Part IV Access to Protection and International Responsibility-Sharing, Ch.25 The Sharing of Responsibilities for the International Protection of Refugees

Subject(s):

Asylum — Internally displaced persons — Non-refoulement — International co-operation

This chapter examines the principle and practice of responsibility-sharing amongst States, defined broadly as efforts to achieve a more equitable distribution of responsibilities to provide refugees with protection and solutions and of associated costs and benefits. It analyses the legal and conceptual underpinnings of the concept, its treatment in scholarship, and its increasing prominence in international declarations and discussions amongst States. The chapter also considers several initiatives at the international level, which have aimed to give it practical effect in contemporary refugee situations, including in Africa and the Americas, based on the Global Compact on Refugees. It further considers how this may provide a firmer normative and institutional basis for responsibility-sharing in the future.

There is increasing recognition that responsibility-sharing, involving more predictable, substantial, and systematic support to States hosting large refugee populations, is a necessary precondition to the continued effective functioning of the international protection system. The chapter maintains that, in addition to strengthened action by States, recognition is required of the role of other actors, including civil society and private entities, faith-based and other actors, as well as refugees themselves, whose engagement has potential further to strengthen responses to the needs of refugees, notably in large and protracted situations.