PRESS CONFERENCE TO LAUNCH FINDINGS OF STUDIES ON INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION

Migratory movements globally had become more complex in recent years, and it was now impossible to talk about refugee movements without taking into consideration issues such as irregular migration, human smuggling and human trafficking, Jeff Crisp, Special Adviser to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said today.

Mr. Crisp, Special Adviser on Policy and Evaluation, said, during a press conference to launch two major research projects by the United Nations University’s World Institute for Development Economics Research (UN-WIDER), that, in many cases, individuals may have mixed motivations for leaving their home countries, including political problems, general unrest, fear of human rights violations and lack of livelihood or educational opportunities.

“The consequences of being labelled either as a refugee or as a migrant are very, very major,” he said, adding that it could quite literally mean the difference between life and death.  Determining whether such individuals were refugees or economic migrants was extremely difficult, but the international community and individual States must find a way to make a fair and effective determination as to whether they needed to be protected and treated as refugees, or were moving primarily or exclusively for economic reasons.

Of the two projects, the first examines the connections linking poverty, international migration and asylum, and the other studies the consequences of the “international mobility of talent” -- the movement of such individuals as students, professionals, entrepreneurs and cultural workers.  The findings were released ahead of the General Assembly High-level Dialogue on International Migration and Development, to begin later this week.

Mr. Crisp said the study on poverty, migration and asylum was among the first attempts to examine those issues in an integrated and holistic way.  Speaking about the side event to the High-level Dialogue -- “International migration and development: patterns, problems and policy directions” -- he said that such likely developing-world transit countries as Libya, Morocco or Mexico generally were not well-equipped to determine whether migrants qualified for refugee status, and that industrialized States should help ensure that adequate asylum procedures, refugee status determination procedures and reception facilities were in place.

Mr. Crisp added that the general tendency had been for the countries of North America, Asia-Pacific and Western Europe to try to keep such people at arm’s length, within their regions of origin.  “We’re calling on industrialized States to say, if you’re really serious about resolving and addressing this problem, look and see what resources you can contribute to this process.”

Though refugees constituted a distinct minority of migrants, States had particular obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention to ensure their protection, he noted.  And, while UNHCR had a mandate to ensure the protection of refugees, policymakers must consider that economic migrants also may be at severe risk of exploitation, abuse and other human rights violations.  There was also a need to look at the circumstances that prompted people to leave their countries of origin, and to find ways to provide them with security, safety and livelihood opportunities within their home countries or regions.

Andrés Solimano, Regional Adviser for Economic Development at the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, said the second project focused on the so-called high end of migration, such as health workers, information technology experts and academics.  While emigration of human capital from the developing world had been popularly described as a “brain drain”, the new study found that, with globalization, talent and resources were increasingly moving in multiple directions.  There was a double movement of talent and capital around the globe.  “On the one hand, talent from developing countries is moving North to seek better opportunities… on the [other] hand, capital from the North pursues talent in the South, a process largely led by multinational corporations.”  It was more accurate today to speak of the “circulation of talent”, as many people went abroad to invest, learn and develop contacts, and then returned home.

However, the outflow of professionals like health workers may pose particular problems for developing countries, he said.  In such cases, receiving countries might consider compensation schemes and ethical recruitment policies to limit the potential harm, while sending countries should make efforts to determine and address the reasons why professionals sought opportunities elsewhere.

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