Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and honourable members. I'm very pleased to be here today for an important topic for my organization, the UN refugee agency, which is the global compact on refugees.
I had the pleasure to be here not so long ago when I gave an overview of the situation of refugees globally. The compact really tries to change the way we do business when we respond to those mass influxes of refugees, mainly in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and perhaps now in Latin America. Let me remind everyone that 60% of the refugees are hosted in just 10 countries. Turkey, Pakistan and Uganda are on the front line with six million refugees altogether.
The compact is really to see how we can use the good practices and lessons learned of more than 60 years of humanitarian and protection response to help those countries shoulder the weight of receiving, hosting, protecting and assisting those refugees.
We shared with the committee a brief last week that I'm sure is in front of everyone, so I will not go back to the explanation of what the compact is and how the compact is going to change the way we do our responses with our partners, but rather address directly issues that have been raised during the debate on those issues by this committee over the last three or four sessions.
Canada's obligation with respect to refugees derives from the 1951 convention, most of which is international customary law anyway, so whether Canada was party or not to the convention, all member states of the United Nations are bound by certain rules, certain obligations in terms of protecting refugees—in particular, the obligation not to return someone to a country where he or she may be at risk of torture or at risk for his or her life.
The obligation of Canada derives also from the UN charter, which calls upon member states to co-operate with one another in solving issues that affect peace and security, in development, but also in humanitarian response. It's in this respect that we have to put the context of the global compact on migration when it calls for responsibility-sharing with those front-line countries that I mentioned. Those front-line countries will rather qualify as burden-sharing because they feel the weight of receiving and having to deliver services for all those refugees.
Obligations exist for Canada, like any other member state, under international instruments such as the 1951 convention or the UN charter.
With respect to the issue of internally displaced persons, IDPs, those persons are governed by human rights instruments and international humanitarian law when they are in a conflict situation. You know that this year we are celebrating the twentieth year of the guiding principles on international displacement, which combine all the rules and rights and obligations of states vis-à-vis those persons who are displaced within their own country. Those are not included in the global compact on refugees because there was a decision by member states at this time of the discussion to focus on the situation of refugees.
In terms of obligations of Canada or any other of the 35 countries that have resettlement programs in terms of the commitment to resettlement and offering durable solutions, this remains a sovereign decision of any of those 35 countries, including Canada. However, the criteria by which the UNHCR in particular, with the support of NGOs and UN partners, identifies the most vulnerable for resettlement have been agreed upon by those 35 countries, including Canada, and those are the global resettlement criteria.
It's not because we are calling upon other actors such as the World Bank, the regional development banks, to come to the fore of the response as well as the private sector, faith-based organizations, cities, that we will not need significant funding for our operation. Again, it's a sovereign decision of Canada and other countries to decide the level of funding that they will dedicate to our response globally.
Let me mention that 87% of our budget is drawn from voluntary contributions from states, and 60% of our budget comes from three countries: the United States of America, Germany and—not a country—the European Union.
Finally, I want to clarify before the committee the situation vis-à-vis the U.S. and its position vis-à-vis the global compact on refugees.
At the Third Committee a few weeks ago, the U.S. delegation expressed full support for most of what is included in the global compact on refugees. It reaffirmed the commitment of the United States to the objective of the compact. It actually asked other countries—I would imagine that this included Canada—to help in supporting financially and through durable solutions those front-line countries that are addressed in the global compact on refugees, and to increase the space for resettlement because, as you know, the U.S. is number one in terms of free settlement space, as well as in financial contribution to the response to the refugee crisis. It also expressed strong support to UNHCR, but had some reservations, for example, on the issue of detention of asylum seekers, which is not any more an issue in Canada since Minister Goodale enacted the alternative to detention as part of the immigration-related processes.
The participation of Canada in holding those discussions has been really at the forefront through representation in Geneva, but also very much through consultation from the NGOs. I know that you received in front of this committee a number of NGOs that were able to testify to their having been fully consulted on the way that, collectively, we can see how to do better in helping those front-line countries in sub-Saharan Africa, in the Middle East, in Asia and, these days, in Central America to help them address the protection needs and the services that those refugees require.
Thank you very much.