September 1, 2022 • 12 mins
Borders can’t solve the root causes of immigration such as poverty and persecutions. All the international organizations, agencies and ‘compacts’ only make it look as if something is being done, but to truly deal with these root causes we need global democracy.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
In 2013 a small boat overloaded with some 500 peopleset forth from Libya, heading towards Italy.
Most of its passengers had already traveledlong distances before they got on that boat,
coming from Eritrea, Somalia and Ghana,
and each of them paid around $3,000in order to board the small and rickety boat.
(00:29):
Several women who could not afford to pay, were raped,
and anyone who arguedfound themselves tied up and beaten up.
What drove these people to pay so much moneyto get on this dangerous little boat in such awful conditions?
They, like many other people, were fleeing from dictatorial regimes, persecution, poverty and hopelessness.
(00:50):
They were willing to leave their families and their homes,
pay their entire life savings, and beyond that in loans,and endure bad treatment and dangerous conditions,
for the chance to set foot on European land,
where they could apply for asylum, receive refugee status, and start a new life.
The group of people on this particular small boat were not in luck
(01:10):
As the boat was nearing the Italian island of Lampedusa it got into trouble and eventually sank.
More than 360 people lost their lives.
Italian Prime Minister Enrico Lettacalled the event "an immense tragedy".
António Guterres, then the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees,
commended the Italian Coast Guard for their quick reaction to the disaster.
(01:32):
The International Organization for Migration decidedthat it was time to start tracking the number of people dying on migratory routes.
But no-one, absolutely no-one, decided to do anything serious about
the underlying problems that leadto this kind of migration and this kind of disaster.
Since then it is estimated that more than 40,000 peoplehave died trying to reach other countries,
(01:54):
with more than half of them trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea.
The International Organization for Migration has indeedbeen busy collecting data since the 2013 tragedy,
and if you look at their website you can see grueling numbers
of how many migrants died by drowning, dehydration, starvation,how many died by being shot, and so on.
It paints a detailed picture of huge, huge suffering.
(02:17):
And yet hardly anything has been done about it,
and migrants continue to try to reachEurope and America and continue to die in the process.
What’s going on here?
Why are so many people so desperate to leave their own countries?
And why do they have to enduresuch dangerous journeys in order to reach safe havens?
Well, many people are desperate to leave their native countriesbecause they live there in awful conditions.
(02:41):
They may be persecuted as an ethnic minority or a political dissident
or as someone with the wrong kind of sexuality.
Or they have found themselves pushed off their landby a large infrastructure project, or a mine, or a plantation.
Or perhaps their home area became uninhabitabledue to storms or flooding caused by climate change.
Or maybe they just realized that there was no wayfor them to escape grinding poverty in their country,
(03:05):
as there were no jobs and no opportunities for them or their children.
All people want to live a decent life, and thus many of them would have looked to the rich countries of the world,
to Europe and to America, where people seem to live in freedom and comfort and abundance,
and they would have thought,‘I want that too. Let me try to get there’.
The problem is that in today’s international system,where all countries are sovereign,
(03:28):
and borders stop people moving freely between countries,this is often just not possible.
And certainly not ‘legal’.
And yet thousands of people are so desperate that they try anyway.
And thus we have today what is framedas a major ‘problem’ with refugees and migration,
which the international communityis trying to do something to ‘solve’
(03:48):
Let’s take a look at what the United Nationsactually does regarding refugees and migrants.
In 1950 the United Nations General Assembly createdwhat to this day is the main agency for helping refugees,
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
And in 1951 governments signed the Refugee Convention,which forms the backbone of so-called ‘international law’ with regard to refugees.
(04:11):
That same year they also established the Provisional Intergovernmental Committee for the Movement of Migrants from Europe,
to deal with the migrants and displaced peoplein Europe after the Second World War.
This organization would in 1989 become the International Organization for Migration
and in 2016 formally become part of the UN system.
All these international bodies, treaties and conventions
(04:33):
are based on the assumption that we caneasily distinguish between refugees and migrants.
