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Forced Migration in South-East Asia and East Asia

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PRIN TED FROM OXFORD H AN DBOOKS ON LIN E (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). (c) Oxford U niversity Press, 2014. All Rights Reserved. U nder the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford H andbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy). Subscriber: U niversity of Oxford; date: 09 January 2015

Print Publication Date: Jun 2014 Subject: Political Science, International Relations, Comparative Politics

Online Publication Date: Aug 2014

DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199652433.013.0048

Forced Migration in South-East Asia and East Asia Kirsten McConnahie The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies Edited by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Gil Loescher, Katy Long, and Nando Sigona

Oxford Handbooks Online

Abstract and Keywords

This chapter provides an overview of responses to forced migration in South-East and East Asia. It begins by outlining the extent of forced migration throughout the region, before discussing responses to forced migration and protection challenges in selected national contexts. The latter sections of the chapter examine two protracted refugee situations that have dominated this regional context: refugees from Indochina (1975–1995) and refugees from Myanmar (late 1970s–present).

Keywords: forced migration, South-East Asia, East Asia, refugees, Indochina, Myanmar

Introduction

This chapter considers forced migration in South-East Asia and East Asia, a vast region that includes Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Macau, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Republic of Korea, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam. The chapter opens with a broad overview of regional dimensions of forced migration. The second section provides more detail about selected individual country contexts. The third section examines two protracted refugee situations that have dominated this regional context: refugees from Indochina and refugees from Myanmar.

A Regional Overview

‘South-East and East Asia’ is a region of tremendous economic, political, and social diversity. To the extent that a shared regional experience of forced migration can be identified, it is one of large mixed migration flows but very limited formal legal protection. Few nations in the region have ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention (with the exception of China, Cambodia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Timor-Leste, and the Philippines) while none has acceded to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and only one (the Philippines) has acceded to the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons. There is much wider acceptance of general human rights instruments with all states in the region as signatories to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; including, perhaps surprisingly, such ‘pariah states’ as Myanmar and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

(p. 627) Remaining outside the global refugee regime does not mean that states in the region have refused to grant asylum, Thailand, in particular, has absorbed large-scale refugee flows continually for the past four decades. It does mean, however, that approaches to asylum have not been mediated by formal legal obligations. As in much of the rest of the world, South-East and East Asian nations’ primary concern has been with controlling irregular

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migration rather than with humanitarian objectives of asylum. Furthermore, with no binding document equivalent to the 1951 Refugee Convention or the Organization of African Unity’s regional Convention, the ‘Asian approach’ to forced migration has been founded on respect for sovereignty and the pursuit of economic development rather than on international human rights or refugee law (Davies 2008; Hedman 2009).

In 2013, the total ‘population of concern’ to UNHCR in South-East Asia, East Asia, and the Pacific was slightly more than 2.75 million people. Of this population approximately 1.4 million are stateless persons, 750,000 are refugees, and 500,000 are IDPs assisted by UNHCR (UNHCR 2013: 116). Primary refugee-generating countries in the region include Myanmar and Vietnam and, to a much lesser extent, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, and the Philippines. Primary refugee-hosting nations include Thailand, Malaysia, and again to a much lesser extent, Indonesia. There are large IDP populations in Indonesia, Myanmar, and the Philippines. Statelessness exists throughout the region and is the consequence of both indirect denial of citizenship (i.e. children born to refugee parents) and the direct exclusion of particular ethnic groups. The latter includes the Rohingya, who were denied nationality by the Burmese Citizenship Law of 1982 and have endured extreme persecution and discrimination in Myanmar and throughout the region (Human Rights Watch 2013).

Political conflict and repression have been at the root of the largest refugee outflows in recent decades, from Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, North Korea, and Myanmar. Forced migration has also been catalysed by ethnic conflict, religious persecution, state-sponsored ‘development’ projects, famine (in North Korea), and natural disaster (including Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar and the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake in Japan). Of course, it is not always possible to identify a single cause of displacement as multiple causes often exist simultaneously. Likewise, the line between ‘forced’ and ‘voluntary’ migration is often hard to determine (Turton 2003). This widely recognized problem is particularly acute in Asia, where uneven economic development across the region has generated massive labour migration. Migrant worker transit routes intersect with smuggling and trafficking pathways, creating extremely complex contexts of mixed migration which typify the ‘asylum-migration nexus’ (Castles and Van Hear 2005—for a critique of trafficking discourse and policy, see Anderson, this volume).

