Migration Diplomacy in Lebanon: Its Transit Role, Issue Linkages and Mutual Gains

July 23, 2024

Introduction

Since 2012, Lebanon has been on the receiving end of billions of dollars’ worth of international aid to help deal with the massive refugee presence in the country and the large-scale humanitarian crisis ravaging its people. Actors like the United States and the European Union alone have contributed more than $3 billion in financial and humanitarian assistance, while total international contributions under the Lebanon Crisis Response Plan (LCRP) have exceeded the $9 billion mark. At the same time, Lebanon remains unwilling to recognize the international refugee law regime represented by the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, a reality which allows the Lebanese state relative freedom to maneuver concerning its aggressive — and at points illegal — refugee governance strategy.

Still, this has not deterred international actors, particularly the European Union, from allocating billions more in financial and humanitarian assistance to Lebanon. While this behavior raises questions about the EU’s approach to refugee governance, it also highlights a success on the part of the Lebanese state in being able to attract aid despite exhibiting clear evidence of policy failure and potential breaches of international principles.

What, then, explains this success? It can be argued that, in the last decade, the Lebanese state has successfully engaged in migration diplomacy with the EU, with the aim of covering up Lebanon’s lack of proper recognition of international refugee law, papering over its internal political and economic mishaps, and most importantly, receiving consistent international economic aid. This is the case due to its strong bargaining position as a refugee host and transit country; the linking of migration to other areas of state interest; and the potential for achieving mutual gains for both actors. The following section covers migration diplomacy as an object of study and analyzes the case of Lebanon to highlight the dynamics of migration diplomacy in action.

The Migration Diplomacy Framework

In the 21^st century, migration has risen to the top of the diplomatic agenda for actors in the international system. The modern state must treat migration the same way it treats other matters of international cooperation, such as trade, war, peace, the environment and human rights. This is the case due to the prominence of international migration in the post-war liberal world order.  As such, Adamson and Tsourapas draw on realist approaches in international relations to understand how states use “diplomatic tools, processes, and procedures to manage cross-border population mobility.” The following outlines how interstate bargaining in this regard works.
 

The State: Sending, Receiving, or Transit

As the primary actor in the international system, a state’s position in both the global political order and the migratory flows system should ultimately determine the scope of its bargaining power. Asymmetrical power relationships between states are a necessary condition for interstate bargaining on matters of migration, whereby weaker states are often better positioned to use migration for the purpose of projecting power over other, more powerful, actors. At the same time, a country’s status as a sending, receiving, and/or transit country also determines the strength of the state’s bargaining position vis-à-vis other actors. Whether a country adopts an immigration, emigration, transit migration or combined migration strategy determines the type of migration diplomacy it engages in, similar to how Turkey employed its position as a potential refugee transit hub to force mobility, accession and economic concessions from the European Union (EU) in 2016.
 

Issue Linkages

It is often the case, as alluded to in the above example, that states have other goals and interests that they wish to achieve through migration diplomacy. These also include security interests, such as addressing rising tensions between refugees and host communities; economic interests, such as achieving better access to trade and labor markets; and public diplomacy interests, such as opening borders for migrants from specific countries to enhance state propaganda. In short, states link migration to other areas of interest so that they can achieve set goals in those areas when engaging in interstate bargaining with other states or state-like actors.
 

Bargaining Strategies

Finally, any outcome resulting from the state’s status in the migratory flows system and the interests it wishes to achieve through migration diplomacy ultimately depends on the bargaining strategy it decides to adopt. Two main strategies are proposed here. Based on the principles of game theory and rational choice, the first strategy is a zero-sum, meaning relative gains nature whereby one actor receives all the benefits in a winner-takes-all showdown. Naturally, one would place a zero-sum strategy on the more competitive side of conflict resolution strategies. The second strategy is a positive-sum, meaning absolute gains whereby both sides receive benefits. Here, the negotiation process emphasizes mutual gains for all parties rather than relative gains and, naturally, a more cooperative approach to conflict resolution.

