beyond charity: international cooperation and the global refugee crisis

Beyond Charity: International Cooperation and the Global Refugee Crisis by Gil LoescherReview by: Geoff GilbertHuman Rights Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Nov., 1994), pp. 785-787Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/762570 .

Accessed: 28/06/2014 07:11

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

The Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toHuman Rights Quarterly.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 141.101.201.171 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 07:11:00 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=jhup

http://www.jstor.org/stable/762570?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


BOOK REVIEWS

Beyond Charity: International Co- operation and the Global Refugee Crisis, by Gil Loescher (London: Oxford University Press 1993), $35, ISBN: 0-19-508183-8

One of the major issues facing the international community is the growing number of refugees in all regions of the world. It is a "major issue" because Western governments perceive that refu-

gee movements from the South and the former Soviet bloc could have a dra- matic effect on Western economies: whether the refugees remain close to their country of origin and need aid in

neighboring states, or if they migrate to the West in search of an improved qual- ity of life. Loescher's book addresses these issues and is a useful resource of information regarding refugee movements, both in the past and now. Never- theless, one is left wanting more than is included in the 231 pages of text and footnotes.

It is not the job of the reviewer to "rewrite" the book proposal submitted to the publisher so that it matches what issues the reviewer thinks ought to have been covered. Unfortunately, the main criticism of Beyond Charity has to do with its structure rather than its content. Each issue is dealt with briefly, and somewhat fragmentedly, where deeper coverage would provide the reader with a stronger foundation from which to develop an understanding of refugee problems. It is a truism to state that if more had been written, the topic could have been more thoroughly examined, but there is a minimum below which

one is simply reading the author's views rather than her or his analysis. Loescher does not fall into this trap, providing great swathes of statistics on occasion, but the subject under consideration is so wide-ranging that some aspects are bound to be "skimmed," leaving the reader wanting further discussion, especially since Loescher's writing on this subject is so penetrative and far-sighted.

Loescher sets out at the start of his work (p.10) his aims for the book:

This book presents an opportunity to en- gage in a profound discussion of a crucial question that will shape the course of history in our time. The first step in engag- ing such a discussion must be to under- stand the causes that drive people to move and the serious political and strate- gic consequences of refugee movements for governments all over the world. A better understanding of the origins and consequences of the refugee problem will not only help combat the growing hostil- ity toward those who seek asylum; it will ultimately help us find appropriate and long-standing solutions to problems that create refugees.

While this statement cannot be criti- cized, to spend Chapters Two, Three, and Four on an analysis of the historical roots of the present refugee regime and crisis is somewhat excessive. Given that the proposed line of analysis was to look at the refugee problems of the 1990s, less historical material was necessary and the reduction in detail in this area would not have led to any loss of critical foundation for the subsequent arguments.

As for those arguments, one was left feeling that a mere "taste" had been given of certain subjects where there

Human Rights Quarterly 16 (1994) 785-789 01994 by The Johns Hopkins University Press



786 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 16

was a wealth of issues to be considered. An example is the brief coverage given to the issue of ethnic populations abroad. In both Germany and Hungary large numbers of refugees are, or claim to be, ethnic German/Hungarians; these refu-

gees tend to be given asylum, and this

preferential treatment attracts those who would not otherwise qualify under the definition found in the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Other countries operate a similar if less explicit policy. Such discrimination produces distorted refugee flows that need to be addressed in any solution to the move- ment of peoples in a time when maps are being redrawn. Another example of this brief analysis not providing enough depth concerns Loescher's discussion of those elements of the refugee definition and legal protection regime that are

customary international law. Loescher does not claim to be writing a book on international refugee law, which in many respects is irrelevant when dealing with actual refugee flows, but minimum legal obligations owed to all persons moving across borders is important and deserved

greater coverage. The most disturbing example of insufficient analysis, though, concerned the discussion of collective intervention in internal conflicts which was dealt with in a mere two pages (pp. 196-98). The problems in law and international politics of intervening in internal disputes are such that two pages would not even highlight matters requir- ing further reading for the reader.

