International experience in determining migrant/ refugee status
Authors: Kateryna Krut 
Published: June 2024

Problem setting. The article is devoted to the scientific study of the status of migrants/refugees based on the experience of historical events and international legislation of European countries. The Russian-Ukrainian war led to the largest mass migration of the Ukrainian population since the Second World War. The result was the emergence of a previously unknown phenomenon of multi-million forced migrants, internally displaced persons, asylum seekers, displaced persons and persons seeking additional or temporary protection. Since the article deals with refugees/migrants, we took into account the international experience of countries that directly deal with the legal regulation of various categories of migrants. Analysis of recent researches and publications. Scientific studies of migration law, namely the status of refugees and migrants, were devoted to the works of such foreign and domestic scholars as S. Castles, S. Timur, P. Stalker, R. O’Neill, S. Spencer, E. Tsakiri, O. Bespalov, S. Volkov, O. Kuzmenko, O. Malynovska, V. Novik, S. Pirozhkov, O. Piskun, I. Prybitkov, Y. Rymarenko, V. Troshchynsky, Y. Todyka, Y. Shemshuchenko, M. Shulga, S. Chekhovych and others. However, the ongoing process of development and transformation of human society creates new trends in migration movements, which, in turn, require legal study. The purpose of the research is to define the refugee/migrant status in international practice in order to clearly understand and distinguish between these two categories. After all, the dual connections of forced/voluntary and political/ economic, which underlie their distinction, are questionable. Article’s main body. It was found that refugees are indeed one of the categories of migrants. The overlap between these two categories in a global context is characterized by limited pathways for legal migration, limited long-term solutions for refugees, and punitive asylum-seeker policies. It should be noted that refugees have a special status, which is confirmed by the international regime of refugee protection, and set forth in the Convention and the Protocol on the Protection of Refugees. Insistence on the migrant/refugee dichotomy leads many scholars to believe that refugees are in need of protection and migrants are not, a belief that is false: refugees may be in need of “international protection” as conceptualized in the Refugee Convention, but all migrants are, in fact, all people who need the protection of states from violations of their human rights. It is very important to emphasize that persons fleeing a military conflict may fall under the definition of a refugee if there is a threat of persecution on the basis of the Convention. Provided there are no grounds for persecution based on the grounds provided for by the Convention, they can claim additional protection, as the majority of Ukrainians abroad did. Conclusions and prospects for the development. It is proposed to advocate for a global mobility regime that will ultimately lead to better protection of rights for all those who move, including refugees. International migration law is still nascent and fragmented, but the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration is an important political step towards a more coherent structuring of state responses.