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55 3 Human Rights as a Framework for Advocacy on Behalf of the Displaced The Approach of the Catholic Church Silvano Tomasi Introduction People are moving from everywhere to everywhere. More than  million persons live, seek and find refuge, and work in a country different from the one in which they were born. To this statistic should be added the number of people forcibly displaced within their own country due to conflicts, oppression, or natural disaster—an estimated – million people—who are a matter of growing concern worldwide. Irregular migration is ubiquitous and in the millions. The combination of adverse economic, social, and political trends places the world’s poor and uprooted people increasingly at risk, and it adds to the growing scale and complexity of forced migration . Migrants of all kinds, asylum seekers, irregular economic migrants, refugees from civil wars and famine, women and children being moved about by human traffickers , and the internally displaced are all currently accorded much attention. But the scope and scale of human mobility is not a calamity, and no state is in the grips of a “pandemic” of migration that is about to overwhelm it. Human mobility in its multifaceted aspects is not a new phenomenon; it has accompanied the unfolding of history. Prehistoric migrations peopled new territories; Phoenician and Greek trade colonies dotted the Mediterranean basin; defeated Jewish people were forcibly taken into exile to Babylon; persecution scattered the earliest Christian communities within and outside of Palestine. Examples can multiply. Today, the  percent of the world’s population that has moved for one or another reason represents a sign of alarm that all is not well in the international community. In fact, most people would simply rather stay at home and not relocate, but they lack the option of exercising their right of not being forced to migrate. For years human mobility has been a factor resulting from, and contributing to, globalization, and that mobility has lately become a priority in the political agenda. Economists and scholars in ethics continue to debate the implications of the movement of people. Security concerns and control of entry drive policy in most receiving countries, even if such a policy is in evident contradiction with the need to accept more people. The complexity of the debate, and the various and evolving 56 Silvano Tomasi situations in which displaced people are found, make it very difficult to translate general principles into normative legislation and clear-cut guidance for action. In an effort to advance the process, I will offer some reflections on human displacement, first as it is approached by the international community, and then by the Catholic tradition. I will attempt to note the points of convergence and the common challenges emerging from a universal perspective in a world still dominated by the decisions and legitimating function of nation-states. In conclusion, I indicate that the universal perspective must ultimately be taken as the necessary measure to ensure peaceful coexistence and sustain the enactment of norms respectful of persons and supportive of the common good. The International Community and the Human Rights of Displaced People The masses of people on the move could be placed along a continuum that describes the reasons for their decision to move and the form of protection they need. If we look at involuntarily uprooted people, they can be categorized roughly as refugees; groups forcibly displaced by violence, climate change, or natural disasters; and migrant workers. For each of these three categories, the international community has devised some formal instruments of protection. Refugess are covered by the  United Nations (UN) Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and by the related  Protocol that removed the geographical and time limits; internally displaced persons (IDP) by the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (); and migrant workers by the International Labour Organization’s Conventions and by the United Nations International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, adopted by the General Assembly at its forty-fifth session on December , . These instruments brought about pragmatic developments for implementation that further promote and defend the human rights of displaced people. Most significant are some regional instruments such as the Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa (), the Cartagena Declaration on Refugees (), and the Great Lakes Pact and the Rights of Displaced People: A Guide for Civil Society (). There certainly is room for additional normative provisions, especially for the growing numbers of people who are in...

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