WEBVTT 00:00:00.719 --> 00:00:02.577 There are times when I feel 00:00:02.577 --> 00:00:04.434 really quite ashamed 00:00:04.434 --> 00:00:06.315 to be a European. 00:00:06.315 --> 00:00:08.056 In the last year, 00:00:08.056 --> 00:00:12.723 more than a million people arrived in Europe in need of our help, 00:00:12.723 --> 00:00:16.880 and our response, frankly, has been pathetic. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:16.880 --> 00:00:19.921 There are just so many contradictions. 00:00:19.921 --> 00:00:22.986 We mourn the tragic death 00:00:22.986 --> 00:00:25.401 of two-year old Alan Kurdi, 00:00:25.401 --> 00:00:29.906 and yet since then, more than 200 children 00:00:29.906 --> 00:00:32.476 have subsequently drowned in the Mediterranean. 00:00:33.845 --> 00:00:36.585 We have international treaties that recognize that refugees 00:00:36.585 --> 00:00:38.861 are a shared responsibility, 00:00:38.861 --> 00:00:41.995 and yet we accept that tiny Lebanon 00:00:41.995 --> 00:00:46.082 hosts more Syrians than the whole of Europe combined. 00:00:46.569 --> 00:00:50.192 We lament the existence of human smugglers, 00:00:50.192 --> 00:00:54.000 and yet we make that the only viable route 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:57.064 to seek asylum in Europe. 00:00:57.064 --> 00:01:01.778 We have labor shortages, and yet we exclude people who fit 00:01:01.778 --> 00:01:04.355 our economic and demographic needs 00:01:04.355 --> 00:01:06.956 from coming to Europe. 00:01:06.956 --> 00:01:13.178 We proclaim our liberal values in opposition to fundamentalist Islam, 00:01:13.178 --> 00:01:18.496 and yet we have repressive policies 00:01:18.496 --> 00:01:21.026 that detain child asylum seekers, 00:01:21.026 --> 00:01:24.788 that separate children from their families, 00:01:24.788 --> 00:01:28.317 and that seize property from refugees. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:29.269 --> 00:01:30.895 What are we doing? 00:01:30.895 --> 00:01:33.263 How has the situation come to this, 00:01:33.263 --> 00:01:38.023 that we've adopted such an inhumane response to a humanitarian crisis? NOTE Paragraph 00:01:39.509 --> 00:01:41.948 I don't believe it's because people don't care, 00:01:41.948 --> 00:01:45.058 or at least I don't want to believe it's because people don't care. 00:01:45.058 --> 00:01:48.704 I believe it's because our politicians lack a vision, 00:01:48.704 --> 00:01:52.488 a vision for how to adapt an international refugee system 00:01:52.488 --> 00:01:54.508 created over 50 years ago 00:01:54.508 --> 00:01:57.659 for a changing and globalized world. 00:01:57.659 --> 00:02:00.004 And so what I want to do is take a step back 00:02:00.004 --> 00:02:03.905 and ask two really fundamental questions, 00:02:03.905 --> 00:02:06.459 the two questions we all need to ask. 00:02:06.459 --> 00:02:09.733 First, why is the current system not working? 00:02:09.733 --> 00:02:13.819 And second, what can we do to fix it? NOTE Paragraph 00:02:15.003 --> 00:02:16.930 So the modern refugee regime 00:02:16.930 --> 00:02:19.879 was created in the aftermath of the Second World War by these guys. 00:02:19.879 --> 00:02:25.196 Its basic aim is to ensure 00:02:25.196 --> 00:02:27.077 that when a state fails, or worse, turns against its own people, 00:02:27.077 --> 00:02:31.199 people have somewhere to go, 00:02:31.199 --> 00:02:34.868 to live in safety and dignity until they can go home. 00:02:34.868 --> 00:02:40.765 It was created precisely for situations like the situation we see in Syria today. 00:02:40.765 --> 00:02:45.781 Through an international convention signed by 147 governments, 00:02:45.781 --> 00:02:48.729 the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees, 00:02:48.729 --> 00:02:51.864 and an international organization, UNHCR, 00:02:51.864 --> 00:02:56.693 states committed to reciprocally admit people onto their territory 00:02:56.693 --> 00:02:59.596 who flee conflict and persecution. