(本文选自《经济学人》20220423期)
背景介绍：
自2010年底爆发阿拉伯之春后，数量激增的难民从中东、非洲和亚洲等地经地中海及巴尔干半岛进入欧盟国家寻求居留，给欧洲各国带来了一场难民危机。今年4月，英国政府宣称为打击人口走私网络，阻止非法移民跨越英吉利海峡流动，计划将非法移民重新安置、遣送至非洲卢旺达。
Shipping asylum-seekers to Rwanda could wreck the Refugee Convention
将寻求庇护者送到卢旺达可能违背了难民公约
The fact that Britain’s plan could work is what makes it so dangerous
英国的计划可能会奏效，这正是它如此危险的原因
Britain was one of the first countries to ratify the Refugee Convention of 1951, which spelled out countries’ obligations to protect fugitives from persecution who had arrived in their territories and not return them to danger.
英国是最早签署1951年《难民公约》的国家之一，该公约规定，各国有义务保护抵达其领土的逃亡者，使其免遭迫害，并且不将他们送回危险的地方。
The convention was “an excellent instrument”, said Selwyn Lloyd, a Conservative minister in the Foreign Office. No country in Europe was doing as much to help refugees, boasted another minister.
英国外交部保守党大臣塞尔温·劳埃德表示，该公约是“一纸极好的文书”。另一位部长则夸口称，欧洲没有哪个国家在帮助难民方面做得这么多。
The country still leads the world in devising new ways of dealing with refugees. Now, however, Britain is leading in the opposite direction. The Conservative government is perturbed by the growing number of people (some 29,000 last year) who reach Britain in small boats crossing the Channel from France.
在设计处理难民的新方法方面，英国仍处于世界领先地位。然而，如今英国正在朝着相反的方向前进。越来越多人（去年约有2.9万人）从法国乘船横渡英吉利海峡来到英国，这让保守党政府感到不安。
On April 14th it signed a memorandum of understanding with Rwanda which would allow it to fly asylum-seekers who reach Britain’s shores straight to the African country without listening to their claims. Rwanda, which gets cash as part of the deal, will consider whether to grant them asylum—in Rwanda. They will not be allowed back to Britain.
4月14日，英国与卢旺达签署了一份谅解备忘录，允许其将抵达英国海岸的寻求庇护者直接空运到这个非洲国家，而无需听取他们的要求。作为协议的一部分，卢旺达将获得资金，并考虑是否给予他们庇护。这些人将不被允许返回英国。
If the Conservatives pull this off, it will be a perilous new step for the world’s refugee system. Britain is not trying to process asylum claimants offshore, as Australia did when it interned boat people in Nauru and Papua New Guinea.
如果保守党成功实现这一目标，这将是世界难民体系迈出的危险的新一步。英国并不打算像澳大利亚在瑙鲁和巴布亚新几内亚拘禁船民那样，在海外处理庇护申请。
Nor is it trying to push asylum-seekers back to the country they arrived from, as America has done since covid-19 hit (although it will soon relent) and as the European Union has done with Syrians who cross from Turkey to Greece. Britain proposes to send people 6,500km away, regardless of where they came from.
它也不会像美国在新冠疫情爆发后所做的那样（尽管很快就会有所缓和），也不会像欧盟对从土耳其进入希腊的叙利亚人所做的那样，试图将寻求庇护者遣返回国。英国提议将寻求庇护者遣送至6500公里以外的地方，无论他们来自哪里。
The plans have been attacked by the Labour Party, refugee groups and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Even the most senior civil servant in the Home Office has demurred. None of that will worry the government, which relishes scraps with such softies. And many of their objections are the wrong ones.
该计划遭到了工党、难民团体和坎特伯雷大主教的抨击。就连英国内政部最资深的官员也表示反对。所有这些都不会让政府担心，因为政府喜欢与这些软蛋打交道。他们提出的许多反对意见都是错误的。
Critics claim that the Rwanda scheme will be costly, like Australia’s, and that it may not work as intended. Judges could strike it down. Britain may end up sending so few people to Rwanda that asylum-seekers will not be deterred from crossing the English Channel.
批评人士称，卢旺达的计划将像澳大利亚的计划一样代价高昂，而且可能不会像预期那样奏效。法官可能会否决这项计划。英国最终可能只会将很少的人送到卢旺达，从而使寻求庇护者得以继续穿越英吉利海峡。
But it is not clear that an asylum system ought to be cheap. And if Britain fails to send many asylum-seekers to Rwanda (as has happened with Denmark, which signed a much vaguer deal with the country last year) it will embarrass the British government but no one else.
但目前尚不清楚这套庇护系统是否成本低廉。如果英国不能将许多寻求庇护者送往卢旺达（就像去年与丹麦签订的一份更为模糊的协议一样），这将使英国政府（而非其他人）难堪。
The much greater danger is that the plan works. If Britain manages to send thousands of asylum-seekers to Africa, others are likely to get the message and not try to come to Britain at all. Few refugees would find Rwanda congenial. Boris Johnson, Britain’s prime minister, calls it “that dynamic country” and “one of the safest…in the world”; his home secretary, Priti Patel, says it has “many, many interests in common” with Britain.
更具危险的是如果这个计划能够奏效。如果英国设法将数以千计寻求庇护者送往非洲，其他人很可能会得到这个信息，从而放弃前来英国。不会有难民觉得卢旺达是个好去处。英国首相鲍里斯·约翰逊称其为“那个充满活力的国家”和“世界上最安全的国家之一”；英国内政大臣普里蒂·帕特尔表示，卢旺达和英国有着“很多很多共同点”。
Such praise is overblown. Rwanda may be orderly, but it is also extremely poor and has one of Africa’s scariest, most repressive governments. Britain has accurately criticised its human-rights violations in the past, although it may refrain from now on. Dealing with an autocrat messes with your moral compass.
这样的赞美言过其实了。卢旺达或许是一个秩序井然的国家，但它也是一个极度贫穷的国家，拥有非洲最可怕、最专制的政府之一。英国过去曾准确地批评过其侵犯人权的行为，尽管从现在开始可能会有所克制。与独裁者打交道会扰乱你的道德准则。
(红色标注词为重难点词汇)
重难点词汇：
wreck [rek] n. 失事；遇难；残骸
persecution [ˌpɜːrsɪˈkjuːʃn] n. 迫害；烦扰；苛求；困扰
perturb [pərˈtərb] v. 使不安；干扰；搅乱
asylum [əˈsaɪləm] n. 收容所；避难所
perilous [ˈperələs] adj. 充满危险的；濒临灾难的
relent [rɪˈlent] v. 怜悯；收敛；减弱
congenial [kənˈdʒiːniəl] adj. 志趣相投的；情投意合的
autocrat [ˈɔdəˌkræt] n. 独裁者
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