By Liam Wright

With legitimate refugee crises such as internally displaced persons and asylum seekers due to war or other violent conflict, and with upcoming crises such as pandemic or climate refugees looming on the horizon, there is no place in the world for regimes who would use human migration for coercive purposes. The international community must reach a consensus on strong sanctions and other tools of diplomacy and international law to strongly condemn and act against states who would treat refugees as weapons. When states like Turkey or Belarus threaten the EU with an uncontrolled flow of migrants, it’s to punish, coerce, or gain bargaining power. Using migration to coerce pulls resources and attention away from legitimate refugee crises and damages public perception on the issue of refugees. The issue is especially complicated because of the tendency for authoritarian regimes to take advantage of the domestic politics and ideological openness of democratic regimes to pressure them in ways that are almost impossible to respond to effectively.

When it comes to managing legitimate refugee crises, some small measures are being taken in the right direction in areas such as the EU. The Common European Asylum System in 2016 and the updated New Pact on Migration and Asylum provides guidelines and a way “to support front line countries in times of pressure by introducing a new system of solidarity from other EU countries.” This approach is insufficient however due to the flexibility needed in the wording for it to pass into law. EU member states that are not directly facing crises have the choice of relocating and hosting asylum seekers or providing financial support to the border countries facing the brunt of the responsibility. Naturally states that are already overwhelmed would be hard pressed to relocate even more people into their overburdened systems. Additionally, the NGO sector has pointed out that that the new legal framework carries risks such as “leaving people stranded, detained or destitute along Europe’s borders”.

Amidst the struggles to deal with legitimate crises, the threat of coercive migration is putting strain on already overburdened systems and pushing the EU further and further towards far right extremism. In fact, Orban of Hungary has already threatened that “he is ready to open a corridor for migrants to march up to Austria, Germany, and Sweden”. One of the strengths of weaponizing refugees as a coercive tool is that it preys on ideological splits at the domestic level in target states. This further complicates reaching policy consensus and contributes to polarization.  

In terms of addressing the problem of coercive migration, Kelly Greenhill, in her seminal work on the subject of the coercive migration, presents some potential avenues to reduce the impact of the issue. Her first suggestion, to enhance negotiations and diplomacy in the early stages before bad actors’ resort to threatening the use of coercive migration, is practical but not always feasible. Further, it puts the international community on the defensive, obligating them to examine every potential point of friction and speculate on whether triage is appropriate. of Her second suggestion of accommodation is halfway correct. It might be the case that states could “receive and process the displaced people, thus removing the strategic leverage of the government sending them”.  (Foreign Affairs, 2022). On the other hand, this only represents half of a solution in two senses. First is that accommodation is not possible without strong consensus. As we have seen too many times, tragedies in the Mediterranean show that some states are not willing to cooperate, even with lives at stake. Worse yet, some states are more than willing to pass the buck and simply pay someone else to deal with it for them, with more disastrous results. Second, it doesn’t do enough to deter the behavior in the future. If the argument is that accommodating migrants without fuss neutralizes the coercive threat, it doesn’t necessarily neutralize it if the coercer decides to threaten to send another wave of refugees.

If preemption and accommodation represent half of a solution, what makes up the remainder? The rest of the solution relies on strong multilateral consensus to sanction and act against any coercers to the fullest extent possible. While a case might be made regarding the effectiveness of sanctions, much of the purported weaknesses of sanctions come down to enforcement. If the international community is serious about committing to human rights, it needs to have strong multilateral cooperation on sanctions and other economic punishments to strongly deter and punish anyone who would threaten to displace people for gainful purposes. By taking a combined approach of accommodation and punishment, the liberal international order can both maintain its commitment to human rights and deter future aggression.

Liam Wright is an undergraduate student at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.