Refugee Camps as a European phenomenon

by Isabella Leroy

Source: Photo by Julie Ricard 

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), it is estimated that in 2017, 31% of refugees in the world live in camps. Despite this, refugee camps have thus far resisted definitions in international law and few governments define them in national legislation. This results in a somewhat polymorphous umbrella concept. 

While refugee camps can be said to find their origin in post-war Europe, today, this terminology generally brings up images of the myriad of tents located in Africa or Asia, and generally tends to be ascribed to the camps managed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In the European context, one generally conjures up images of the “jungle” of Calais or the network of Greek islands such as Lesvos. But these are only the tip of the iceberg. Camps are more than humanitarian tents packed closely together, they are highly diverse in nature, function and effect, and may describe a variety of sites. In Europe, it seems that they also take on a wide variety of different names, as Member States find ever-more creative ways to name reception centres. Thus we have accommodation centres, immigration removal centres, detention centres, waiting zones, makeshift camps, emergency transit centres… In general, the Global North is said to have “accommodation centres” or “asylum centres” while refugee camps are named as such in the Global South, despite the trend towards encampment in Europe, and the “campization” of such “accommodation centres”. As early as 2000, it had been noted that:

“(…) [E]ven though camps are often seen as a third-world phenomenon, increasing use of detention centres in the West seems to reintroduce ‘camp-based’ answers to refugee issues here too.”

The porosity of the concept of the camp is not lost on EUropean leaders. In 2014, following the creation of the Jules-Ferry centre in Calais, the mayor Natacha Bouchart announced her wish to extend the services to also include an overnight shelter, declaring: “Maybe one day, we will have an overnight shelter, based on the model of the refugee camps in Darfur. If poor countries can do it, why wouldn’t we be capable of doing so?” (pp 147-48, my translation).

Deliberate etymological confusion

Further, refugees will often encounter different types of camps along their migratory route. Let us imagine an asylum-seeker from the Ivory Coast arriving on the EU shores of Lampedusa (Italy). She may first be transferred to one of the “hotspots” of the European island, a semi-closed centre with precarious living conditions. She may then successfully cross the border into France and reach one of the many informal camps in the North of Paris before being forcefully evacuated by the French police forces and placed into an accommodation centre. After the national authorities realise that she had applied for asylum in Italy, she may be transferred to the closed detention centre in Bari, which despite not being part of the penitentiary system, resembles it in many ways. Over the course of a migratory journey, an asylum-seeker may encounter different forms that the “global archipelago of encampment” can take in the EU.

Some authors have argued that States purposefully refuse to name such places “camps” and prefer euphemisms to avoid links to the negative connotations associated therewith. Even within social studies and NGOs, the initial use of the word “camp” in certain countries to refer to European sites where asylum-seekers lived was contentious as it was still historically associated with the concentration and extermination camps of the Second World War. Applying the notion of encampment to people seeking refuge in Europe therefore serves to highlight the poor living conditions and barriers to rights experienced by asylum-seekers, the increasing variability of confinement for non-nationals in Europe, and the common threads that tie these structures together. It is also important to highlight the degradation of living conditions of people living in state-financed accommodation in Europe, and to avoid perpetuating a somewhat arbitrary distinction between “refugee camps” and “accommodation centres”.

Towards an analytical definition of the refugee camp

That is not to say that all camps are equivalent. The degree of enjoyment of the freedom of movement or right to respect for a home (Article 8 ECHR) will necessarily vary between such places. They may also host different categories of migrants (asylum-seekers, refugees, rejected refugees, irregular migrants, “unremovables”, etc) and can embody different realities such as institutional camps (run first and foremost by the UNHCR); state-run or state-financed centres (where the management of the camp is ensured by the state); and spontaneous or informal camps that crop up along migratory routes.

Nevertheless, it is specifically along this axis (the nature of the camp and the rights contained herein), rather than its location or outward appearance, that the term should apply (or not). It is particularly note-worthy that the UNHCR defines refugee camps as:

“any purpose built, planned and managed location where refugees are accommodated and receive assistance from government and humanitarian agencies. […] the definition of the camp applies not only to planned and managed camps, but also to informal and self-settled camps, transit sites, collective centres, evacuation centres or reception centres.” 

It could be argued that detention centres should also be included in such an approach, and that states will not necessarily effectively provide assistance. In any case, such a definition highlights that camps are not the prerogative of the Global South, and terminology should reflect this. Thus, in much the same way that we should name people displaced by natural disasters in the Global North as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) rather than reserving the label for the Global South, we should also reconsider our use of the word “camp”.

Bio: 

Isabella Leroy is a first-year PhD student with the Amsterdam Centre for Migration Law at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research focuses on the legal framework of refugee camps in the EU. Through empirical legal studies, it examines to what extent the laws that apply in refugee camps can be qualified as exceptional from a legal perspective. She has previous experience working in migration and refugee advocacy, both in case work and strategic litigation.