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:59.596 --> 00:03:03.079 But today, that system is failing. 00:03:03.079 --> 00:03:06.887 In theory, refugees have a right to seek asylum. 00:03:06.887 --> 00:03:11.484 In practice, our immigration policies block the path to safety. 00:03:11.484 --> 00:03:15.733 In theory, refugees have a right to a pathway to integration, 00:03:15.733 --> 00:03:18.148 or return to the country they've come from. 00:03:18.148 --> 00:03:22.443 But in practice, they get stuck in almost indefinite limbo. 00:03:22.443 --> 00:03:25.833 In theory, refugees are a shared global responsibility. 00:03:25.833 --> 00:03:30.407 In practice, geography means that countries proximate the conflict 00:03:30.407 --> 00:03:34.958 take the overwhelming majority of the world's refugees. 00:03:34.958 --> 00:03:37.605 The system isn't broken because the rules are wrong. 00:03:37.605 --> 00:03:42.110 It's that we're not applying them adequately to a changing world, 00:03:42.110 --> 00:03:44.664 and that's what we need to reconsider. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:44.664 --> 00:03:49.215 So I want to explain to you a little bit about how the current system works. 00:03:49.215 --> 00:03:49.465 How does the refugee regime actually work? 00:03:51.815 --> 00:03:54.393 But not from a top-down institutional perspective, 00:03:54.393 --> 00:03:58.456 rather from the perspective of a refugee. 00:03:58.456 --> 00:04:00.917 So imagine a Syrian woman. 00:04:00.917 --> 00:04:03.030 Let's call her Amira. 00:04:03.030 --> 00:04:07.767 And Amira to me represents many of the people I've met in the region. 00:04:07.767 --> 00:04:11.180 Amira, like around 25 percent of the world's refugees, 00:04:11.180 --> 00:04:13.061 is a woman with children, 00:04:13.061 --> 00:04:16.126 and she can't go home because she comes from this city 00:04:16.126 --> 00:04:18.099 that you see before you, Homs, 00:04:18.099 --> 00:04:20.909 a once beautiful and historic city 00:04:20.909 --> 00:04:22.581 now under rubble. 00:04:22.581 --> 00:04:24.879 And so Amira can't go back there. 00:04:24.879 --> 00:04:29.477 But Amira also has no hope of resettlement to a third country, 00:04:29.477 --> 00:04:32.727 because that's a lottery ticket only available to less than one percent 00:04:32.727 --> 00:04:35.026 of the world's refugees. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:35.026 --> 00:04:37.046 So Amira and her family 00:04:37.046 --> 00:04:39.507 face an almost impossible choice. 00:04:39.507 --> 00:04:42.522 They have three basic options. 00:04:42.522 --> 00:04:48.002 The first option is that Amira can take her family to a camp. 00:04:48.002 --> 00:04:51.020 In the camp, she might get assistance, 00:04:51.020 --> 00:04:55.107 but there are very few prospects for Amira and her family. 00:04:55.107 --> 00:04:58.241 Camps are in bleak, arid locations, 00:04:58.241 --> 00:05:00.076 often in the desert. 00:05:00.076 --> 00:05:02.746 In the Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan, 00:05:02.746 --> 00:05:08.179 you can hear the shells across the border in Syria at nighttime. 00:05:08.179 --> 00:05:11.360 There's restricted economic activity. 00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:13.775 Education is often of poor quality. 00:05:13.775 --> 00:05:15.516 And around the world, 00:05:15.516 --> 00:05:18.581 some 80 percent of refugees who are in camps 00:05:18.581 --> 00:05:21.228 have to stay for at least five years. 00:05:21.228 --> 00:05:23.155 It's a miserable existence, 00:05:23.155 --> 00:05:25.454 and that's probably why, in reality, 00:05:25.454 --> 00:05:29.169 only nine percent of Syrians choose that option. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:29.169 --> 00:05:33.302 Alternatively, Amira can head to an urban area 00:05:33.302 --> 00:05:36.692 in a neighboring country, like Amman or Beirut. 00:05:36.692 --> 00:05:41.847 That's an option that about 75 percent of Syrian refugees have taken. 00:05:41.847 --> 00:05:45.771 But there, there's great difficulty as well. 00:05:45.771 --> 00:05:50.252 Refugees in such urban areas don't usually have the right to work. 00:05:50.252 --> 00:05:53.503 They don't usually get significant access to assistance, 00:05:53.503 --> 00:05:57.334 and so when Amira and her family have used up their basic savings, 00:05:57.334 --> 00:06:01.629 they're left with very little and likely to face urban destitution. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:01.629 --> 00:06:04.601 So there's a third alternative, 00:06:04.601 --> 00:06:09.826 and it's one that increasing numbers of Syrians are taking. 00:06:09.826 --> 00:06:14.111 Amira can seek some hope for her family 00:06:14.111 --> 00:06:18.011 by risking their lives on a dangerous and perilous journey 00:06:18.011 --> 00:06:19.521 to another country, 00:06:19.521 --> 00:06:23.607 and it's that which we're seeing in Europe today. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:23.607 --> 00:06:28.878 Around the world, we present refugees with an almost impossible choice 00:06:28.878 --> 00:06:30.712 between three options: 00:06:30.712 --> 00:06:35.449 encampment, urban destitution, and dangerous journeys. 00:06:35.449 --> 00:06:40.743 For refugees, that choice is the global refugee regime today. 00:06:40.743 --> 00:06:42.949 But I think it's a false choice. 00:06:42.949 --> 00:06:45.410 I think we can reconsider that choice. 00:06:45.410 --> 00:06:49.032 The reason why we limit those options 00:06:49.032 --> 00:06:52.631 is because we think 00:06:52.631 --> 00:06:55.626 that those are the only options 00:06:55.626 --> 00:06:59.016 that are available to refugees, and they're not. 00:06:59.016 --> 00:07:02.824 Politicians frame the issue as a zero-sum issue, 00:07:02.824 --> 00:07:06.864 that if we benefit refugees, we're imposing costs on citizens. 00:07:06.864 --> 00:07:08.815 We tend to have a collective assumption 00:07:08.815 --> 00:07:12.333 that refugees are an inevitable cost or burden to society. 00:07:12.333 --> 00:07:15.072 But they don't have to. They can contribute. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:15.072 --> 00:07:17.557 So what I want to argue is are there are ways 00:07:17.557 --> 00:07:19.414 in which we can expand that choice set 00:07:19.414 --> 00:07:21.779 and still benefit everyone else: 00:07:21.779 --> 00:07:23.497 the host states and communities, 00:07:23.497 --> 00:07:27.351 our societies, and refugees themselves. 00:07:27.351 --> 00:07:29.139 And I want to suggest four ways 00:07:29.139 --> 00:07:33.234 we can transform the paradigm of how we think about refugees. 00:07:33.234 --> 00:07:36.578 All four ways have one thing in common: 00:07:36.578 --> 00:07:40.270 they're all ways in which we take the opportunities of globalization, 00:07:40.270 --> 00:07:42.290 mobility, and markets, 00:07:42.290 --> 00:07:46.562 and update the way we think about the refugee issue. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:46.562 --> 00:07:48.002 The first one I want to think about 00:07:48.002 --> 00:07:50.486 is the idea of enabling environments, 00:07:50.486 --> 00:07:53.574 and it starts from a very basic recognition 00:07:53.574 --> 00:07:56.500 that refugees are human beings like everyone else, 00:07:56.500 --> 00:07:59.472 but they're just in extraordinary circumstances. 