Regional agendas have primarily focused on irregular migration rather than asylum, with the recent adoption of the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime and a number of other initiatives establishing a common framework. In contrast, there is no comprehensive regional strategy for refugee protection but rather ‘weakly institutionalized regional cooperation and a patchwork (p. 628) of intra-regional protocols and bilateral agreements’ (Hedman 2010: 34). One example of such regional cooperation is the Bangkok Principles on the Status and Treatment of Refugees (1966). Drafted under the auspices of the intergovernmental Asian African Legal Consultative Committee, the Bangkok Principles have been widely adopted and serve as a guideline framework for refugee protection. However, they are merely declaratory, non-binding, and unenforceable and as such ‘have had little discernible effect on Asian state practice in relation to refugees’ (Davies 2008: 3).

The most significant regional initiative with implications for forced migration policy is the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), established by the 1967 Bangkok Declaration between Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand and later expanded to its current membership of ten nations (with Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Vietnam). ASEAN was established to ‘reassert individual sovereignty, mutual protection from foreign influence and ensure that each member was equally protected from another member’s influence’ (Cook 2010: 440). A core policy principle was that of non-interference in the affairs of other states. The ideal of the ‘ASEAN way’ is that solidarity between ASEAN nations in public keeps a door open for private dialogue and negotiation (Acharya 2008). This approach has had important successes in individual cases (as, for example, in the ASEAN intervention to secure international aid access to Myanmar in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis (Marr 2010; Cook 2010)) but it has fundamentally restricted ASEAN’s capacity to shape a regional agenda on forced migration—at least, one that is not solely based on security objectives. While the creation of an ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) in 2009 hinted that ASEAN may take a more active role in developing a harmonized regional approach that reflects human rights goals, as a consensus-based institution the AICHR is likely to be restricted by the same political relationships that inhibit ASEAN overall.

The limited institutional framework for refugee protection lends particular importance to the role of civil society. At the regional level, the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network was established in 2008 to conduct advocacy, information sharing, and capacity building on refugee rights. By 2013, it had 160 organizational members. Key agendas include lobbying states to adopt the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol, and to enact domestic

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legislation to protect refugees’ rights. The APRRN has also engaged with ASEAN to raise the profile of refugee and statelessness issues within the organization and its member nations. These agendas have been pursued at the national level by APRRN members such as the Thai Committee for Refugees and the Japan Association for Refugees. In addition, local community-based organizations are often crucial in providing basic resources and assistance to forced migrants, including education, healthcare, and legal aid. Such organizations and informal networks play a central role in protection activities in areas where international agencies have had no or limited access (including much of Myanmar (South 2012)) as well as in the management of refugee camps in Thailand (McConnachie 2014), and in the urban environments of Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur (Smith 2012: 15; Palmgren 2013).

(p. 629) Receiving Refugees: Selected National Contexts

The lack of formal refugee protection continues at the domestic level as most countries do not have codified national legislation or procedures for asylum claims (with one recent exception including the Republic of Korea, where a national Refugee Act came into force in 2013). During the Indochinese refugee crisis, camps were established throughout the region, including in Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Today, in contrast to responses to refugee flows in much of Africa, relatively few refugees in South-East Asia are confined to camps (with the notable exception of approximately 130,000 refugees from Myanmar in Thailand).

While this is broadly positive, the absence of mechanisms for verifying asylum means that refugees are not distinguished from economic migrants and instead all are lumped together as undocumented ‘illegal’ migrants, vulnerable to arrest, detention, and deportation. This creates acute protection challenges. Immigration detention is widely used throughout the region but detention conditions in many countries in the region fall far short of international standards; as, for example, in Malaysia, where punishments for immigration offences include whipping and caning (APRRN 2013: 9).

