Poor countries subject to refugee flows from neighbouring states have become increasingly unwilling to bear the economic, environmental, political, and security costs of hosting large refugee populations. Despite, or rather because of the narrowing of the asylum option, we must continue to defend it. On the other hand, the intervention alternative is not promising. The prohibition against intervention in the internal affairs of a state remains very strong. The record of actual interventions to suppress violence and restore peaceful relations among peoples at war within their own societies is not encouraging.
Intervention is costly, in financial, political and human terms.
And so the will to intervene, even in the face of horrific violations of human rights, seems to have faded as the decade has progressed. The number of people in need of rescue, however, has not diminished. In fact it has grown. I am very deeply concerned about the diminishing observance of humanitarian principles by governments in many parts of the world. Many of the poorest countries, particularly in Africa, have long traditions of hospitality toward refugees.