00:07:59.472 --> 00:08:01.515 Together with my colleagues in Oxford, 00:08:01.515 --> 00:08:04.000 we've embarked on a research project in Uganda 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:07.924 looking at the economic lives of refugees. 00:08:07.924 --> 00:08:12.103 We chose Uganda not because it's representative of all host countries. 00:08:12.103 --> 00:08:14.169 It's not. It's exceptional. 00:08:14.169 --> 00:08:16.491 Unlike most host countries around the world, 00:08:16.491 --> 00:08:17.977 what Uganda has done 00:08:17.977 --> 00:08:20.415 is give refugees economic opportunity. 00:08:20.415 --> 00:08:23.945 It gives them the right to work. It gives them freedom of movement. 00:08:23.945 --> 00:08:27.358 And the results of that are extraordinary 00:08:27.358 --> 00:08:30.585 both for refugees and the host community. 00:08:30.585 --> 00:08:32.582 In the capital city Kampala, 00:08:32.582 --> 00:08:37.876 we found that 21 percent of refugees own a business that employs other people, 00:08:37.876 --> 00:08:40.500 and 40 percent of those employees 00:08:40.500 --> 00:08:42.473 are nationals of the host country. 00:08:42.473 --> 00:08:44.702 In other words, refugees are making jobs 00:08:44.702 --> 00:08:48.000 for citizens of the host country. 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:51.297 Even in the camps, we found extraordinary examples 00:08:51.297 --> 00:08:55.290 of vibrant, flourishing, and entrepreneurial businesses. 00:08:55.290 --> 00:08:59.029 For example, in a settlement called Nakivale, 00:08:59.029 --> 00:09:02.237 we found examples of Congolese refugees 00:09:02.237 --> 00:09:04.815 running digital music exchange businesses. 00:09:04.815 --> 00:09:08.298 We found a Rwandan who runs a business that's available 00:09:08.298 --> 00:09:11.362 to allow the youth to play computer games 00:09:11.362 --> 00:09:15.348 on recycled game consoles and recycled televisions. 00:09:16.439 --> 00:09:19.388 Against the odds of extreme constraint, 00:09:19.388 --> 00:09:21.153 refugees are innovating, 00:09:21.153 --> 00:09:25.216 and the gentlemen you see before you is a Congolese guy called Demuke. 00:09:25.216 --> 00:09:28.768 Demuke arrived in the settlement with very little, 00:09:28.768 --> 00:09:30.998 but he wanted to be a filmmaker, 00:09:30.998 --> 00:09:35.316 so with friends and colleagues, he started a community radio station, 00:09:35.316 --> 00:09:37.034 he rented a video camera, 00:09:37.034 --> 00:09:38.660 and he's now making films. 00:09:38.660 --> 00:09:40.560 He made two documentary films 00:09:40.560 --> 00:09:42.650 with and for our team, 00:09:42.650 --> 00:09:46.760 and he's making a successful business out of very little. 00:09:46.760 --> 00:09:49.059 It's those kinds of examples 00:09:49.059 --> 00:09:51.589 that should guide our response to refugees. 00:09:51.589 --> 00:09:54.097 Rather than seeing refugees as inevitably dependent 00:09:54.097 --> 00:09:56.280 upon humanitarian assistance, 00:09:56.280 --> 00:10:00.064 we need to provide them with opportunities for human flourishing. 00:10:00.064 --> 00:10:07.239 Yes, clothes, blankets, shelter, food are all important in the emergency phase, 00:10:07.239 --> 00:10:10.443 but we need to also look beyond that. 00:10:10.443 --> 00:10:14.623 We need to provide opportunities to connectivity, electricity, 00:10:14.623 --> 00:10:16.968 education, the right to work, 00:10:16.968 --> 00:10:19.359 access to capital and banking. 00:10:19.359 --> 00:10:22.633 All the ways in which we take for granted that we are plugged in 00:10:22.633 --> 00:10:24.073 to the global economy 00:10:24.073 --> 00:10:27.556 can and should apply to refugees. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:27.556 --> 00:10:31.224 The second idea I want to discuss is economic zones. 