"The Global Compact on Refugees has provided a breakthrough opportunity to reinforce a global comprehensive response to the protracted refugee crises in East Africa", according to ABA Fellow Juliet Nyamao in their new AfricLaw article, “The Global Compact on Refugees: A breakthrough opportunity in addressing the protracted refugee crises in East Africa.”
In September 2016, world leaders at a United Nations Summit for Refugees and Migrants in New York, unanimously adopted the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants. They further agreed to work towards the adoption of two critical documents: a global compact on refugees, and a global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration.
In the article, Nyamao details the influence the Compact will have on the world and specifically how this will affect East Africa, which shoulders much of the responsibility of the refugee crises. She mentions several mechanisms that can facilitate burden- and responsibility-sharing, such as the Global Refugee Forum, the formation of a Support Platform, and the establishment of national leaderships to conjure a comprehensive refugee response.
Learn more in Nyamao’s full article here.
Juliet Nyamao is a Human Rights Attorney admitted to the Kenyan Bar. She received her LLB from Moi University School of Law (Kenya) and LLM from Georgetown University Law Centre (USA). Juliet completed her fellowship in Leadership and Advocacy for Women in Africa at Georgetown University Law Center. She is currently a fellow at the American Bar Association-USA.
While refugee studies is a rapidly growing field, it has rarely intersected with African historiography. This chapter proposes a series of theoretical and methodological questions that may serve as a starting point in writing the history of refugees in Africa. The complications of the term “refugee” are considered, and an alternate analytic – seeking refuge as a process – is proposed. The chapter then outlines what the history of refuge seeking in Africa might look like, using the examples of environmental collapse and conquest in eastern Africa from 1890 to 1920, the colonial bureaucratic management of refugees and refugee camps, and refugees from liberation movements against settler colonies in southern Africa. Sources for writing African refugee history are offered, including ones that highlight refugee voices and refugee agency.
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