At one end of the spectrum, Japan cooperates with the international refugee regime as both a donor country and as a resettlement country but it also has a domestic political climate that broadly opposes immigration and a legal system that imposes harsh penalties for illegal migration. The launch of Japan’s resettlement programme was heralded as ‘historic’ (UNHCR 2008) but only 55 refugees were resettled in its first three years of operation (APRRN 2013).

Other countries receive much larger populations of forced migrants but ‘border control’ is all but indistinguishable from ‘refoulement’. China is one of the few regional state parties to the 1951 Convention and during the Indochinese refugee crisis accepted more than 300,000 Vietnamese refugees (mostly ethnic Chinese) for resettlement. In recent refugee situations, however, its response has been rather less generous. Tens of thousands of North Koreans have crossed illegally to China to escape famine and political and religious discrimination. Most, if not all of those leaving would likely meet the criteria for refugee status under the 1951 Convention (Cohen 2012). Nonetheless, if found in China they are considered irregular economic or ‘food’ migrants and returned to North Korea where they face interrogation and detention in prison, forced labour camps, or re-education camps (Human Rights Watch 2013; Haggard and Noland 2011). In 2012, mass repatriations were conducted to return thousands of ethnic Kachin who fled to China after the collapse of a ceasefire between the Kachin Independence Army and the Myanmar government. Both North Korean and Kachin women have become primary targets for trafficking in China (Haggard and Noland 2011; KWAT 2013).

(p. 630) There are many more examples of rejections, push-backs, and refoulement across South-East and East Asia. Khmer Krom asylum seekers who fled persecution in Vietnam have been forcibly returned from both Cambodia and Thailand. In 2009, more than 4,000 Hmong who fled from Laos to Thailand were detained in camps and detention centres, before being forcibly repatriated as illegal migrants (Mydans 2009). Rohingya boat arrivals to Thailand have been pushed back or, under the euphemistically named ‘help on’ policy, provided with some food, water, and other resources before being moved on to Malaysia or Indonesia.

Thailand and Malaysia receive the largest number of asylum seekers, though neither country has enacted domestic legislation for the recognition and protection of refugees. Instead, huge populations of undocumented migrants are ‘managed’ through a combination of border control, regularization campaigns, and criminal sanctions (Hall 2012: 6). These efforts to control irregular migration sit uneasily with an economic dependence on unskilled7

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migrant labour. As Grundy-Warr (2004: 252) writes, ‘The fact is that the Kingdom of Thailand, like so many other political economies, continues to officially restrict but unofficially (or less officially) encourage, or at least tolerate, very large numbers of undocumented migrants on her soil.’ Undocumented migrants—a population including potentially hundreds of thousands of people who would qualify for refugee status—thus exist in a precarious space of tolerated illegality. They also represent a dual source of revenue to their host states: as a source of cheap labour and as an income stream through migrant worker registration and regularization programmes (Grundy-Warr 2004: 252).

The protection environment for refugees and migrants is often bleak but there is some (albeit limited) cause for optimism. In Malaysia, ‘illegal’ migrants live under an ever-present fear of arrest and detention, in a context where police corruption is widespread (Smith 2012: 59–60). Nevertheless, there have been some improvements in the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers in recent years. Refugees recognized by UNHCR and in possession of a ‘UNHCR card’ are less likely to be detained and since 2009, UNHCR has been able to negotiate the release of more than 9,000 people from immigration detention (Crisp, Obi, and Umlas 2012: 13–14). However, thousands more remain in detention, in a network of more than 40 camps and centres throughout the nation (Chin Refugee Committee 2012: 25).

In 2012, the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs consulted with civil society in drafting ‘Standard Operating Procedures’ which recognized the right to temporary asylum and right to non-refoulement and established refugees’ entitlements to local integration, freedom of movement, right to education, right to work, and freedom of religion. More than a year later they had still not been formally adopted by the Indonesian Government (APRRN 2013: 15).