Lebanon as a Transit Country

Lebanon hosts more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees within its territory, the highest refugee presence both per capita and per square kilometer in the world. Yet, Lebanon remains firm in its position on asylum, having not ratified the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees nor signed its 1967 Protocol. The Lebanon Crisis Response Plan (LCRP), the Refugee and Resilience Response Plan (3RP), and other ad-hoc arrangements with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) instead organize Lebanon’s relationship with the international refugee law doctrine. The Lebanese governing factions, Janmyr argues, fear that ratifying the international refugee law regime would mean refugees’ naturalization and their eventual integration into Lebanese society, which would consequently affect Lebanon’s sectarian divisions and, ultimately, its fragile power-sharing system. Temporariness, therefore, reflects the state’s long-held vision of the refugee presence in the country.

How, then, has this temporariness been translated into practice? There are two realities to consider. First, the Lebanese state appears to be actively following up on its vision and forcibly returning refugees as various rights groups have warned. In 2023, the Lebanese army reportedly deported thousands of Syrian refugees back to Syria in violation of internationally recognized principles. Second, and more importantly, temporariness in addition to the severe socioeconomic crisis ravaging the country has also meant that heading elsewhere offers better chances at decent living. This is why, since 2019, Lebanon has increasingly become a prime hub for outgoing migrant boats towards Europe consisting of the majority of Syrian migrants, warranting its consideration as a transit country.

Issue Linkages and Mutual Gains

According to the World Bank, poverty in Lebanon has more than tripled over the past decade, leaving both host and refugee communities severely affected. Aside from failing to elect a president over the past two years or introduce any notable reforms to help deal with the socioeconomic crisis, the Lebanese state has been in absolute limbo in its responsibility to cater to its citizens and the refugees it hosts. This reality has negatively impacted social cohesion between host and refugee communities and has intensified the hostile campaign against refugees in Lebanon.

Instead, it can be argued that, on more than one occasion, the Lebanese government has elected to leverage Lebanon’s unique transit position in the migration flow system to receive economic benefits. Two pieces of evidence serve this argument. First, in 2016, the EU and Lebanon adopted a Compact as a follow-up to the financial arrangements the EU had promised Lebanon earlier that year at the London Conference for Supporting Syria and the Region. The Compact aimed at improving the conditions of “both Syrian refugees in Lebanon and vulnerable host communities”. However, the plan remained a mere template, and its vision for the Syrian refugee presence never really materialized. In fact, the Compact’s embeddedness within the LCRP—which sidetracked its scope to focus on host communities rather than direct refugee engagement—and the Lebanese government’s restrictive practices towards displaced Syrians following its adoption are usually cited as setbacks.

Second, there is strong evidence suggesting that Lebanon’s transit status sounded the alarm for the EU in recent months. The number of refugees heading towards Cyprus from Lebanese shores spiked in the first three months of 2024, forcing the Cypriot President to head to Lebanon for migration talks. This also prompted the EU to jump to its southeastern member’s rescue via its controversial policy of externalization. In May, EU commissioner Ursula von der Leyen announced during a visit to Beirut that the EU would provide a €1 billion financial assistance package for Lebanon between 2024 and 2027 in the hopes of boosting migration control measures and supporting host and refugee communities. This new deal showcased the cooperative bargaining dynamic between the two actors once more, with Lebanon aiming to leverage its strong position to receive economic aid from a weakened EU while the latter seeks to halt incoming migration via the eastern Mediterranean Sea route by flexing its financial might; a standard example of negotiation relying on mutual gains.

Conclusion

This analysis goes to show how the Lebanese state has been able to successfully bargain its way towards receiving international economic aid, particularly from the EU, from a migration diplomacy perspective. Its strong position as a transit country vis-à-vis a migrant-sensitive block, the existence of issue linkages, and the prospects of achieving mutual gains together with the EU warrant this episode of migration diplomacy as a success for Lebanon. The analysis also upholds the realist school’s approach to international relations by positing migration as a primary tool for interstate bargaining. Lastly, in being a relatively new conceptual framework in the study of states’ management of cross-border population movements, the migration diplomacy framework offers a plethora of avenues for future research. One potential avenue could be a deeper investigation of intrastate dynamics and their influence on the strategies and consequences of migration diplomacy efforts between states and/or state-like actors.