Juliana Cici

Today we are living in a world that is headed towards insecurity and new challenges, unknown and unthought-of before and one of the grave challenges that threatens our peoples and our planet today, is migration.

This has become a sensitive issue, specifically throughout the recent years, because of the great movements of people from conflict areas in Northern Africa and in the Middle East, that have taken a very dangerous trip into Europe and North America in order to find safe shelter and the possibility to work for a decent life, a prospect that has been completely stripped away in their home countries.

The current challenges that face in regards to this matter should be pointed out in two main categories: (i) First and foremost, not one person would like to abandon his home, his country, his relatives and everything that he owns, willingly, if he isn’t absolutely obliged by the circumstances of the country of origin; (ii) Secondly, migration is not by any metric or in any sense, a new phenomenon. It has taken place massively since the beginning of humankind and it has continued until our days. Large populations were displaced throughout the XVII and XIX centuries, which are considered historically as the eras that nationalism had a great importance.

Additionally, it was not until after WWI that people were required to have a passport to travel from one country to another. So, by no means having hard borders and extreme control of them has ever been the historic norm, but mostly it has become a modern trend, largely due to the great inequality of wealth and opportunities between the developed countries of the north and those underdeveloped of the global south.

Almost every study committed on the issue of migrations, comes to the conclusion that migrants are a healthy contributor to the economy, their labour and social contribution is in itself vital for the continuing of the economic growth of developed countries, which for a number of reasons, find themselves lacking human resources to support the needs of their economy.

A global phenomenon with global proportions could not be countered by the will and the struggle of solely one or a few segments of the world, such as is migration an issue that has taken international proportions, and for this reason, it requires international framework and coordination to be dealt with. A step towards this goal, namely the creation of international political and legal framework for migration was “The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration”, drafted by intergovernmental experts under the scope of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees. Although all 193 member states of the UN had formally agreed to the compact in July 2018, only 164 of them have signed the compact, which by the way, was not legally binding for the countries, but served mostly as a guide; again, a moral voice of the UN.

Most notably is the rejection of the pact by the United States of America and some of the members of the European Union, the largest among them being Austria. This rejection indicates that alongside the positive effects the progress of interconnection and globalization has created, is a great reactionary force that seeks not to find constructive solutions to complicated issues, but solely reject any initiative that seems to tackle global issues in a progressive manner. This seems rather worrying, judging from the fact that in the Mediterranean Sea, alone until the mid-July of last year, 34,361 lives were lost trying to cross from the shores of Northern Africa into the continent of Europe.

Many amongst the casualties were women and children and the death toll is still rising as we speak now. Surely and undoubtedly, some of them might not have qualified as refugees and probably would not have been granted with the permission to reside and live in Europe, but we will never know, because they never got the chance to file their requests; they were deprived of the greatest gift of all, life itself.

Precisely this kind of disorder that has led to so much tragedy was the tackling point of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regulated Migration: to give people the legal chance to present themselves to a potential host country without fearing for their lives and to even improve the situation in the receiving countries by creating an order and a legislative framework that would guide this issue. Currently, there are 25 million refugees in the world that have no legal protected status in the host countries and that face uncertainties beyond what we can perceive. This number is solely the ones that are recorded as to being genuinely displaced from their countries and eligible for the status of the refugee.

In light of this issue, an important role has plays humanitarian aid, into preserving and ensuring the survival of local communities in under developed countries that keep the situation of the refugee crisis from escalating further. Deepening aid and offering development programs for the countries that are in dire need of them, is the best solution to people fleeing their country, reminding that it is no one’s desire to flee their country if the conditions in his home allow him to live a full life and develop conditions for its survival.

Again, it is cooperation and openness to the world that facilitates change and solution of problems and not isolation and ignoring them.

Nothing can be challenged alone, and united we stand strong and determined.

Juliana holds a Master in European and International Governance and currently she is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Law from University of Geneva, for the research project on “Climate Change and Human Rights, including challenges for women’s and migration to the Africa Union.

She is working as an international consultant for different International Organizations, including the International Office for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva Switzerland and as well Juliana is a special rapporteur for the Sabin Centre for Climate Change Law with a focus on global climate litigation.

In September 2022, she is elected unanimously as the Secretary General for the University Women of Europe, a regional group of Graduate Women International (GWI).

In May 2022, Juliana was honoured with the prize “Climate Change Advocacy” by the Power House Global Award Summit 2022 in United Kingdom.