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Thursday, 28 July 2011.Sixty years after the signature of the Geneva Convention on Refugees, which has helped millions of men, women and children fleeing persecution, wars and torture, to secure protection and the prospect of a brighter future, the world remains scarred by conflicts new and old.
Since the spring, we have seen more than a million people leave everything behind and flee the war in Libya. Although only a relatively small number have come to Europe, the images have shocked us all. Men, women and children putting their lives at risk in often unseaworthy boats, trying to cross the Mediterranean in rapidly variable weather – an unknown but large number drowning in the attempt.
Europe owes it to these people, to all refugees, and to itself to uphold the values of the 1951 Refugee Convention. The Convention emerged from the strong ‘never again’ sentiment following the Second World War. It provided a clear legal framework for the protection of individuals fleeing persecution. The values enshrined in the Refugee Convention and in other international instruments adopted at approximately the same time, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions on the Law of Armed Conflict, are part of the identity of Europe and have been built into the structure of the European Union. Indeed, the EU itself was born of the desire to prevent the misery of war. Human rights and refugee protection are a part of its essence.
Categories: Europe, Human Rights