What the United Nations should do about people smuggling. (UNconventional: A Point of View).

People smuggling (1) must first be recognized for what it is: a profitable and direct attack on a State's sovereign right to determine who may enter and remain in its territory. People smugglers frequently compound this core affront with abuse of the human rights and dignity of their customers, leading all too frequently to their death, making it an issue of not only political and criminal concern but also humanitarian.

When people smugglers transport asylum seekers, States face the additional complications arising from the migration-protection nexus. States must respond appropriately to the fact that any smuggled persons found to be refugees have usually left countries of first asylum and, therefore, relative safety (technically, "secondary movements" not flights from persecution). Such persons have frequently and deliberately bypassed further places of safety, in order to seek both a protection and a migration outcome in a chosen destination. Further, they must not only comb at smugglers but must also identify and respond to any protection needs.

States' resources are finite. Therefore, refugees who have been able to pay for their self-selected or smuggler-selected resettlement outcome will impact on a State's willingness and capacity to voluntarily resettle them. Those disadvantaged are refugees for whom resettlement has been determined to be the only appropriate solution by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This is currently the case in Australia. (2)

A large part of the answer is for the United Nations and its agencies to work in partnership with States on a comprehensive, integrated approach that addresses the causes as well as the symptoms of people smuggling. Governments and international organizations need to work together because, acting alone, we will succeed only in pushing the problem to another part of the globe. Similarly, any approach that is purely control-oriented is bound to fail. Prevention must also be part of the strategy.

The most direct way in which the United Nations can help to combat people smuggling is through its aid and development activities. The root causes of irregular migration and people smuggling, such as endemic poverty, conflict and repression, can be addressed in the long term through poverty alleviation, conflict resolution, peacekeeping and reconciliation, institution-building and educational initiatives.

There is also a critical need for the United Nations and the international community to provide more support to countries hosting large refugee populations, such as Iran and Pakistan. Where there is a breakdown in the effective protection provided in these countries, people are more likely to have recourse to smugglers in an effort to find a more secure environment. Governments and the United Nations must work together to find durable solutions for these refugees.

Historically, a highly successful example of a comprehensive approach was seen in the action of UNHCR, in close partnership with the countries of South East Asia and the resettlement countries, in setting up the Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA) for Indo-Chinese Refugees in 1989. Importantly, CPA saved lives by discouraging further clandestine and unsafe departures from Viet Nam and elsewhere. It was the cooperative nature of this arrangement that made it work.

It is also vital that the United Nations provides leadership--practical leadership in terms of operating in ways to support States, including by facilitating international cooperation, and intellectual leadership in proposing ideas and people smuggling are complex problems that require creative solutions. There is an increasing realization, for example, that refugee and people smuggling issues cannot be separated. UNHCR cannot carry out their protection work in a vacuum. They have to work with Governments to help in their fight against people smuggling and mobilize the international community, and that calls for effective leadership.

A current example of international cooperation to combat people smuggling is the Regional Cooperation Arrangements in Indonesia. With the financial support of Australia, these arrangements, which involve Indonesia, UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the broader international protection community, strike at people smuggling, but also ensure that any protection needs are identified and met.

The United Nations can also assist to combat people smuggling through recognizing at conceptual and practical levels that State-developed asylum systems are targeted for abuse by both smugglers and their clients. Once acknowledged, States and the United Nations can work in partnership to develop policies and procedures needs are met. Part of this is a recognition of and support for the immense value and significance of agreements that ensure prompt return to the country of origin of all persons without permission to remain in their destination State.

As Bimal Ghosh (3) recently said: "It is clear that if return of unauthorized persons cannot be effectively managed, nation States, irrespective of their stages of development and political structure, will be unwilling or unable to promote and preserve the system of openness. Conversely, the success of return programmes depends largely on the sound functioning of the overall migration system; it can hardly be achieved in isolation."

In this context, I note the work of the New International Regime for Orderly Movements of People, which was launched in 1997 and seeks to make movements of people more orderly and predictable and thus more easily manageable, based on a set of internationally harmonized principles.

The Swiss Government is also taking up the cause and has launched "The Berne Initiative". It aims to ascertain the political feasibility for building a process of analysis and dialogue among Governments of migrant receiving, sending and transit States, in order to identify the common policy interests concerning international migration management and cooperation. UN support for this type of practical initiative is beneficial.

The difficulties with some returns of smuggled persons could also be alleviated if States were more active in taking steps to prevent their nationals from becoming stateless. The United Nations could increase its efforts to encourage countries to adhere to the UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness as one means of managing this problem.

Given the increasing involvement of criminal networks in people smuggling, mention must also be made of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. The Convention and its Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air are valuable instruments in the fight against people smuggling. They offer great potential for enhanced international cooperation to crack down on cross-broader organized crime. The United Nations and its Member States can help countries to develop the legal and institutional capacities required to implement the Convention and its Protocols.

It comes down to a simple question: Is the United Nations going to be part of the international fight against people smuggling or not?

Notes

(1.) As defined in the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its related Protocols, and therefore distinguished from "trafficking".

(2.) In this context, it is worth noting that resettlement in a third country is not and never will be the appropriate or durable solution to every refugee's needs nor, most importantly, what every refugee wants. This fact is too frequently forgotten in the people smuggling debate.

(3.) Return Migration: Journey of Hope or Despair, IOM/UN, 2000