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I personally have never understood the logical difference between a political refugee and an economic one. It is OK to claim asylum because you have odious poli

I personally have never understood the logical difference between a political refugee and an economic one. It is OK to claim asylum because you have odious political views, but not because you children are starving.

maxerickson 11y ago
It doesn't explain why they defined it so, but modern usage can at least be coming from the definition given in the Geneva Convention, which doesn't mention poverty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_relating_to_the_Status_of_Refugees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_relating_to_the_Sta... I guess in 1950 the lines between rich and poor countries were even starker, with the rich ones not really having the capability to deal with all the poor that would want to claim economic asylum.
tyingq 11y ago
It may just be that asylum for purely economic reasons doesn't scale in a way that would solve the problem. This video does a good job of showing that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE
- danieltillett 11y ago
  Given the number of political and ethnic refugees it would appear that asylum doesn't scale for these categories either.
  - tyingq 11y ago
    Well, 3 billion+ desperately poor (< $2 day) vs ~50 million refugees is a still a slightly different scale :)
lottin 11y ago
A person who's starving doesn't need asylum, they need humanitarian aid. On the other hand, a person who's a victim of persecution needs protection. Therefore they have completely different needs and for that reason it makes a lot of sense to deal with these two problems separately.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  Since it is in practice impossible to separate the two it doesn’t make much sense. Basically anyone from a country with an internal conflict or a less than ideal government (this covers most of the world) can become a refuge by claiming they have been persecuted. Even those from countries that don’t meet these very common criteria can still claim to be refugees by destroying their documentation and claiming to be from a conflict zone. Since you don’t need to provide any evidence other than your own word [1], all having two separate categories does is screen out the people who are too stupid (or honest) to make up a plausible story of persecution. 1. http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/3ae6b3338.pdf http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/3ae6b3338.pdf
bjourne 11y ago
Very few people starve today. In many third-world countries obesity is a larger health problem than starvation. It may change if global warming gets worse and destroys farmland. But right now, world hunger is decreasing rapidly.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  There are still around a billion people who don’t have enough to eat and many more who are only a poor harvest away from starving.
  - bjourne 11y ago
    But we talked about starvation, not malnutrition.
    - DanBC 11y ago
      > Poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five - 3.1 million children each year https://www.wfp.org/hunger/faqs https://www.wfp.org/hunger/faqs Plenty of people starve to death. Plenty of people are still hungry. Hunger is increasing.
      - bjourne 11y ago
        http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/16/world-hunger-decreasing-_n_5829026.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/16/world-hunger-decrea... http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/288229/icode/ http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/288229/icode/ http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/10/global-hunger-decreases-but-unevenly-2013102115951845647.html http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/10/global-hun...

maxerickson 11y ago

It doesn't explain why they defined it so, but modern usage can at least be coming from the definition given in the Geneva Convention, which doesn't mention poverty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_relating_to_the_Status_of_Refugees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_relating_to_the_Sta... I guess in 1950 the lines between rich and poor countries were even starker, with the rich ones not really having the capability to deal with all the poor that would want to claim economic asylum.

tyingq 11y ago

It may just be that asylum for purely economic reasons doesn't scale in a way that would solve the problem. This video does a good job of showing that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE

danieltillett 11y ago
Given the number of political and ethnic refugees it would appear that asylum doesn't scale for these categories either.
- tyingq 11y ago
  Well, 3 billion+ desperately poor (< $2 day) vs ~50 million refugees is a still a slightly different scale :)

lottin 11y ago

A person who's starving doesn't need asylum, they need humanitarian aid. On the other hand, a person who's a victim of persecution needs protection. Therefore they have completely different needs and for that reason it makes a lot of sense to deal with these two problems separately.

danieltillett 11y ago
Since it is in practice impossible to separate the two it doesn’t make much sense. Basically anyone from a country with an internal conflict or a less than ideal government (this covers most of the world) can become a refuge by claiming they have been persecuted. Even those from countries that don’t meet these very common criteria can still claim to be refugees by destroying their documentation and claiming to be from a conflict zone. Since you don’t need to provide any evidence other than your own word [1], all having two separate categories does is screen out the people who are too stupid (or honest) to make up a plausible story of persecution. 1. http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/3ae6b3338.pdf http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/3ae6b3338.pdf

bjourne 11y ago

Very few people starve today. In many third-world countries obesity is a larger health problem than starvation. It may change if global warming gets worse and destroys farmland. But right now, world hunger is decreasing rapidly.

danieltillett 11y ago
There are still around a billion people who don’t have enough to eat and many more who are only a poor harvest away from starving.
- bjourne 11y ago
  But we talked about starvation, not malnutrition.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    > Poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five - 3.1 million children each year https://www.wfp.org/hunger/faqs https://www.wfp.org/hunger/faqs Plenty of people starve to death. Plenty of people are still hungry. Hunger is increasing.
    - bjourne 11y ago
      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/16/world-hunger-decreasing-_n_5829026.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/16/world-hunger-decrea... http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/288229/icode/ http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/288229/icode/ http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/10/global-hunger-decreases-but-unevenly-2013102115951845647.html http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/10/global-hun...