The world is witnessing the largest refugee crisis since the horrors of World War II. The Middle East, North Africa, and Western Asia are particularly hard hit. Millions of refugees from Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and Yemen are fleeing violence and war in their countries.

In all of 2014, approximately 219,000 people tried to cross the Mediterranean to seek asylum in Europe. In just the first eight months of 2015, over 300,000 refugees tried to cross the sea, according to CNN, more than 2,500 died.

In an estimated total, World War II had an estimated total of 51 million refuges. The Syrian Humanitarian Crisis has an estimated total 60 million and still increasing rapidly.

There is a lot to be learned from history. European states were the architects of the modern refugee regime. They negotiated the 1959 Refuge Convention in the aftermath of the Holocaust. It is a legacy we should be proud of and seek to preserve.  It was a moment at which Europe collectively understood that people fleeing persecution should have a right to seek refuge in order to access fundamental human rights.

Photo from here.