Refugees are defined as people who flee their countriesdue to fear of persecution and violence,
and it is agreed, in theory, that they should be entitled to asylum or protection in other countries.
Migrants, on the other hand, is a much broader term,that also includes those who have left their countries due to economic reasons,
(04:56):
seeking a better life for themselves elsewhere.
And according to international law,while states ought to offer support to refugees,
they have every right to refuse entry to migrants.
This distinction, of course, is very problematic for several reasons.
Firstly, economic or ecological problems, such as extreme povertyor environmental disasters, such as a drought or a flood,
(05:16):
can be just as life-threatening as violent persecution.
And indeed, many people have repeatedlyproposed to update the refugee definition and expand it
to recognize economic destitution and environmental causes, but to this date this has not happened.
But even worse, the decision of who is a migrant and who is a refugeeis left to individual states and their border control agencies.
(05:38):
Many governments almost blankly reject asylum applicationsand deport the applicants without any serious investigation,
while others choose to take their timeand be extremely slow on checking the applications,
leaving asylum seekers hanging in limbo for yearswithout knowing their legal status and without proper state protection.
And migrants are often locked out completely.
(06:00):
Now your mind might tell you that this makes perfect sensebut, your heart, well, might feel that there is something wrong here.
The first problem, I would say, has to do with the fact that in our modern world,
the ancient concept of asylumsounds like a very primitive way to bring about justice.
In ancient days, the asylum was a sacred placelike a temple, or an altar, a church or a mosque,
(06:22):
where people would be protected from those who wanted to harm them.
But inside our states today we do not have such systems.Instead we have modern justice systems,
with a police force and laws and courtsthat protect people from the harm of others.
So, why do we accept this strange and archaicasylum system at the global level?
Why not create a system of real, binding global lawthat would protect citizens from abuse or persecution of their state?
(06:47):
Some of the ideas are there in the various human rights conventions,
but as the increasing number of refugees shows,these ideas are not being put into practice.
How could we make human rights real?
Well, as we’ve discussed in other videos, we would need to all of us become world citizens, in the real sense of the term,
with a world government and a world parliamentand world courts to guarantee our real human rights.
(07:10):
But instead we carry on in the same dysfunctional international system,
in which the international agencieshave no power to force countries to do anything,
and thus refugees often find themselves stuck in transitory campsand situations for years upon years upon years.
And the UN High Commission for Refugees, instead of somehowobliging all states to give refugees the protections that they need,
(07:33):
spends most of its time and resources on just providing humanitarian assistance
to directly help refugees in distress, mainly in the poor countries.
This just sticks a plaster on the situation and makes it easierfor governments to shake off any of their responsibilities to the people.
Instead of letting more people in, they simply make a small donationto the UNHCR to buy some tents and set up refugee camps in poor countries.
(07:59):
And what about migrants?Why are there so many of them?
And why is it apparently OK to keep them out?
Well, in short, the reason that millions of peoplewant to migrate to other countries
is because of the shocking inequalitythat exists in the world today.
National borders try to fence people into poor countries,where they must remain against their wishes,
(08:19):
while the people in rich countries enjoy the products of their labourand are themselves free to travel around the world as they wish.
And as inequality has increased steadily since the 1980s,so has the rate of international migration.
According to the UN there were 173 million peopleliving outside their country of origin in the year 2000,
(08:39):
221 million in 2010,
and by 2020 the number had increased to 281 million people.
Today international migrants make up around 3.6% of the world’s population.
And this of course, does not includeall the migrants that die on route,
and the millions and millions of others who sorely wish to migrate but lack the courage or resources to do so.
(09:02):
So it seems obvious that the fundamental way to deal with the issue of migration
is to deal with the issue of inequality,
to make the world more fair and just,so that people can live a decent life wherever they are.
We’ve discussed this issue in another video,and our view is that the only way to truly deal with massive inequality
is to build democratic global organizations to deal with economic issues,
(09:25):
such as tax, debt and trade, so as to balance out the world economy.
In short, this requires a democraticfederal layer of government at the global level.
But in the meantime countries are notmaking much of an effort to deal with inequality. Far from it.
