How do you see Bangladesh working with the IOM?Our relations with Bangladesh are some of the best we have in the system. We work very collaboratively, very closely together - we always have. I think what’s happening now is we are identifying more areas where we can help one another. It’s a partnership.
We get a lot of support from Bangladesh. We try to respond to their needs. We were glad to see Bangladesh take the lead in being the chair of this ninth edition of the Global Forum. Bangladesh is one of the most active countries, they advocate a lot in our councils. They stand up for migration policies. They made a lot of very good proposals, even the idea of the Global Compact, in a certain sense, even the name of the Global Compact, had some origin in Bangladesh.
We have a very good relationship and the proof of it is that our office has grown from a very small office to one of the largest. In Bangladesh we now have roughly 200 staff. We have a budget that is moving close to USD20 million a year. I have met with the Prime Minister several times and meet the Foreign Minister regularly - someone we particularly know and esteem. Obviously we also have lose contact with the ambassador in Geneva.
The IOM has said 21,000 Rohingyas have entered Bangladesh during the current crisis. Is the IOM going to communicate its recommendations to the Bangladesh government regarding the Rohingya crisis?What I would say is this, on my third visit to Bangladesh since I came into office in 2008, it wouldn't be appropriate or helpful for me to get engaged in the political aspect of this issue. Because our engagement as a humanitarian organization is entirely humanitarian. And we have a large group that's going down to visit our project in Cox's Bazar on Tuesday (13 December). Our concern is that all persons receive assistance. This applies to everybody in the population, not just the minority. That's the way that allows it to work well if all gets the same assistance. We are very much focused on the humanitarian aspects.
Is the refugee situation going to worsen worldwide?Let me turn the question around. Do you anticipate that any of the eight armed conflicts will be resolved in the near future? Do you think that the growing discrepancies, economically, is going to lessen? We are in the period of a simultaneous crisis that continue to drive more people out. The biggest of all being the Syrian conflict which will soon be entering it's sixth year.
So, if you can't solve these crises then the number of refugees will continue to grow. But the other aspect of that is even with all of this the settlement countries and the quotas that we have, we are only receiving about 1% a year of the 21 million refugees. So, the average camp life is 17 or 18 years, which in many ways is a commentary on how we view people in difficulty. If we can get more official refugees in resettlement countries and if we get more respectable quotas, significant quotas, then you can bring that number up significantly.
So, as you suggested in your question, it has continued to grow and it will until we can solve these conflicts that push people out. And the biggest issue of all is the question of internally displaced persons. I mean all of our staff inside Syria and Iraq, that’s basically all they are doing, just taking care of the displaced persons, who don’t have a camp to go to, who have lost everything and who have to be looked after.
There will be a lot of climate refugees, particularly in places like Bangladesh. How we can deal with this?Undoubtedly, it’s [going to be] one of the drivers of migration in the future. I gave a figure this morning in my off-the-cuff remarks, saying that in addition to the 65 million forcibly displaced persons today, you have another 75 million, who are living roughly one metre above sea level. Most of these people will not be crossing borders. They’ll probably be staying.
Whatever you want to label them, there will be a lot of affected by climate change and it will grow until we get something in place [according to] the Paris climate change accord - and at some point we may have to go beyond that because it doesn’t cover everything. But our view at IOM is that in addition to mitigation measures we should be focusing much more on adaptation. Bangladesh is very much affected on an annual basis.
We are in the period of a simultaneous crisis that continues to drive more people out
How will the integration of the IOM into the United Nations affect its operation?We were on the outside for almost 65 years. Then we went inside [the UN] on September 19. It gives us a seat at the table and a voice in the dialogue in these matters and ... we are satisfied that we would able to do more that way.
The UN up to that point had not really had a migration agency as such. They had UNHCR, our traditional partner for refugees. But the vast number of people on the move were not refugees. They are of all categories. They can be economic migrants, going to look for jobs. They can be internally displaced persons, which is the largest group, it could be victims of trafficking, human trafficking, they could be people going to join their family, reunification and so forth.
So, we are satisfied that it was the right decision. The implications for us are that we will have greater access and a greater say in the policy, be able to collaborate much more closely, have a little more intra-operability of the personnel and funding and that sort of thing. So, it was a good move. And the timing is important too, because if we were to do this when the Secretary General and Deputy Secretary General of the UN and some of the major players like Washington and President Obama, for example, were in office; it was the best time to do it then. Otherwise we would have to start over and lose three to four years.
What will be the impact of the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants?Well, the immediate effect is that it sets in motion now a process whereby we will begin to prepare this inter-governmental conference on migration in 2018. I think it already gives us some pretty clear guidelines on the areas that we need to focus on. The main consideration is that we'll be able to get a greater sense of shared responsibility by the member states. I think that's the key outcome from it.
The Declaration emphasised upholding migrant rights regardless of status. Will the IOM urge member states to ratify this?- The answer is yes, a clear yes. Because these irregular migrants have not committed a criminal act. They simply didn't have the proper papers, they were trying to get work, get to join a family, or they were fleeing violence, armed conflict, fleeing abject poverty, or they were fleeing political persecution. And if they are not covered under the 1951 agreement - and none of them would be, except those fleeing political persecution - then they need some assistance in protecting their rights as there's no international legal framework under which they fall.
So, this will be a very good thing because it will allow for more human mobility. We are hoping, of course, that it will allow governments to bring their policies up to date. Right now our policies are way behind, for example, technological development. We have instant information. But our visa policies have not matured at all.
Because there is no fullproof mechanism to enforce international law, resolutions after resolutions have been passed to little effect. Do you see international law changing in order to change how the law is implemented?It's a good question. You've put your finger on the main problem, which is you can have all the laws and resolutions you want but if there is no political will it won't happen. I think of the hundreds of millions of dollars that are spent in trying to reform armed forces and police forces around the world, but if the central government is not committed to reforming then it just doesn't happen. Some of the domestic workers' resolutions from the International Labor Organization (ILO), for example, make so much sense, you would think that everybody would want to immediately agree with them and yet, very few have. And the other one goes back, the migrant workers resolution, I think 17 countries or something [accepted it], and none of the developing countries have.
You can have all the laws and resolutions you want but if there is no political will it won't happen
Ambassador William Lacy Swing factfileNationality: United States November 2001 to April 2003: Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Western Sahara and Chief of Mission, UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO).May 2003 to January 2008: UN Special Representative of the Secretary- General (SRSG) for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), leading all facets of the largest UN peacekeeping operation in history18 June 2008: First elected as Director General of the International Organization for Migration.1 October 2008: Began his first, five-year term at the IOM.14 June 2013: Re-elected to his second five-year term.19 September 2016: IOM joins the United Nations