Regional Refugee Crises

The brief introduction above gives some sense of the complexity of forced migration at the country level. In terms of refugee situations with regional impact, the recent (p. 631) history of forced migration in South-East and East Asia has been dominated by two situations: refugees from Indochina (1975–95) and refugees from Myanmar (late 1970s–present). These situations have obvious differences but also some important similarities, including rejection of the international refugee regime, regional cohesion around shared political objectives, and the potential for international cooperation in the search for durable solutions.

The Indochina Refugee Crisis

The Indochinese refugee crisis has been described as one of the ‘great population shifts in history’ (Robinson 1998: 50). Between 1975 and 1995, more than 3 million people from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia sought asylum in surrounding countries. From the outset, the response of South-East Asian nations was that this massive exodus was not their responsibility and that granting asylum would only lead to a larger influx. Instead, they consented to provide temporary asylum only if resettlement places were secured in other nations; a position sealed when Malaysia and Thailand began pushing back boatloads of arrivals (Loescher 1993: 87).

Initially, the majority of resettlement places were provided by the United States, a situation that echoed regional and international perceptions of responsibility for the refugee flows and which, while hardly the preference of the US government, also afforded significant political capital as a symbol of both the undesirability of communist regimes and American generosity and tolerance. However, as the number of asylum seekers outpaced the number of available resettlement places, South-East Asian nations became ‘increasingly determined, in the face of regional instability, to maintain their domestic stability by stemming the flow of asylum seekers and guarantee international assistance’ (Davies 2006: 14). ASEAN foreign ministers issued a joint statement that their countries had ‘reached the limit of their endurance and would not accept any new arrivals’ unless international resettlement places were guaranteed (Robinson 1998: 50). Tens of thousands of people who had travelled long distances in flimsy, overcrowded boats were turned back or towed away from the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand. Most international attention was focused on the Vietnamese boat people, but even larger numbers of people were trying to cross overland from Cambodia to Thailand. These people too were pushed back—into minefields and Khmer Rouge controlled areas—in a process of mass refoulement as a result of which unknown numbers died (Robinson 1998).

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By July 1979, the situation had become desperate and the United Nations convened an international conference in Geneva with the goals of preserving temporary first asylum, securing resettlement places, and reducing clandestine departures from Vietnam. The conference was a success, as participating nations pledged 260,000 resettlement places and US$160 million in donations, and the government of Vietnam agreed to establish an Orderly Departures Programme to permit legitimate departures (for family reunion and humanitarian cases) and prevent clandestine departures. The situation was temporarily (p. 632) resolved, though the dynamics of its resolution had troubling implications: violating international law had provided South-East Asian nations with the outcome that they desired, where granting asylum had threatened to burden them with the sole responsibility for the refugee crisis. The lesson for all concerned was that ‘hard hearts could drive hard bargains’ (Robinson 1998: 31).

For much of the next decade, resettlement places exceeded arrivals and the agreement held. As population outflows continued into the 1980s, however, both Asian and Western nations began to view the automatic grant of resettlement places as a ‘pull factor’ for economic migrants as well as genuine refugees. A second international conference was convened, leading to the adoption of the Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA) for Indochina (1989), which maintained the same objectives as the previous agreement (to preserve temporary asylum, reduce clandestine departures, and provide resettlement places) but added two new elements in a requirement of status determination and the incorporation of repatriation as well as resettlement. The process would be that those already based in camps would be resettled but all new arrivals thereafter would be screened to separate genuine refugees from economic migrants. The former would be resettled while the latter would be repatriated.

Between 1975 and 1995, the CPA and its predecessor agreement processed the asylum claims of 1,436,556 people and resettled 1,311,183 (UNHCR 2000: 98). More than 3 million people left Indochina during these years, and in preserving the grant of first asylum agreement this process provided some measure of protection and security for many of them. As such it must surely be considered a successful international response to a desperate humanitarian emergency. As a collaborative multinational response to a regional refugee situation it also established a powerful paradigm for north–south burden sharing (UNHCR 2006: 147; Betts 2006). Yet its impact on regional and international refugee policy was arguably less positive. Regionally, the success of the ‘asylum for resettlement’ bargaining strategy arguably consolidated South-East Asia as a region outside the global refugee regime and entrenched the belief among those nations that the global refugee regime was not in their regional interests (Davies 2006), while the scale of arrivals engendered suspicion of resettlement that would continue for decades to come (Robinson 1998: 324).

