There are two elements of that question that I think are fundamentally important: one is the question of how you encourage co-operation in the absence of an obligation to co-operate; then, second, how do you ensure the functioning of a regime where the hegemon of that regime is clearly withdrawing from that regime?
Let me take those two in turn.
One, on the question of how you ensure co-operation in the absence of binding obligations, the argument would be incentives. You find those situations in which existing assets and the bringing in of new partners can leverage change, and you make those success stories.
What you saw in Uganda, in terms of the investment in allowing refugees to contribute to the local economy and that being seen as an economic contribution to Uganda, got Ethiopia thinking about the potential utility of attracting concessional loans from the World Bank to open up a special economic zone so that 800,000 refugees were no longer in camps but working in special economic zones. That has now had an impact on Kenya, etc.
This global climate is not one in which we're going to have new treaty obligations that bind states to new commitments. When António Guterres was the high commissioner for refugees, now the UN Secretary General, he mused, in his last time with the executive committee of the UNHCR, about how it would be great if there were an additional protocol to the 1951 convention that made international co-operation a binding obligation. That's not something we're going to realize.
However, I think an opportunity that's before us with multilateral development banks, with the World Bank, with national and regional economic actors now seeing the economic opportunities that derive from engaging with refugees as a driver of local and national development, creates opportunities to create new incentives. I think that's the pathway to ensuring co-operation, because it doesn't appeal exclusively to humanitarian principles; it appeals to the interests of states. I think this is how we can generate momentum to be able to see co-operation without a binding obligation to co-operate.
How do you do that in the context of the absence of the United States? Here I'd speak to the global compact on refugees.
The United States has formally withdrawn from the global compact on migration. We've also seen, within the last two weeks, the United States expressing a reluctance to be part of a consensus omnibus resolution to the UN General Assembly that endorses the global compact on refugees. We're not entirely sure how that's going to play itself out. It's happening right now in New York.
It's very clear that the United States has already indicated its intention to reduce its engagement in the global refugee regime, specifically in the context of the numbers of refugees that it resettles. It's going somewhere from the area of 90,000 to 100,000 a year down to 20,000 to 30,000 a year. There's an immediate question of numbers when it comes to refugee resettlement: How do you make up the shortfall?
I think more critical is funding to UNHCR. The United States, as a matter of policy, contributed 38% of funding to UNHCR, and it's mused about cutting that support in half.
More important is the question of political leadership. It can't fall on countries like Canada to make up that gap in immediate monetary or numbers terms. I think what it does is create opportunities for new forms of leadership.
The United States has been the hegemon within the refugee regime. It has determined outcomes. As a matter of principle, the deputy high commissioner has always been an American. It may be that this is an opportunity where that impact, this level of influence, of the United States within the refugee regime, which has been so significant for more than 50 years, changes. It may result in a very different refugee regime, possibly a more nimble regime, but I think there are opportunities in terms of other actors who are willing to play a leadership role.
The critical point I would make is that it doesn't necessarily mean significant new resources; it involves thinking creatively about the application of the assets that we currently have in play.