Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, who represents the Vatican to U.N. agencies in Geneva, told members of the executive committee of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees that he was particularly concerned with the issue of "refoulement," the process by which a county forcibly returns refugees to their countries of origin.

The extensive reported and unreported incidents of such return and "push-back" to unsafe countries show many vulnerable people are not receiving the protection they need, he said.

The committee, which the archbishop addressed in Geneva Oct. 5, examined the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugee's protection and assistance to people of concern throughout the world.

Archbishop Tomasi said protection space for refugees is decreasing. He noted that despite new programs, settlement of refugees has fallen well below the goals laid out by the U.N. commissioner's office.

The archbishop also expressed concern about status determination procedures—how a state decides who qualifies as a refugee. Many governments want to "externalize" the procedure of refugee status determination, pushing the process on states close to a refugee's country of origin, which often are places with records of human rights violations, he said.

Archbishop Tomasi said the Vatican is alarmed at this trend. The Vatican supports status determination at the country of arrival, ensuring that refugees cannot be immediately returned to their home countries without a fair decision, he said.

To help resolve this situation, the archbishop said, it is the duty of the UNHCR to ensure that all procedural and other safeguards regarding status determination, such as the right to counsel, are universally implemented.

Archbishop Tomasi said that as an additional solution to the protection problem, the Vatican supports the efforts of legal labor migration. In helping to represent refugees' legal ability to migrate for the purposes of employment, this process would provide another pathway for asylum.

Archbishop Tomasi recalled the statute that cites the duty of the UNHCR to reduce the number of refugees requiring protection and concluded that this reduction can only come from "the recognition, defense and fostering of human rights."