Instead the rich countries are putting up ever higher fences and barriers
just to stop migrants and refugees from getting in.
(09:47):
And the so-called international community,dominated by the rich countries,
is developing pointless declarations and compacts
which seek to give the impression that they do something to help migrants and refugees,
but instead are keeping things as they are and retaining the status quo.
At the end of 2018 representatives of many governmentscame together and signed another declarative agreement,
(10:09):
called the ‘Global Compact on Migration’.
While this was supposedly aimed to help migrants,it in fact did nothing of the sort.
Instead, the Compact explicitly re-affirmed countries'sovereign rights to determine their own immigration policies,
and decide themselves who to let in and who to exclude.
As the European Commission and several governmentshave been quick to emphasize,
(10:30):
"the compact will have no legal effect whatsoever on national legal systems".
In other words, it’s another pieceof pointless theatre at the international level,
to try to make ordinary people believe thatsomething is being done, while in fact, nothing is.
If we are serious about ending the root problems that cause people to immigrate and seek refuge,
(10:51):
if we are serious about tackling poverty, oppression and the climate crisis,
we cannot leave those thingsto be handled by separate sovereign governments.
Each one only thinks about its own interests, and no-one thinks about the greater whole.
Instead, we have to take some of their powersand push it up to a supra-national level,
and create a global authority that exists above states.
(11:13):
Only such an authority, democratically elected by the world’s people,
can look holistically at global problemsand find just and appropriate solutions.
And only in a world federation,with world citizenship and open borders,
will the problems of refugees and migrants be solved.
And only in a democratic world federationwill human rights become real and meaningful,
(11:35):
will poverty be eliminated,and economic inequality be reduced to a more reasonable level.
The time has come for the citizens of the worldto rethink the stories we have been telling ourselves
and to face up to the bitter truththat today the international world order exists
for the very purpose of separating the world’s peoples,disempowering them, and bolstering inequality
(11:57):
so that the rich can make their billions whilst ignoring the suffering of so many people,
and indeed of our ecology, our climate and our planet.
It’s time to look for a new model of world order,one that can foster justice and equality.
We believe that a democratic world federation is the only real answer.
This is the real hope for humanity.
In 2013 a small boat overloaded with some 500 peopleset forth from Libya, heading towards Italy.
Most of its passengers had already traveledlong distances before they got on that boat,
coming from Eritrea, Somalia and Ghana,
and each of them paid around $3,000in order to board the small and rickety boat.
(00:29):
Several women who could not afford to pay, were raped,
and anyone who arguedfound themselves tied up and beaten up.
What drove these people to pay so much moneyto get on this dangerous little boat in such awful conditions?
They, like many other people, were fleeing from dictatorial regimes, persecution, poverty and hopelessness.
(00:50):
They were willing to leave their families and their homes,
pay their entire life savings, and beyond that in loans,and endure bad treatment and dangerous conditions,
for the chance to set foot on European land,
where they could apply for asylum, receive refugee status, and start a new life.
The group of people on this particular small boat were not in luck
(01:10):
As the boat was nearing the Italian island of Lampedusa it got into trouble and eventually sank.
More than 360 people lost their lives.
Italian Prime Minister Enrico Lettacalled the event "an immense tragedy".
António Guterres, then the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees,
commended the Italian Coast Guard for their quick reaction to the disaster.
(01:32):
The International Organization for Migration decidedthat it was time to start tracking the number of people dying on migratory routes.
But no-one, absolutely no-one, decided to do anything serious about
the underlying problems that leadto this kind of migration and this kind of disaster.
Since then it is estimated that more than 40,000 peoplehave died trying to reach other countries,
(01:54):
with more than half of them trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea.
The International Organization for Migration has indeedbeen busy collecting data since the 2013 tragedy,
and if you look at their website you can see grueling numbers
of how many migrants died by drowning, dehydration, starvation,how many died by being shot, and so on.
It paints a detailed picture of huge, huge suffering.
(02:17):
And yet hardly anything has been done about it,
and migrants continue to try to reachEurope and America and continue to die in the process.
What’s going on here?
