Monsieur le Président, Monsieur Turcotte, Madame Beaurégard,
Chers collègues et amis du CCR,

Permettez-moi tout d’abord de vous remercier de m’avoir invitée à prendre la parole ici ce soir. C’est à la fois impressionnant et encourageant de voir rassemblées autant de personnes, venant de tous les coins du Canada, qui se consacrent à l’aide aux réfugiés. Je tiens à vous dire combien le Haut Commissariat des Nations Unies pour les Réfugiés apprécie le partenariat avec le CCR, et votre travail en faveur des réfugiés.

La présence d'un grand nombre de représentants du gouvernement québécois, du gouvernement fédéral et des autres Provinces est un signe que la coopération entre le secteur volontaire et le secteur gouvernemental, si difficile en d'autres pays, est bien enracinée ici au Canada. C'est important, car les problèmes de réfugiés ne peuvent être résolus que dans un contexte de coopération, et non de confrontation.

"Cinquante ans de protection des réfugiés." C'est le sujet qui m'a été attribué ce soir, puisque le HCR -- le Haut Commissariat des Nations Unies pour les Réfugiés -- aura cinquante ans ce 14 décembre. Malgré son nom archaïque et difficile à prononcer, malgré sa naissance dans l'ombre de la deuxième guerre mondiale, et à l'aube de la guerre froide, l'organisation reste aussi nécessaire que jamais.

Quand l'Assemblée Générale des Nations Unies a décidé, le 14 décembre 1950, de créer le HCR, elle lui a assigné un mandat bien précis: fournir une protection internationale aux réfugies, et aider les gouvernments à trouver des solutions aux problèmes de réfugiés.

Le premier Haut-Commissaire, le hollandais au nom prédestiné de Goedhart (ce qui veut dire, "de bon coeur"), a trouvé comme siège de sa nouvelle organisation trois pièces non-meublées dans le Palais des Nations à Genève et un budget de $300,000. Aujourd’hui, le HCR siège à Genève dans un grand bâtiment moderne, a un budget annuel de près d’un milliard de dollars américains, et compte plus de 5,000 fonctionnaires, dont 80% travaillent dans 294 bureaux situés en 120 pays.

Avec cet arrière-plan, on oublie facilement que le mandat initial du HCR était limité à trois ans. A l'époque, les gouvernments pensaient que le problème des réfugiés subsistant à la suite de la deuxième guerre mondiale serait rapidement résolu, et qu'il n'y aurait plus de rôle pour le HCR.

Apparemment, les gouvernements prenaient leurs désirs pour des réalités. Le nombre de réfugiés n'a cessé d'augmenter, et le mandat du HCR a été renouvelé regulièrement. Le premier Haut Commissaire avait 1.3 millions de personnes sous son mandat. Le Haut Commissaire actuel, la japonaise Madame Sadako Ogata, en compte plus de 22 millions.

L'expansion phénoménale du HCR au cours de ces cinquantes ans n'est pas une raison de se rejouir. Madame Ogata, qui prendra sa retraite le 31 décembre après dix ans à la tête du HCR, a récemment affirmé que nous pouvons, nous devons même, fêter le courage et la détermination des réfugiés -- ces hommes, femmes et enfants qui réussisent à survivre, envers et contre tout. Mais nous devons déplorer le fait qu'après cinquante ans, le monde a toujours besoin d'une organisation dédiée à la protection des réfugiés.

Ladies and gentlemen, refugee protection has become progressively more difficult over the past 50 years. In UNHCR's first decade, the 1950's, it was relatively easy. At that time, most refugees were fleeing totalitarian regimes in Eastern Europe, and asylum had a firm ideological basis. Western governments considered the East European exiles to be automatically eligible for refugee status -- even though, like many of today’s asylum-seekers, they moved for a mixture of political and economic reasons. Repatriation was not considered an option, and the refugees were readily integrated in the Western democracies.

