employment Though much work remains to be done, this “Year of Summits” offers member states and humanitarian actors an opportunity to harness political momentum for necessary reforms to protect the growing number of forced migrants and refugees.  To learn more, read the full report: “The Global Humanitarian Regime: Priorities and Prospects for Reform.”

In late April, I spent several days in Taiwan as part of a Council on Foreign Relations delegation. We met with a wide range of officials from the major political parties, including President Ma Ying-jeou, President-elect Tsai Ing-wen, President of the Legislative Yuan Su Jia-Chyuan, and Kuo Chang-huang, a first-term legislator. It is a period of political transition from eight years of Kuomintang (KMT) leadership under President Ma to a government led by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) with Tsai at the helm. And waiting in the wings is the brand new New Power Party (NPP), which was born out of the 2014 Sunflower Movement, and earned itself five seats in the most recent Legislative Yuan elections. Our meetings made three things clear to me. First, officials from each party have their own distinct set of priorities, but all share a finely-honed pragmatism. For Ma and the KMT, the priority is preserving and extending the legacy of cross-strait peace and stability that it believes derives from its success in enhancing ties with Beijing.  Even as it begins the process of winding down, the KMT is still committed to seeing through agreements with Beijing on issues such as trade in goods and services.  The road ahead will be tough given its losses in both the executive and legislative branches. The DPP and Tsai, in contrast, were all about domestic politics—pushing forward on grand-scale job training and affordable housing programs, and seeking to tap into the energy and capabilities of the island’s young people.  Reinvigorating Taiwan’s economic presence on the global stage is also front and center for the next administration, although, here too, the path forward is somewhat murky. The New Power Party was represented by a trio of young, dynamic, and edgy politicos, seeking to consolidate and expand their gains, while pushing for greater independence of action from Beijing. No one is calling for Taiwanese independence tomorrow. Second, China is succeeding in its aim of influencing politics in Taiwan during the transition, but not in the way it desires. Beijing began the year by reversing its eight-year tacit understanding to not establish diplomatic relations with countries that recognize Taiwan (thereby giving the island nation a semblance of sovereign international status) and resuming ties with Gambia. Next, it successfully pressured Kenya to deport as many as forty-five Taiwanese (the number is in dispute) to the mainland as part of a larger set of arrests of suspects in a telecom fraud ring. Despite Taiwan’s vehement protests (and a previous agreement between Taipei and Beijing to manage their own citizens in such cases), Beijing has not relented. Taiwan has sent a ten-member delegation to Beijing to try to negotiate their release. (Notably, Malaysia, which faced a similar demand from Beijing, repatriated the Taiwanese citizens back to Taiwan not to the mainland.) Beijing may think that it is firing a warning shot across the bow to Tsai by demonstrating just how much Beijing can take away if the president-elect doesn’t toe the line. Instead, however, Beijing’s actions are undermining its best partner in the Taiwanese government, President Ma, making it nearly impossible for him and his team to claim that under KMT rule Taiwan made real and sustainable progress in its relationship with the mainland. After all, if the presumed gains of the past eight years can be wiped out in the space of three months, it only reinforces the sense among many in Taiwan that Beijing cannot be trusted. Finally, after falling off the American radar screen over the past eight years, Taiwan is quickly edging its way back on. The next administration needs to keep its eye on the final objective—“that cross-Strait differences be resolved peacefully and according to the wishes of the people on both sides of the Strait.” This means we don’t help stir the pot on Taiwan and we don’t sell-out Taiwan for some ephemeral grand bargain with Beijing. Taiwan may be small but it is not a small matter. At stake is not only our relationship with Beijing but also American values and principles, which are exemplified by Taiwan’s vibrant and determined democracy.