UNHCR played a central role in securing international cooperation and the CPA process was a crucial period in the agency’s history (Loescher 2001: 203–14). Yet here too, the lasting consequences of the operation are complex: did UNHCR’s pragmatic approach preserve asylum and uphold the principle of non-refoulement for Indochinese refugees, or was the agency tainted by complicity in forced repatriations and political bargaining with the right to seek asylum (Robinson 1998; Loescher 2001: 211)? Finally, while the CPA established the potential for burden sharing, its precedential value is questionable. Humanitarianism may have had something to do with Western nations’ support for and participation in the CPA, but Cold War politics also played a significant role: just how significant is perhaps most apparent when the Indochinese experience is compared with a more recent refugee situation, that of refugees from Myanmar.

(p. 633) Myanmar’s Displaced

Where the plight of Indochinese refugees is frequently described as a crisis, forced migration from Myanmar is more accurately described as chronic: persistent displacement over decades in a population exodus that has been somewhat less dramatic than that of Indochinese refugees but which in numerical terms is likely comparable. This context also differs from the Indochinese situation in that there is not one primary catalyst for forced migration but a conjunction of causes including political violence, statelessness, religious and ethnic discrimination, economic insecurity, and environmental disaster. The result has been a complex and continually evolving field of forced migration, populated with multiple generations of forced migrants with very different experiences in and of displacement (South 2007).

Myanmar was ruled by a series of military regimes from 1962 to 2011, when political leadership was nominally transferred to a civilian government (though one in which military and former military members continue to play a

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leading role). Over its half-century of military rule Myanmar became synonymous with political oppression and the brutal suppression of dissent. Thousands of pro-democracy activists were forced into exile, particularly in the aftermath of public protests in 1988 and in 2007. Many more people were displaced in and from ethnic border regions, consequent to armed conflict, discrimination and persecution, state-sponsored ‘development’ projects, and general livelihoods insecurity (South 2007). In 2012, it was estimated that there were at least 400,000 IDPs in south-east Myanmar alone (TBBC 2012: 2). These are predominantly members of Kayin (Karen), Kayah (Karenni), and Mon ethnic groups in contexts of long-term displacement, in conditions which range from intense insecurity in short-term hiding-sites, to established camps and settlements, to strictly controlled government relocation sites. International access to these populations has been very limited but strong community protection structures have developed, often linked to ethnic insurgency organizations or to faith-based organizations (South 2012).

Recent political liberalization in Myanmar appears to have altered patterns of displacement but has not stopped it occurring. Displacement in eastern Myanmar was much reduced in 2012 (almost certainly related to a provisional ceasefire between the Karen National Union and the Myanmar government) (TBBC 2012). However, during the same period around 85,000 people were displaced in Kachin State and Shan States, and up to 140,000 Rohingya and Burmese Muslims were displaced by sectarian violence and ethnic cleansing (UN OCHA 2013; Human Rights Watch 2013). Stateless and persecuted in Myanmar, unwanted in Bangladesh, and often turned away from Thailand and Malaysia, the Rohingya are one of the most vulnerable refugee populations in the world today. However, while anti-Rohingya violence has a long heritage in Myanmar, recent attacks have also been directed at the Kaman (a Muslim minority group who, unlike the Rohingya, are formally recognized as Burmese citizens) and against Muslims more widely.

