The European Union and the United States have rejected the plan of the United Nations to resettle about ten percent of refugees annually as part of the struggle of the international community to solve the ongoing global refugee crisis. The EU and the US were not the only parties that have rejected the proposal. Russia, China and India were among other major players that voiced their concerns.
The United Nations estimates that about 24 million people worldwide left their countries because of conflict in 2015. About 244 million people are estimated to be currently ‘drifting’ around the world as migrants – people who left for other reasons than war. Human rights groups expressed their disappointment, saying that the document was just a mere political declaration and warning that the upcoming meeting at the UN in September would be a missed opportunity. However, Karen AbuZayid, a member of the board of directors of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and advisor to the Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said she was very pleased with the agreement and was looking forward to the September talks.
Under the proposal of Secretary General, the international community should have agreed on a new “global compact on responsibility-sharing” to address the refugee crisis and start negotiations on a second deal on migration. However, the final draft does not mention a responsibility-sharing but it proposes talks on migration beginning 2017 with the aim to adopt the accord in 2018. According to Charlotte Philipps from Amnesty International, “the Refugee Summit was a historic opportunity to find a desperately-needed global solution to the refugee crisis” but instead “ world leaders delayed any chance of a deal until 2018, procrastinating over crucial decisions even as refugees drown at sea and languish in camps with no hope for the future.”