00:10:31.224 --> 00:10:34.011 Unfortunately, not every host country in the world 00:10:34.011 --> 00:10:36.681 takes the approach Uganda has taken. 00:10:36.681 --> 00:10:41.487 Most host countries don't open up their economies to refugees in the same way. 00:10:41.487 --> 00:10:46.526 But there are still pragmatic alternative options that we can use. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:46.526 --> 00:10:50.171 Last April, I traveled to Jordan with my colleague, 00:10:50.171 --> 00:10:52.655 the development economist Paul Collier, 00:10:52.655 --> 00:10:55.511 and we brainstormed an idea while we were there 00:10:55.511 --> 00:10:57.764 with the international community and the government, 00:10:57.764 --> 00:11:00.109 an idea to bring jobs to Syrians 00:11:00.109 --> 00:11:03.986 while supporting Jordan's national development strategy. 00:11:03.986 --> 00:11:07.260 The idea is for an economic zone, 00:11:07.260 --> 00:11:10.743 one in which we could potentially integrate the employment of refugees 00:11:10.743 --> 00:11:14.806 alongside the employment of Jordanian host nationals. 00:11:14.806 --> 00:11:18.452 And just 15 minutes away from the Zaatari Refugee Camp, 00:11:18.452 --> 00:11:20.518 home to 83,000 refugees, 00:11:20.518 --> 00:11:22.515 is an existing economic zone 00:11:22.515 --> 00:11:26.044 called the King Hussein Bin Talal Development Area. 00:11:26.044 --> 00:11:28.854 The government has spent over a hundred million dollars 00:11:28.854 --> 00:11:32.662 connecting it to the electricity grid, connecting it to the road network, 00:11:32.662 --> 00:11:34.357 but it lacked two things: 00:11:34.357 --> 00:11:37.166 access to labor and inward investment. 00:11:37.166 --> 00:11:40.022 So what if refugees were able to work there 00:11:40.022 --> 00:11:41.787 rather than being stuck in camps, 00:11:41.787 --> 00:11:45.897 able to support their families and develop skills through vocational training 00:11:45.897 --> 00:11:48.056 before they go back to Syria? 00:11:48.056 --> 00:11:50.076 We recognized that that could benefit Jordan, 00:11:50.076 --> 00:11:53.048 whose development strategy requires it to make the leap 00:11:53.048 --> 00:11:55.834 as a middle income country to manufacturing. 00:11:55.834 --> 00:11:59.665 It could benefit refugees, but it could also contribute 00:11:59.665 --> 00:12:01.987 to the post-conflict reconstruction of Syria 00:12:01.987 --> 00:12:04.797 by recognizing that we need to incubate refugees 00:12:04.797 --> 00:12:08.999 as the best source of eventually rebuilding Syria. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:08.999 --> 00:12:11.832 We published the idea in the journal Foreign Affairs. 00:12:11.832 --> 00:12:14.084 King Abdullah has picked up on the idea. 00:12:14.084 --> 00:12:17.242 It was announced at the London Syria conference two weeks ago, 00:12:17.242 --> 00:12:20.214 and a pilot will begin in the summer. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:20.214 --> 00:12:24.092 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:12:25.369 --> 00:12:27.969 The third idea that I want to put to you 00:12:27.969 --> 00:12:31.684 is preference matching between states and refugees 00:12:31.684 --> 00:12:34.726 to lead to the kinds of happy outcomes you see here in the selfie 00:12:34.726 --> 00:12:38.581 featuring Angela Merkel and a Syrian refugee. 00:12:38.581 --> 00:12:43.248 What we rarely do is ask refugees what they want, where they want to go, 00:12:43.248 --> 00:12:45.175 but I'd argue we can do that 00:12:45.175 --> 00:12:47.450 and still make everyone better off. 00:12:47.450 --> 00:12:51.421 The economist Alvin Roth has developed the idea of matching markets, 00:12:51.421 --> 00:12:57.597 ways in which the preference ranking of the parties shapes an eventual match. 