(p. 634) In addition to the large populations of internally displaced, more than 3 million people from Myanmar are estimated to have crossed international borders illegally in the past two decades (Hall 2012). Only a small fraction of these have been formally granted asylum. At the end of 2013, in Thailand, around 130,000 refugees from Myanmar were living in nine camps in the border region, but even among this population only 82,539 were registered with UNHCR. In Malaysia, 94,670 people from Myanmar were registered with UNHCR, but tens of thousands more were unregistered. In late 2013, UNHCR in Malaysia undertook a ‘mobile registration’ to conduct initial registration of asylum seekers from Myanmar. It was anticipated that up to 20,000 people would be registered through this programme. Millions more throughout the region subsist in shadow zones as illegal migrant workers, with all the vulnerabilities and risks that entails. In contrast to the coordinated response for refugees from Indochina, the plight of Myanmar’s refugees has generated limited international concern. At the regional level, Myanmar was accepted into ASEAN in 1997, and other ASEAN members have maintained a policy of ‘constructive engagement’ based on the belief that continuing dialogue with the Myanmar regime offered the best avenue for regional influence. The principle of non-interference largely prevailed, although ASEAN foreign ministers have made public statements after particularly egregious actions by the Myanmar regime, expressing ‘revulsion’ after the suppression of the ‘Saffron Revolution’ in 2007 and intervening to ensure access for international relief agencies in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis (Loescher and Milner 2008; Marr 2010). Given Myanmar’s position as ASEAN Chair in 2014, the centrality of ASEAN to Myanmar’s political rehabilitation is likely to grow over the coming years.

The absence of regional and international cooperation has been particularly damaging for prospects of durable solution. As in most recent protracted refugee situations in the post-Cold War era (see Milner, this volume), the primary challenge has been a lack of available durable solutions: repatriation was impossible while conflict and political repression continued in Myanmar, and both local integration and large-scale resettlement were rejected by host nations. Initially wary of repeating the mass influx that had occurred during the Indochinese crisis, the Royal Thai government eventually conceded to a resettlement programme for camp-based refugees, and between 2005 and 2013 more than 100,000 refugees were resettled to third countries. However, the total population in camps barely decreased as new arrivals came to replace those who had left. Refugees in camps in Thailand have repeatedly claimed that their preferred durable solution is to return safely to Myanmar (Banki and Lang 2008: 78) and for the first time in decades this is beginning to seem a credible possibility.

However, it is essential that the conditions in Myanmar permit safe return and that repatriation is truly voluntary. This is a particularly pertinent concern in the Myanmar context, where in 1994–5, UNHCR cooperated in the forced repatriation of 230,000 Rohingya from Bangladesh to Myanmar, returning these people to statelessness, insecurity, and continued persecution (Loescher and Milner 2008: 313). This process serves as a tragic reminder that caution

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must prevail in assessing security in Myanmar.

(p. 635) As noted above, there is a high level of community organization within many of Myanmar’s displaced populations. To ensure voluntary repatriation, it is essential that these representatives are part of any and all discussions about return. The Karen Refugee Committee (2013) issued a statement identifying ten preconditions that must be met for repatriation to be feasible; these points include the existence of a nationwide ceasefire; sustainable peace; respect for human rights; the removal of landmines from relocation areas; the availability of land for those returning; monitoring and oversight of repatriation conditions; and agreement between all concerned organizations (including refugee community organizations) that there is a genuine peace in Myanmar. This statement highlights many important issues that are relevant for other displaced populations from Myanmar, and indicates the scale of the challenges that lie ahead.

The need for a ‘comprehensive’ approach to Myanmar’s displaced has been widely recognized both in terms of the need for regional cooperation (Loescher and Milner 2008) and for the inclusion of all forced migrants (Banki and Lang 2008). Certainly, responding to displacement is an essential task before any genuine political transition can take place in Myanmar. However, it remains to be seen whether the expertise, resources, and political will exist to design and sustain an appropriately wide-ranging response. In particular, it remains to be seen whether there is a genuine political will from the Myanmar government and military, which, as yet, has singularly failed to acknowledge its responsibility in creating one of the world’s largest and most complex displacement situations.

Conclusion

The experiences of refugees from Indochina and Myanmar highlight important dimensions of refugee protection in the region of South-East and East Asia, notably the difficulty of protecting refugees in the absence of binding legal obligations. Davies (2008) has argued that Asian ‘rejection’ of the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol is rooted in the perception of these documents as Eurocentric and unsuited to refugee contexts in Asia. Other commentators (Abrar 2000) have suggested that it is also due to Asian nations’ unwillingness to bind themselves to the humanitarian obligations underwriting that system; a position bolstered by comments such as those made by the Malaysian Foreign Minister in 2012 that accession to the Refugee Convention would create obligations ‘to treat these people better than our own people’ (Naidu 2012).