In the 1960’s, the nature of refugee movements started to change -- the new pattern was one of large-scale exodus, as a result of decolonisation, mostly in Africa. But there was strong solidarity for people waging wars of national liberation -- for instance in Algeria, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, or Zimbabwe -- and refugees were received with open arms in neighboring countries.

In the 1970s and 1980s, refugees increasingly became the victims (or the pawns) of Cold War rivalries which were played out in conflicts in the Third World. They found temporary refuge in camps in countries which had neither the capacity nor, in most cases, the willingness to absorb them. The best that UNHCR could do was to provide humanitarian assistance to meet basic needs. (The notable exception during these years was the massive resettlement operation for the Indochinese).

When the Cold War ended, just a decade ago, there was hope that the world would enter a new period of peace and stability. Within UNHCR, there was -- briefly -- hope that our focus on access to asylum and protection from refoulement, on emergency relief and on the care of refugees in camps, would recede and make way for a new emphasis on solutions: on repatriation, reconciliation and reconstruction.

That hope was short-lived. The inter-state wars of the Cold War period gave way to a new series of confused and brutal conflicts, mostly within the borders of states: Northern Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, the former Zaire, Chechnya, Timor -- and this is not an exhaustive list.

While the refugee protection principles developed during nearly 50 years of UNHCR work remain relevant and necessary, they are anything but straightforward. How are civilians to be protected in today's wars, when they are no longer the accidental victims of conflict, but increasingly, the intended targets? Think of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Herzegovina, of the mutilation of villagers in Sierra Leone, of the Burmese government's war on its minorities. What action should be taken when refugees flee en masse and are viewed as a threat to regional peace and security, and as a trigger for further conflict? This was the case when the Kurds fled from Northern Iraq in 1991, when two million Rwandans poured into Zaire, Tanzania, Burundi and Uganda in 1994, when 800,000 Kosovars were expelled in 1999. What part should UNHCR play when civilians seek refuge within their own country, not across international borders as is the case today in Colombia, Russia, in Angola and so many other places?

There is no doubt that our work has become infinitely more complicated, as refugees have moved from the periphery to the center stage of wars. Forcing people to abandon their homes has become one of the objectives of war, with a view to re-engineering the ethnic or religious composition of entire areas.

In this difficult environment, we can all agree that action to tackle the root causes of refugee flows is clearly more necessary than ever. Yet, with few exceptions, humanitarian action has increasingly become a substitute for political action -- sometimes, even, an alibi for inaction to tackle the root causes of conflicts. When the Security Council is deadlocked on political responses, its members can invariably agree to deploy the humanitarians, and to support them (at least rhetorically, if not always financially).

Thus in the 1990s, solutions to refugee problems became more elusive, not more accessible. Repatriation --in proper circumstances of safety and dignity and voluntariness-- was rare. Local settlement in the region of origin of the refugees became nearly impossible, as large refugee populations in countries neighboring conflict areas competed for scarce resources, and were increasingly seen a security threat.

And as refugee protection in the developing world was facing new challenges, the same thing was happening in the countries of the industrialized North. The faster information and capital traveled across borders, the steeper the challenges for people on the move in search of protection.

Confronted with an upsurge of people knocking at their doors, many governments in the industrialized world got to work building barriers to keep them out. Attention shifted, it seems, from the protection of refugees to the control of all those seeking entry, refugees and migrants alike. This led to a vicious circle where, in an effort to overcome these obstacles, many irregular migrants declared themselves refugees, which simply resulted in the obstacles being reinforced.

One consistent solution throughout the 1990s was refugee resettlement (primarily to Australia, Canada, the United States and the Nordic countries). But resettlement can offer a solution only for a minute proportion of the world's refugees -- there are no more than 100,000 resettlement places available annually, and 22 million persons under UNHCR's mandate. And resettlement has also become more complicated – partly because of the number, the nature and the locations of the populations in need of protection, but also because of changed conditions in receiving societies.

It is in this context that we must re-define our role in the 21^st century. UNHCR's work is of course humanitarian - saving lives and bringing basic support to refugees. But our core mandate is much more specific: the protection of refugees and the search for solutions to their problems. Which brings us to the inevitable question: what is the future of refugee protection?