00:12:57.597 --> 00:13:00.894 My colleagues Will Jones and Alex Teytelboym 00:13:00.894 --> 00:13:05.120 have explored ways in which that idea could be applied to refugees, 00:13:05.120 --> 00:13:08.719 to ask refugees to rank their preferred destinations, 00:13:08.719 --> 00:13:12.480 but also allow states to rank the types of refugees they want 00:13:12.480 --> 00:13:15.243 on skills criteria or language criteria 00:13:15.243 --> 00:13:17.054 and allow those to match. 00:13:17.054 --> 00:13:20.769 Now, of course you'd need to build in quotas on things like diversity 00:13:20.769 --> 00:13:22.302 and vulnerability, 00:13:22.302 --> 00:13:25.669 but it's a way of increasing the possibilities of matching. 00:13:25.669 --> 00:13:28.223 The matching idea has been successfully used 00:13:28.223 --> 00:13:33.656 to match, for instance, students with university places, 00:13:33.656 --> 00:13:36.187 to match kidney donors with patients, 00:13:36.187 --> 00:13:40.366 and it underlines the kind of algorithms that exist on dating websites. 00:13:40.366 --> 00:13:43.454 So why not apply that to give refugees greater choice? NOTE Paragraph 00:13:43.454 --> 00:13:45.382 It could also be used at the national level, 00:13:45.382 --> 00:13:47.355 where one of the great challenges we face 00:13:47.355 --> 00:13:51.233 is to persuade local communities to accept refugees. 00:13:51.233 --> 00:13:53.717 And at the moment, in my country, for instance, 00:13:53.717 --> 00:13:57.920 we often send engineers to rural areas and farmers to the cities, 00:13:57.920 --> 00:13:59.963 which makes no sense at all. 00:13:59.963 --> 00:14:04.375 So matching markets offer a potential way to bring those preferences together 00:14:04.375 --> 00:14:08.252 and listen to the needs and demands of the populations that host 00:14:08.252 --> 00:14:11.062 and the refugees themselves. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:11.062 --> 00:14:15.172 The fourth idea I want to put to you is of humanitarian visas. 00:14:15.172 --> 00:14:18.027 Much of the tragedy and chaos we've seen in Europe 00:14:18.027 --> 00:14:20.233 was entirely avoidable. 00:14:20.233 --> 00:14:24.738 It stems from a fundamental contradiction in Europe's asylum policy, 00:14:24.738 --> 00:14:26.108 which is the following: 00:14:26.108 --> 00:14:27.687 that in order to seek asylum in Europe, 00:14:27.687 --> 00:14:33.491 you have to arrive spontaneously by embarking on those dangerous journeys 00:14:33.491 --> 00:14:35.326 that I described. 00:14:35.326 --> 00:14:40.109 But why should those journeys be necessary in an era of the budget airline 00:14:40.109 --> 00:14:42.849 and modern consular capabilities? 00:14:42.849 --> 00:14:45.054 They're completely unnecessary journeys, 00:14:45.054 --> 00:14:48.955 and last year, they led to the deaths of over 3,000 people 00:14:48.955 --> 00:14:53.367 on Europe's borders and within European territory. 00:14:53.367 --> 00:14:56.246 If refugees were simply allowed to travel directly 00:14:56.246 --> 00:14:59.241 and seek asylum in Europe, we would avoid that, 00:14:59.241 --> 00:15:00.867 and there's a way of doing that 00:15:00.867 --> 00:15:02.910 through something called a humanitarian visa, 00:15:02.910 --> 00:15:06.625 that allows people to collect a visa at an embassy 00:15:06.625 --> 00:15:08.761 or a consulate in a neighboring country 00:15:08.761 --> 00:15:10.572 and then simply pay their own way 00:15:10.572 --> 00:15:13.962 through a ferry or a flight to Europe. 00:15:13.962 --> 00:15:17.236 It costs around a thousand Euros to take a smuggler 00:15:17.236 --> 00:15:19.604 from Turkey to the Greek islands. 00:15:19.604 --> 00:15:25.084 It costs 200 Euros to take a budget airline from Bodrum to Frankfurt. 00:15:25.084 --> 00:15:28.799 If we allowed refugees to do that, it would have major advantages. 