Article content continued

***

The authors of Refuge — both of them Oxford University professors — start by explaining the historical roots of the current system, which took root during the early years of the Cold War, when the prototypical refugee was a political dissident. This system was designed to handle individuals and small groups, not the great swathes of humanity that civil war, jihad and ethnic cleansing have propelled wholesale across Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

The international community’s response has been a grab bag of humanitarian outreach, the scope and nature of which fluctuates on the basis of optics. When a photographer captured the washed-ashore body of 4-year-old Alan Kurdi two years ago, many Western nations — including Canada — responded with open arms. But in the case of other tragedies, such as that of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, the response is more muted.

Photo by Handout

For the migrants themselves, life is a lottery. Only about one in every 200 refugees is selected for formal resettlement in a developed country. Even counting the hordes who migrate spontaneously as asylum-seekers, the proportion is less than one in 10. The other 90 per cent exist in an endless limbo as residents of refugee camps, or as an undocumented underclass in large cities.

In theory, the camps offer a short-term refuge, from which families can soon return to their native country, or to safe permanent homes. But the reality for most is that these camps are the permanent homes: Over half of the world’s refugees exist in what is known as “protracted refugee situations” — and for this group, the average length of stay is more than 20 years. During this time, refugees typically are unable to work, gain citizenship, travel freely or start legal businesses. As Betts and Collier emphasize, these “humanitarian siloes” represent an epic waste of human capital.