Protection means defining and defending refugees' rights -- the rights of individuals. In this sense, protection is above all the granting of asylum to those fleeing persecution or conflict. Yet asylum is not only a legal concept. It is a concrete measure which involves a broad range of activities: meeting the material needs of refugees; counselling them and alleviating trauma; helping vulnerable groups, such as women, children, the elderly, victims of torture; putting divided families back together. It involves making sure that communities hosting refugees do not become hostile toward them, and boosting public awareness of the special needs of refugees.

In a workshop this morning, we had a chance to hear about the Global Consultations which are being launched by UNHCR’s Department of International Protection, in an effort to "revitalize" the international refugee protection regime. These Consultations will start next year and will last through 2002. They are being initiated because we worry about a diminishing commitment to asylum, and a diminishing quality of asylum, in many parts of the world.

There are three main problems which challenge the delivery of protection to refugees today. These problems are found in different regions of the world with surprising similarity.

The first problem is: how to ensure protection to refugees in mass influx situations? When the exodus results from an unresolved conflict next door, concerns about national security have led to the closure of borders to new arrivals. In many situations, asylum fatigue has set in. Governments feel overwhelmed by large refugee influxes, and by refugee problems which go on for years, with ever less financial support from the west. It is distressing, but not surprising, that Pakistan recently announced -- despite intensified fighting in Afghanistan -- that it would not allow any more refugees to cross the border. An Associated Press story on Wednesday this week read: "Afghan children in dirt-caked blankets cough and cry while their parents keep vigil at the gates that separate Afghanistan and Pakistan. But the black steel gates remain closed to all but those with passports and visas." Ensuring access of refugees to safety remains a top priority. Perhaps if this were happening on our doorstep, we would feel more concerned?

The second protection challenge arises not from large group arrivals, but from asylum seekers arriving as individuals. Nearly 600,000 people applied for asylum last year in Europe, North America and Australia -- a fraction of the number of refugees in the developing world. In the wealthy, industrialized world, there are sophisticated systems to determine who is in need of protection. At least one government is fond of reminding UNHCR that the industrialized countries spend around $10 billion annually on refugee status determination. If this figure could be reduced by only 10%, the argument goes, UNHCR’s budget could be doubled –though in reality it is unlikely that savings made on refugee status determination would end up in UNHCR’s coffers. We might also note that this is what the same countries spend on their military forces in a matter of days! But the point is that these expensive mechanisms are only useful if they succeed in identifying those in need of protection, and if persons who are found not to need protection return to their countries of origin. Neither is as easy as it sounds.

In theory, of course, the distinction between refugees, who flee persecution and violence, and migrants, who leave their countries seeking better economic opportunities, is clear. In reality, though, people are are often on the move for a variety of reasons, fleeing a lethal mix of poverty, repression, human rights abuses, conflict and the effects of environmental disasters, making it difficult to determine the status of individual asylum seekers. And often, persons found not to be in need of protection go underground, refusing to return to their home countries for reasons which we can all understand, but which are not related to refugee protection. Worse still, countries often refuse to take back their citizens, violating one of the most basic human rights -- the right to return to one's country.

Another set of problems arises from the interface between migration and asylum. Would-be migrants who lack immigration options often resort to the asylum process. As a result, states have established a myriad of control measures to restrict access to their territory, which affect asylum seekers and irregular migrants alike. In response, so-called "migration networks" have developed. These are the organized criminal rings which have made of human smuggling and trafficking a most lucrative transnational activity. This activity has taken on enormous proportions – and has cost many lives. In this first year of the 21^st century, hundreds of persons have died trying to enter Europe – a fact which rarely makes the headlines. Disentangling refugees from the net of migration controls in a way which ensures their protection is one of the toughest challenges facing us today.