00:15:28.799 --> 00:15:30.355 It would save lives, 00:15:30.355 --> 00:15:34.604 it would undercut the entire market for smugglers, 00:15:34.604 --> 00:15:38.156 and it would remove the chaos we see from Europe's front line 00:15:38.156 --> 00:15:40.385 in areas like the Greek islands. 00:15:40.385 --> 00:15:45.052 It's politics that prevents us doing that rather than a rational solution. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:45.052 --> 00:15:47.142 And this is an idea that has been applied. 00:15:47.142 --> 00:15:51.763 Brazil has adopted a pioneering approach where over 2,000 Syrians 00:15:51.763 --> 00:15:54.177 have been able to get humanitarian visas, 00:15:54.177 --> 00:15:58.543 enter Brazil, and claim refugee status on arrival in Brazil, 00:15:58.543 --> 00:16:01.515 and in that scheme, every Syrian who has gone through it 00:16:01.515 --> 00:16:05.926 has received refugee status and been recognized as a genuine refugee. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:05.926 --> 00:16:08.736 There is a historical precedent for it as well. 00:16:08.736 --> 00:16:12.265 Between 1922 and 1942, 00:16:12.265 --> 00:16:16.143 these Nansen passports were used as travel documents 00:16:16.143 --> 00:16:21.645 to allow 450,000 Assyrians, Turks, and Chechens 00:16:21.645 --> 00:16:24.966 to travel across Europe and claim refugee status 00:16:24.966 --> 00:16:26.614 elsewhere in Europe, 00:16:26.614 --> 00:16:29.284 and the Nansen International Refugee Office 00:16:29.284 --> 00:16:31.165 received the Nobel Peace Prize 00:16:31.165 --> 00:16:34.811 in recognition of this being a viable strategy. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:34.811 --> 00:16:38.340 So all four of these ideas that I've presented you 00:16:38.340 --> 00:16:42.032 are ways in which we can expand Amira's choice set. 00:16:42.032 --> 00:16:45.143 They're ways in which we can have greater choice for refugees 00:16:45.143 --> 00:16:49.137 beyond those basic impossible three options 00:16:49.137 --> 00:16:50.507 I explained to you, 00:16:50.507 --> 00:16:51.459 and still leave others better off. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:51.459 --> 00:16:56.288 In conclusion, we really need a new vision, 00:16:56.288 --> 00:16:59.191 a vision that enlarges the choices of refugees 00:16:59.191 --> 00:17:01.861 but recognizes that they don't have to be a burden. 00:17:01.861 --> 00:17:05.367 There's nothing inevitable about refugees being a cost. 00:17:05.367 --> 00:17:08.664 Yes, they are a humanitarian responsibility, 00:17:08.664 --> 00:17:12.124 but they're human beings with skills, talents, aspirations, 00:17:12.124 --> 00:17:15.258 with the ability to make contributions if we let them. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:15.258 --> 00:17:18.369 In the new world, 00:17:18.369 --> 00:17:20.761 migration is not going to go away. 00:17:20.761 --> 00:17:23.826 What we've seen in Europe will be with us for many years. 00:17:23.826 --> 00:17:25.521 People will continue to travel, 00:17:25.521 --> 00:17:27.378 they'll continue to be displaced, 00:17:27.378 --> 00:17:30.884 and we need to find rational, realistic ways of managing this, 00:17:30.884 --> 00:17:33.903 not based on the old logics of humanitarian assistance, 00:17:33.903 --> 00:17:35.969 not based on logics of charity, 00:17:35.969 --> 00:17:38.872 but building on the opportunities offered by globalization, 00:17:38.872 --> 00:17:41.194 markets, and mobility. 00:17:41.194 --> 00:17:44.491 I'd urge you all to wake up and urge our politicians 00:17:44.491 --> 00:17:46.581 to wake up to this challenge. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:46.581 --> 00:17:48.577 Thank you very much. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:48.577 --> 00:17:52.617 (Applause)