Why are so many people so desperate to leave their own countries?
And why do they have to enduresuch dangerous journeys in order to reach safe havens?
Well, many people are desperate to leave their native countriesbecause they live there in awful conditions.
(02:41):
They may be persecuted as an ethnic minority or a political dissident
or as someone with the wrong kind of sexuality.
Or they have found themselves pushed off their landby a large infrastructure project, or a mine, or a plantation.
Or perhaps their home area became uninhabitabledue to storms or flooding caused by climate change.
Or maybe they just realized that there was no wayfor them to escape grinding poverty in their country,
(03:05):
as there were no jobs and no opportunities for them or their children.
All people want to live a decent life, and thus many of them would have looked to the rich countries of the world,
to Europe and to America, where people seem to live in freedom and comfort and abundance,
and they would have thought,‘I want that too. Let me try to get there’.
The problem is that in today’s international system,where all countries are sovereign,
(03:28):
and borders stop people moving freely between countries,this is often just not possible.
And certainly not ‘legal’.
And yet thousands of people are so desperate that they try anyway.
And thus we have today what is framedas a major ‘problem’ with refugees and migration,
which the international communityis trying to do something to ‘solve’
(03:48):
Let’s take a look at what the United Nationsactually does regarding refugees and migrants.
In 1950 the United Nations General Assembly createdwhat to this day is the main agency for helping refugees,
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
And in 1951 governments signed the Refugee Convention,which forms the backbone of so-called ‘international law’ with regard to refugees.
(04:11):
That same year they also established the Provisional Intergovernmental Committee for the Movement of Migrants from Europe,
to deal with the migrants and displaced peoplein Europe after the Second World War.
This organization would in 1989 become the International Organization for Migration
and in 2016 formally become part of the UN system.
All these international bodies, treaties and conventions
(04:33):
are based on the assumption that we caneasily distinguish between refugees and migrants.
Refugees are defined as people who flee their countriesdue to fear of persecution and violence,
and it is agreed, in theory, that they should be entitled to asylum or protection in other countries.
Migrants, on the other hand, is a much broader term,that also includes those who have left their countries due to economic reasons,
(04:56):
seeking a better life for themselves elsewhere.
And according to international law,while states ought to offer support to refugees,
they have every right to refuse entry to migrants.
This distinction, of course, is very problematic for several reasons.
Firstly, economic or ecological problems, such as extreme povertyor environmental disasters, such as a drought or a flood,
(05:16):
can be just as life-threatening as violent persecution.
And indeed, many people have repeatedlyproposed to update the refugee definition and expand it
to recognize economic destitution and environmental causes, but to this date this has not happened.
But even worse, the decision of who is a migrant and who is a refugeeis left to individual states and their border control agencies.
(05:38):
Many governments almost blankly reject asylum applicationsand deport the applicants without any serious investigation,
while others choose to take their timeand be extremely slow on checking the applications,
leaving asylum seekers hanging in limbo for yearswithout knowing their legal status and without proper state protection.
And migrants are often locked out completely.
(06:00):
Now your mind might tell you that this makes perfect sensebut, your heart, well, might feel that there is something wrong here.
The first problem, I would say, has to do with the fact that in our modern world,
the ancient concept of asylumsounds like a very primitive way to bring about justice.
In ancient days, the asylum was a sacred placelike a temple, or an altar, a church or a mosque,
(06:22):
where people would be protected from those who wanted to harm them.
But inside our states today we do not have such systems.Instead we have modern justice systems,
with a police force and laws and courtsthat protect people from the harm of others.
So, why do we accept this strange and archaicasylum system at the global level?
Why not create a system of real, binding global lawthat would protect citizens from abuse or persecution of their state?
(06:47):
Some of the ideas are there in the various human rights conventions,
but as the increasing number of refugees shows,these ideas are not being put into practice.
How could we make human rights real?
Well, as we’ve discussed in other videos, we would need to all of us become world citizens, in the real sense of the term,
with a world government and a world parliamentand world courts to guarantee our real human rights.