These are all issues to be tackled in UNHCR’s Global Consultations, with several objectives: first and foremost, to obtain from governments a reaffirmation of their commitment to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees -- as a fundamental human rights instrument. Also, to discuss and obtain agreement on some tricky questions which relate to the interpretation of that Convention. And finally – the most difficult area – to map out some pathways for progress on problems which fall outside the scope of the Refugee Convention strictly speaking, but which impact on governments’ willingness or ability to respect it, such as how to maintain the civilian nature of asylum, or what to do with rejected asylum seekers.

In short, the Global Consultations aim at securing a renewed commitment to asylum, which is after all the cornerstone of refugee protection. This will not be easy. And, unfortunately, it will not be enough. For there other important gaps which must be filled, if our efforts to protect refugees are to succeed. I would like, briefly, to mention three such gaps.

First, we must find ways to meet the needs of internally displaced people. These are people forced by war or persecution or even by natural disaster to leave their homes, but who have not left their countries. There are more internally displaced people in the world today than there are refugees. The international system is full of gaps when it comes to helping the internally displaced. No single international agency has responsibility for this group, and while they are in theory protected by general human rights law, and some of them by the common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions on the Laws of War, there is no international legal regime which pertains specifically to the internally displaced.

The U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Richard Holbrooke, said recently that "to a person who has been driven from his or her home by conflict, there is no difference between being a refugee or an internally displaced person." He suggested expanding the refugee definition to erase the distinction between the two groups. But Oxford Professor Guy Goodwin-Gill was quick to warn that "the distinctive quality enjoyed by a refugee as a subject entitled to international protection will be lost, if the distinction between refugees and the internally displaced is erased."

Why does this matter? It matters because on the one hand, if the internally displaced cannot be helped within their countries, they may be forced to become refugees. At the same time, we must be very careful to respond to their needs in a manner which does not undermine the international legal regime pertaining to refugees.

Second, we need to bridge what I would call the "security gap", and ensure the safety of humanitarian personnel. This obviously goes hand in hand with ensuring the security of refugees. 198 civilian U.N. staff have been killed in the line of duty in the past eight years. 240 have been taken hostage or kidnapped in the past six years. The toll is much higher when one includes staff of nongovernmental agencies as well.

Just two months ago, UNHCR lost four colleagues. One was shot by rebels in southeastern Guinea, for no obvious reason. Three were hacked to death with machetes in UNHCR’s office in Atambua, in West Timor – killed because they were trying to help refugees who wanted to return to independent East Timor. One of them, a young American laywer, left behind an email, which he sent just before he was killed. It read:

Last month U.N. Secretary General Annan challenged states to ratify the 1994 Convention on the Safety of U.N. and Associated Personnel --only one has done so to date. He appealed to them to fund an upgraded UN system for the protection of staff -- an ambitious proposal, given that a trust fund established in 1998 for the same purpose received only five modest contributions (one of which was from Monaco). Annan’s most important challenge to member states was to reverse the climate of impunity for crimes against humanitarian workers by ratifying the statute of the International Criminal Court. As of today, only 22 states have done so. 60 ratifications are needed for the Statute to enter into force.

And last but not least, there is a third gap -- one which is very familiar to all of you in the voluntary sector -- and that is a resource gap. Demands on humanitarian agencies continue to rise, but resources do not increase at the same rate. UNHCR is not funded out of the regular budget of the U.N. We do not receive our budget from the assessed contributions of the member states to the U.N. Rather, we must raise our funds each year through voluntary contributions, mostly from states, but increasingly, from the private sector as well.

As of Tuesday this week, we were short $137.6 million toward our year 2000 budget of $930 million. This is not an abstract gap. It translates into real reductions in real programs to assist and protect refugees around the world. For the first time in history, UNHCR has had to "borrow" a large sum of money -- $40 million -- from a special U.N. loan fund.

Mesdames et Messieurs, vous vous demandez peut-être ce que tout cela a à voir avec nous, ici au Canada? Que pouvons-nous faire pour améliorer la protection des réfugiés, ici et ailleurs? Pourquoi le HCR maintient-il un bureau dans ce pays paisible, respectueux des droits de l'homme? C'est une question qu'on me pose souvent.

