The Massive Influx of Global Refugees from Developing Nations; An existing Gap in the United Nations role in promoting Universal Human Rights

Abstract

Purpose: Refugee issues are international emergency significantly disrupting socio-economic structure of the receiving States and governments struggling to manage the impact of a nearby conflict and addressing development challenges. This study is aimed at analyzing the global predicament of refugees, assess the existing legal framework at global, regional and national scale through the existing organizations and their roles like United Nation and African Union. Since every State has a responsibility of protecting the rights of its citizens, they are forced to flee for safety in case of threats prompting the host country to step in ensuring ‘refugees’ basic rights are protected as per international protection of human rights (the 1951 Convention and 1967 protocol). Humanity’s protection is longstanding traditions and shared value in our cross-cultural traditions, beliefs and now part of international law as per the United Nations’ Declaration of Refugees and Migrants 2016 reaffirming the fundamental principle of refugee protection, at a time when the population seeking safety is burgeoning. Methodology: This is desk research where data was collected from the existing information. Findings: The findings indicate that over 66 million people displaced by conflict, violence and persecution, a third this group has fled across borders as refugees, the magnitude and complexity of forced displacement is linked to prevalence, scale and longevity of today’s conflicts, and the inability of the international community to find the unity of purpose necessary to resolve them. About 80 per cent of people running away from their countries, 60 per cent of them are children in comparison to around one third of the world’s general population. Unique Contribution to Theory, Policy and Practice: The study adopted an interlink of the ‘Contemporary Migration Theories’ which states that high fragmentation of migration is due to either micro, macro, and political causes and effects on one hand, and between micro-individual and macro-structural approaches on the other. A lot must be done to reduce the daily increasing number refugees around the world. Specifically, the study takes keen interest in discussing the plight of Rohingya people in Myanmar.