International Protection of Refugees and the UN Global Compacts A Case Study of Governance and Non-State Actors in Greece

Abstract

The research of this thesis is guided by a curiosity to understand the soft law non-binding framework of the 2018 UN Global Compacts on Refugees and for Migration, and its significance for the international protection of refugees in a South-eastern European border zone. This thesis explores the challenges of international protection of refugees in relation to the UN Global Compacts, through a qualitative case study. The relationship between multilevel governance and refugees and migrants’ rights is of central concern. Main research question: How has the global norms manifested in the UN Global Compacts (and regional European policies) influenced Greece, to make right-based changes for refugees and migrants and allowed non-governmental actors to advocate refugees and migrants’ rights? The number of irregular migrants that crossed the Greek borders in 2020 and 2021 was just a bit more than 20 000 people each year respectively. The significant low numbers made central Greek politicians declare the ‘migration crisis’ as over, and that the focus now should instead be on prevent a new crisis from happening. However, there are major concerns, first and foremost related to pushback operations. There are also major concerns with access to asylum applications and shrinking space for NGOs with criminalisation of humanitarian actors and other who do search and rescue operations