(07:10):
But instead we carry on in the same dysfunctional international system,
in which the international agencieshave no power to force countries to do anything,
and thus refugees often find themselves stuck in transitory campsand situations for years upon years upon years.
And the UN High Commission for Refugees, instead of somehowobliging all states to give refugees the protections that they need,
(07:33):
spends most of its time and resources on just providing humanitarian assistance
to directly help refugees in distress, mainly in the poor countries.
This just sticks a plaster on the situation and makes it easierfor governments to shake off any of their responsibilities to the people.
Instead of letting more people in, they simply make a small donationto the UNHCR to buy some tents and set up refugee camps in poor countries.
(07:59):
And what about migrants?Why are there so many of them?
And why is it apparently OK to keep them out?
Well, in short, the reason that millions of peoplewant to migrate to other countries
is because of the shocking inequalitythat exists in the world today.
National borders try to fence people into poor countries,where they must remain against their wishes,
(08:19):
while the people in rich countries enjoy the products of their labourand are themselves free to travel around the world as they wish.
And as inequality has increased steadily since the 1980s,so has the rate of international migration.
According to the UN there were 173 million peopleliving outside their country of origin in the year 2000,
(08:39):
221 million in 2010,
and by 2020 the number had increased to 281 million people.
Today international migrants make up around 3.6% of the world’s population.
And this of course, does not includeall the migrants that die on route,
and the millions and millions of others who sorely wish to migrate but lack the courage or resources to do so.
(09:02):
So it seems obvious that the fundamental way to deal with the issue of migration
is to deal with the issue of inequality,
to make the world more fair and just,so that people can live a decent life wherever they are.
We’ve discussed this issue in another video,and our view is that the only way to truly deal with massive inequality
is to build democratic global organizations to deal with economic issues,
(09:25):
such as tax, debt and trade, so as to balance out the world economy.
In short, this requires a democraticfederal layer of government at the global level.
But in the meantime countries are notmaking much of an effort to deal with inequality. Far from it.
Instead the rich countries are putting up ever higher fences and barriers
just to stop migrants and refugees from getting in.
(09:47):
And the so-called international community,dominated by the rich countries,
is developing pointless declarations and compacts
which seek to give the impression that they do something to help migrants and refugees,
but instead are keeping things as they are and retaining the status quo.
At the end of 2018 representatives of many governmentscame together and signed another declarative agreement,
(10:09):
called the ‘Global Compact on Migration’.
While this was supposedly aimed to help migrants,it in fact did nothing of the sort.
Instead, the Compact explicitly re-affirmed countries'sovereign rights to determine their own immigration policies,
and decide themselves who to let in and who to exclude.
As the European Commission and several governmentshave been quick to emphasize,
(10:30):
"the compact will have no legal effect whatsoever on national legal systems".
In other words, it’s another pieceof pointless theatre at the international level,
to try to make ordinary people believe thatsomething is being done, while in fact, nothing is.
If we are serious about ending the root problems that cause people to immigrate and seek refuge,
(10:51):
if we are serious about tackling poverty, oppression and the climate crisis,
we cannot leave those thingsto be handled by separate sovereign governments.
Each one only thinks about its own interests, and no-one thinks about the greater whole.
Instead, we have to take some of their powersand push it up to a supra-national level,
and create a global authority that exists above states.
(11:13):
Only such an authority, democratically elected by the world’s people,
can look holistically at global problemsand find just and appropriate solutions.
And only in a world federation,with world citizenship and open borders,
will the problems of refugees and migrants be solved.
And only in a democratic world federationwill human rights become real and meaningful,
(11:35):
will poverty be eliminated,and economic inequality be reduced to a more reasonable level.
The time has come for the citizens of the worldto rethink the stories we have been telling ourselves
and to face up to the bitter truththat today the international world order exists
for the very purpose of separating the world’s peoples,disempowering them, and bolstering inequality
(11:57):
so that the rich can make their billions whilst ignoring the suffering of so many people,
and indeed of our ecology, our climate and our planet.
It’s time to look for a new model of world order,one that can foster justice and equality.
We believe that a democratic world federation is the only real answer.
This is the real hope for humanity.
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