La présence du HCR au Canada s'explique précisément par l'importance de ce pays pour la protection des réfugiés.

Depuis un certain nombre d’années, le gouvernement canadien est au premier rang de ceux qui militent, sur le plan international, en faveur de la sécurité humaine – que ce soit pour l’abolition des mines terrestres, pour les droits des enfants, pour l’établissement du Tribunal International Criminel. Tous ces sujets ont un lien étroit avec la protection des réfugiés.

Le Canada est un membre actif (souvent critique) du Comité Exécutif du HCR, et un donateur important de nos programmes (même si nous pourrions souhaiter qu'il le soit encore plus). Cette année, le Canada occupe la huitième position dans le palmarès des pays qui financent les activités du HCR, avec une contribution de 17.9 million de dollars américains. Cela se traduit par environ 58 cents par canadien. Puisque je sais que vous me poserez la question: le chiffre correspondant aux Etats-Unis est de 88 cents par personne (une contribution de $239 millions), et en Norvège, de $8.40 par personne (une contribution totale cette année de $37 millions).

Mais avant tout, le Canada est une terre d’asile. Le programme canadien de réinstallation de réfugiés, est le deuxième du monde (en importance), après celui des Etats-Unis. Le Québec y joue un rôle très significatif, accueillant chaque année environ 25% des réfugiés réinstallés au Canada. Nous sommes particulièrement satisfait du projet pilote qui a été mis en oeuvre cette année par le CIC pour la réinstallation des cas urgents, et nous espérons que ce programme sera poursuivi et élargi l’an prochain.

L'importance du Canada pour la protection des réfugiés résulte non seulement du nombre de réfugiés qui sont réinstallés ici, où du nombre de personnes qui demandent l’asile ici – elles seront environ 30,000 cette année – mais aussi du fait que la pratique et la jurisprudence canadiennes en matière d'asile servent souvent d’exemple à d’autres pays.

Nous avons tous la chance d'oeuvrer dans un pays où le niveau et la qualité de protection offerts aux réfugiés sont élevés, et où le gouvernement s'engage, avec le secteur volontaire, en faveur de l'intégration des personnes reconnues commes réfugiés.

Mais le processus de détermination du statut de réfugié n'est pas simple. Un juge de la Cour Suprême canadienne le décrit comme étant "un des événements judiciaires ou quasi-judiciaires les plus difficiles qui existent." C'est en reconnaissance de cette difficulté que la législation canadienne donne au HCR le rôle d’observateur dans la procédure d’asile -- ce qui reflète l’Article 35 de la Convention de Genève, par laquelle les Etats contractants s'engagent à coopérer avec le HCR dans l’exercise de ses fonctions. Nous nous efforçons de remplir ce mandat de manière constructive.

C'est dans cet esprit que nous avons publié, au mois de juillet, nos commentaires sur le projet de loi C-31, et c'est dans ce même esprit que nous nous penchons sur un certain nombre de questions de protection qui restent d'actualité ici au Canada. J'aimerais mentionner quelques sujets qui retiendront notre attention au cours des mois à venir -- cette liste n'est certainement pas exhaustive. Je compte sur vous pour continuer à attirer notre attention sur les thèmes qui vous préoccupent.

D'abord, un sujet prioritaire pour le HCR au Canada depuis beaucoup d'années: l'établissement d'une procédure d'appel dans le cadre de la procédure de détermination du statut de réfugié. Le projet de loi C-31 prévoit la création d'une Section d'Appel des Réfugiés au sein de la CISR. Nous espérons que cette proposition deviendra une réalité. La possibilité de présenter un appel sur les faits contre une décision négative est un des éléments les plus fondamentaux d'une procédure équitable.

Ensuite, le fameux problème des "refugees in limbo", c'est à dire, des réfugiés reconnus mais qui ne peuvent accéder à la résidence permanente par manque de documents d'identité. Nous avons publié au mois de mai une opinion juridique sur ce sujet (par le Professeur Guy Goodwin-Gill). Au mois de novembre est apparu un article du Professeur Goodwin-Gill et de moi-même sur le même sujet. Nous invitons le gouvernment canadien à abandonner la pratique selon laquelle les réfugiés reconnus par la CISR doivent obtenir, après leur reconnaissance, des pièces d'identité de leur pays d'origine.