The failure of many South-East and East Asian nations to distinguish ‘real’ refugees from ‘voluntary’ migrants has deeply problematic consequences for forced migrants, including vulnerability to arrest and detention, to labour exploitation and trafficking, and to refoulement. Contradictory responses to migrant labour—on the one hand, national economic dependence, on the other, a desire to control illegal movement—place millions of vulnerable people in a limbo-state of insecurity. However, while (p. 636) there is much to criticize in these national policy approaches, in their fundamental objectives and strategies they conform to the approach taken throughout Europe and America: securitization objectives, the criminalization of migration, and a culture of disbelief with regard to asylum seekers.

This raises the question of whether adoption of the 1951 Convention regime is really the ‘solution’ to refugee protection in South-East and East Asia. Asian nations may indeed be more likely to support the 1951 Convention regime if it is perceived as a truly global system that pursues parity of responsibility through genuine cooperation and burden sharing. However, enhancing the protection environment for forced migrants will also require a transformation in perceptions of forced migration, particularly in rejecting the notion that forced migrants are always and inevitably a threat to security. Taking into account the clear strengths of regional cohesion and a sense of shared interests, and bearing in mind the vast numbers of forced migrants within the region, the most effective avenue for strengthening protection may be to focus on mechanisms and strategies that work within that context and which operate to counterbalance (if not entirely to overcome) the security priorities that have prevailed thus far. Such strategies might include strengthening regional and domestic civil society in advocating for domestic legislation and supporting those organizations in enabling forced migrants to enforce their rights under such legislation.

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Notes:

(1) . UNHCR regional categories consider ‘East Asia and the Pacific’ as the geographical scope, which includes all of the states listed above and Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and the Pacific Island Countries. The latter group of states are covered in McNevin’s chapter in this volume.

(2) . For ratification of human rights treaties see: <http://treaties.un.org/pages/ParticipationStatus.aspx>. Regional non-recognition of the 1951 Convention is reflected in the UNHCR Executive Committee with only China, Japan, and the Philippines as current EXCOM members.

(3) . Timor-Leste experienced massive internal and cross-border displacement between 1999 and 2010. In 2010, it was announced that there were no more IDPs in the country, though the true sustainability of returns remains unclear (IDMC 2011: 93).

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(4) . See McDowell (this volume) regarding development induced displacement in the context of China.

(5) . Including the Regional Roundtable on Irregular Movements by Sea in the Asia-Pacific region and ASEAN Declarations on Trafficking in Persons (2004) and the Protection and Promotion of Rights of Migrant Workers (2007).

(6) . The Bangkok Principles were revised in the late 1990s and formally readopted by the Asian-African Legal Consultative Organization on 24 June 2001.

(7) . Thailand’s National Security Council distinguishes four target groups for a new strategy on irregular migration: stateless people (approximately 700,000 people); illegal migrant workers (approximately 2 million people of Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodian nationality); migrants who are ‘threats to national security’ (from Myanmar and North Korea) and illegal immigrants who have overstayed their visa (IOM Migrant Information Note October 2012).

(8) . Myanmar has eight recognized ‘ethnic nationalities’ (Bamar, Shan, Mon, Kayah [Karenni], Kayin [Karen], Chin, Kachin, and Rakhine) and many more ethnic subgroups.

(9) . In an earlier ‘era’ of forced migration from Myanmar to Thailand, UNHCR was permitted to register Burmese ‘students’ who fled after the suppression of election results in 1990 (Loescher and Milner 2008: 306–7).

(10) . Of 103,010 refugees and asylum seekers in total. See UNHCR Malaysia: Figures at a Glance: <http://www.unhcr.org.my/About_Us-@-Figures_At_A_Glance.aspx>.

Kirsten McConnahie Kirsten McConnahie is the Joyce Pearce Junior Research Fellow at Lady Margaret Hall and the Refugee Studies Centre, both at the University if Oxford.