That, however, is the extent of the

general criticisms of this book. It should be forcefully pointed out that Chapter One provides one of the best summaries of refugee flow issues that this reviewer has ever read. Chapter Five, Asylum Crises in the Industrialized World, is, in short, brilliant: one is left with a clear idea of the problems, real and invented,

and potential solutions to the West's refugee crisis. Chapter Six is again very good and provides a wealth of useful factual information, even if its discussion of customary international law, as stated above, is somewhat thin. The

concluding chapters on resolving refugee problems are stimulating and well argued-it is here that one longs for more of Loescher's perceptive insight and analysis, especially on the role of NGOs and other agencies dealing with the practical consequences of refugee flows.

Other comments reflect particular criticisms of specific arguments. For in- stance, at page 164, Loescher argues that Western Europe and governments should be more willing to receive, even

temporarily, people fleeing internal conflicts such as that in the former Yugo- slavia. There is nothing to say against such a humanitarian attitude. However, Loescher does not consider the wider policy implications of having an explicit policy of opening doors to those fleeing "ethnic cleansing": for example, that it

actually assists the aggressors' policy of

turning a region into a mono-ethnic area. While protection must be offered to people fleeing internal conflicts, the explicit policies of governments may have to satisfy more than just one set of

strategy-demands. At page 166, Loescher argues for increased trade with the third world, a commendable view, but his

advocacy of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade as assisting in this aim would not meet with universal agreement.

In conclusion, Loescher has taken an immense subject and provided the reader with an overview of all matters of impor- tance that impinge thereon at the end of the twentieth century. The analysis of topics is extremely insightful. It is a book that should be read by everyone inter-



1994 Book Reviews 787

ested in refugee problems. However, for the sake of depth and comprehensive- ness, the book should have been 400

pages long. The topic is so wide and so

complex, and it is so difficult to readily locate all relevant source materials, that Loescher should have expanded his

analysis in order that the full extent of this global crisis could have been examined.

Dr. Geoff Gilbert, Senior Lecturer in Law

University of Essex

On Human Rights: The Oxford Am-

nesty Lectures 1993, Stephen Shute and Susan Hurely, eds., New York, Basic Books, 1993. 262 pp., $25.

Gathered in this volume are seven

essays that had their origin in 1993 as lectures given at Oxford University under the auspices of Amnesty Interna- tional. The lectures/essays are by "[s]peakers of international reputation," as the editors rightly observe in the very helpful prefatory survey in which they give thumb-nail sketches of each essay and its author: John Elster, Agnes Heller, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Steven Lukes, Catherine A. MacKinnon, John Rawls, and Richard Rorty. Few readers will be unfamiliar with the work of all of these writers, but not because they have previ- ously established themselves as influen- tial public defenders and interpreters of human rights. On the contrary, this volume brings in out of the cold, as it were, a number of very well-known thinkers and puts them to work in the human rights arena for perhaps the first time.

Thus, readers familiar with Rawl's theory of justice or with Rorty's postmodern pragmatism, for example, have here the first opportunity to see how these thinkers explicitly connect their distinctive general philosophical outlook with the nature, role, and status of human rights. Because of the interests of the several authors, the tilt of the volume is heavily philosophical; political, legal, and practical aspects of human rights play subor- dinate roles in all the essays.

Discerning a common theme under-

lying and unifying the varied content of these essays is all but impossible, except at the most trivial level. All these writers believe, in some sense or another, that there are universal human rights; pre- sumably they also believe that these

rights need protection under domestic and international law; and they give good evidence of believing (as everyone must) that these rights are often violated (and are continuously at risk of being violated) by governments, and that a currently conspicuous case of such violations occurs daily in erstwhile Yugo- slavia. (The preoccupation among the lecturers over "ethnic-cleansing" in Bosnia and related crimes against hu- manity is quite understandable given the circumstance; other locales where human rights are also being widely violated-East Timor, Haiti, Somalia, and more recently Rwanda-figure barely, if at all, in these essays.) I will not be the

only reader, however, who notices that the particular human rights violations, concern for which has made Amnesty International internationally famous- imprisonment of persons for their be- liefs, color, etc., the death penalty, tor- ture, and extra-judicial killing-receive little mention, much less any extended discussion, from any of these lecturers.

Two of the essays stand out as thor- ough explorations of general issues con-



beyond charity: international cooperation and the global refugee crisis

Documents