Troisième sujet: les mineurs non accompagnés demandeurs d'asile. Le traitement de ce groupe vulnérable diffère de province en province. Nous encourageons le gouvernment fédéral et les provinces à établir des règles de bonnes pratiques concernant ces enfants, de ne pas maintenir des enfants en détention, et de s'assurer que les meilleurs intérêts des enfants soient pris en considération, comme l'exige la Convention sur les droits des enfants.

Quatrième sujet: les victimes de tortures. Nous participons à l'effort d'élaboration d'une Directive qui pourrait être adoptée par la CISR pour l'examen des demandes d'asile soumises par des victimes de tortures. Une telle Directive pourrait améliorer la protection de ces requérants d'asile, non seulement ici au Canada, mais pourrait donner l'exemple ailleurs, comme cela a été le cas des Directives de la CISR concernant les enfants et les femmes qui revendiquent le statut de réfugié, et les civils non combattants qui craignent d'être persécutés dans des situations de guerre civile.

Cinquième sujet: les demandeurs d’asile non-représentés. Un nombre croissant de demandeurs d'asile n'a pas de représentation juridique. Des mesures doivent être prises pour assurer que ce groupe ne soit pas désavantagé dans la procédure d'asile.

Et enfin: la réunification familiale. Elle est à soutenir non seulement parce que l'unité de la famille est un droit fondamental, mais parce que, en le préservant, l'intégration de ses membres est facilitée.

Mesdames et Messieurs, j'aimerais conclure avec une observation qui vous sera familière: pour assurer la protection des réfugiés, nous devons promouvoir une meilleure compréhension, au niveau du grand public, de la situation des réfugiés dans le monde. Notre intention n’est pas (contrairement aux accusations du National Post) de prêcher la tolérance aux Canadiens, ni de nous mêler des affaires intérieures canadiennes. Tout comme vous, nous voulons mobiliser un soutien accru pour la protection des réfugiés. Nous sommes heureux que le CIC appuie le projet d'éducation que nous entreprenons ensemble avec le CCR et l'Association canadienne pour les Nations Unies, et qui vise à offrir aux éducateurs canadiens des matériaux qu'ils peuvent utiliser en classe pour aborder le sujet des réfugiés.

Je ne peux que souligner l'importance de ce travail de sensibilisation et d’éducation. Le message le plus fondamental que nous voulons communiquer est qu'un réfugié est une personne comme vous ou comme moi, à qui quelque chose d'imprévisible et d'effroyable est arrivé.

Ladies and Gentlemen, exactly eight years, when I was in charge of UNHCR's office in Yugoslavia, we made our first visit to the besieged enclave of Srebrenica in Eastern Bosnia. I remember because it was the (American) Thanksgiving Day, six months before the siege of Srebrenica hit the headlines, and four years before the massacre of Srebrenica’s men made the place a household word. The town was swollen with Muslim civilians who had fled advancing Serb paramilitaries across eastern Bosnia. It was snowing, and people were huddled around pathetic fires they had built on the sidewalk. We went into a school, crowded with women and children. One young mother was feeding her child a gruel made of water and flour. She stopped long enough to say angrily to us: "Why do you come to look at us as if we were animals in a zoo? Three months ago, my life was like yours. I had a house, a car, a job. My daughter went to school and took piano lessons. Now look at me. Can you give me back the life I had?"

Most of the time, we cannot give refugees back the life they had. But we can give them back their dignity, by giving them a fair chance to make a new start, and by treating them with respect. This is what refugee protection is all about. This is what Canada’s long commitment to refugee protection is all about. I would like to thank each and every one of you --governmental and non-governmental representatives -- for your contribution to this fundamental goal, today and over the years to come. Let us together ensure that Canada remains an example for the rest of the world as far as refugee protection is concerned.

Thank you very much for your attention.