EU Engagement with Contested Refugee Returns in Lebanon: The Aftermath of Resilience
EU Engagement with Contested Refugee Returns in Lebanon: The Aftermath of Resilience
复制标题
欧盟与黎巴嫩有争议的难民返回的接触：恢复力的后果
作者：
Tamirace Fakhoury;N. Stel
虽然许多文献都集中在欧盟从其境内遣返难民的政策上，但本文试图了解欧盟如何与边界外的难民收容国合作，在其“南部邻国”，以维护自愿、安全和有尊严的返回条件。我们以黎巴嫩为例，该国在2011年叙利亚战争后接收了100多万流离失所的叙利亚人，是世界上人均难民人数最多的国家，欧盟在黎巴嫩投入了大量资金，帮助该国在面对流离失所问题时建立“复原力”。尽管联合国得出结论，安全返回叙利亚的条件尚不具备，但在黎巴嫩的叙利亚难民现在正面临越来越大的压力，要求他们返回原籍国。我们表明，欧盟在黎巴嫩返回的政策言论和实践已经被不协调所定义，这给其促进基于权利的返回的能力蒙上了阴影。在口头上，欧盟将自己与有关尊严和安全返回的国际原则保持一致，但却没有说明自己在实现这些原则方面的作用。在实践中，它的复原力建设方法仍然与这些框架不一致，因为它没有解决复原力建设如何与东道国返回的负面推动因素相互作用的问题。“恢复力”会导致不稳定的正式化，从而促使难民过早返回。此外，它还被黎巴嫩的政客们所采用，他们主张轻率的回归，同时指出他们所认为的强加的一体化会造成不稳定的影响。这些争议促使欧盟选择不参与有争议回报的实际情况，以便为外部化维持伙伴关系。
ABSTRACT While much literature has concentrated on the EU’s policy to return people from within its borders, this article seeks to understand how the EU cooperates with refugee-hosting states beyond its borders, in its ‘Southern Neighbourhood’, to uphold conditions for voluntary, safe and dignified returns. We build on the case of Lebanon, which hosts the highest number of refugees per capita worldwide after receiving more than one million displaced Syrians in the wake of Syria’s 2011 war, and where the EU has made tremendous investments to help build ‘resilience’ in the face of displacement. Although the UN concludes that conditions for safe return to Syria are not in place, Syrian refugees in Lebanon are now facing increasing pressure to return to their country of origin. We show that the EU’s policy rhetoric and practice on returns in Lebanon has been defined by incongruities that cast a pall on its ability to contribute to rights-based returns. In rhetoric, the EU aligns itself with international principles on return in dignity and safety – without, however, explicating its own role in realising such principles. In practice, its resilience-building approach remains at odds with such framings because it leaves the question of how resilience-building interacts with negative push factors for return in the host country unaddressed. ‘Resilience’ then contributes to the formalisation of precarity that prompts refugees to return prematurely. It is, moreover, co-opted by Lebanese politicians who argue for rash returns while pointing at the destabilising effects of what they see as imposed integration. These contestations incentivise the EU to opt for non-engagement with actual situations of contested returns so as to maintain partnerships for externalisation.