THE UN REFUGEE PACT

THE UN REFUGEE PACT
MORE SOLIDARITY IN REFUGEE PROTECTION MUST BE POSSIBLE

Greeting:
Georg Lennkh, Member of the Board of the Kreisky Forum

Keynote:
Volker Türk, Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees and Protection, UNHCR

Follow-up conversation with
Christian Ultsch, Head of Foreign Policy DIE PRESSE

In many industrialised nations, border protection and isolation are very popular today. At the same time, the majority (85%) of all refugees worldwide are still being taken in by poorer or lower-income countries.
The Global Compact for Refugees adopted in 2018 should lead to a rethink on refugee protection.
The Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees, Volker Türk, played a leading role in negotiating the UN refugee pact on behalf of the UNHCR. In an interview with Press Foreign Policy Director Christian Ultsch, he answers whether and, above all, how international solidarity in refugee protection can succeed in practice.

Dr Volker Türk holds a doctorate in international law from the University of Vienna. He was a research assistant at the Institute for International Law at the University of Linz and at the Institute for Criminal Law at the University of Linz. He has numerous publications on international refugee law and human rights. As Deputy UN High Commissioner for Refugees, he is Austria's highest UN official.