The worldwide humanitarian and legal IDP
problem
Responsibility to protect or to protect state sovereignty?
People fleeing Eastern DRC (Photo: UNHCR)
Master thesis International Relations (Internationale Betrekkingen) Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
23 December 2009
Cathelijne Spelt
Studentnumber: s1320300
Address: Nieuwe Koekoekstraat 95 3514 EC Utrecht
Telephone number: 0641266976
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Table of contents.
Introduction 3
Chapter 1: A large and growing group of people in need 7
Introduction 7
IDPs: a definition 7
The causes of IDP flows 10
The contemporary worldwide IDP problem 11
IDP‘s basic and material problems 12
Conclusion 14
Chapter 2: International law on IDPs and the development of
a legal basis for international humanitarian involvement with IDPs 16
Introduction 16
UNHCR‘s involvement with IDPs until the 1990s and the
implications of the end of the Cold War 17
A widening space for humanitarian involvement: towards a more
active and homeland-oriented approach 19
The need for a legal basis for involvement 22
The debate on legal competence for humanitarian involvement
with IDPs 24
The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and the African Union Convention for the protection and assistance
of internally displaced persons in Africa 28
Conclusion 31
Chapter 3: The international humanitarian aid problem concerning
IDPs from an organisational-political point of view 33
Introduction 33
UNHCR‘s (un)willingness to take responsibility for IDPs 33 Restructuring a humanitarian response to the IDP problem 36
A ―Collaborative approach‖ 39
Conclusion 42
Chapter 4: Responsibility to protect and state sovereignty 44
Introduction 44
State sovereignty and non-interference 45
Humanitarian interference and its forms 47
Responsibility to protect 51
States‘ positions on the responsibility to protect 54 The debate on the responsibility to protect and state sovereignty 57 Theoretical explanations for the disagreements between proponents
of the responsibility to protect doctrine vs. proponents of state
sovereignty and non-interference 62
Conclusion 66
Conclusion 69
List of consulted literature 75
Primary sources 75
Secondary sources 75
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Introduction.
Internally displaced people (IDPs) are people who have been forced to leave their homes -usually to escape armed conflict, general violence, human rights violations or natural disasters- but who, doing so, have not crossed any internationally recognised state border, which makes them virtually refugees in their own country. They, however, have a different status than refugees, since refugees have to have crossed a state border in order to be refugees.
According to the Internal displacement monitoring centre of the Norwegian Refugee Council, the total conflict related IDP population in the world was 26 million in December 2007, spread over at least 52 countries. This figure is the highest one since the early 1990‘s, and marks a 6 percent increase from the 2006 figure.
In terms of international law, IDPs are not as well protected as refugees, because they have not actually left their home country and in principle remain within the scope of the responsibility of their national government. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been increasingly assisting IDPs since 1950, but a concrete UNHCR-mandate (or a mandate for any humanitarian organisation for that matter) for the assistance of IDPs is still lacking. Especially since the 1990s, there has been an ongoing debate about who, or which organisation, should be responsible for assisting IDPs. Some argue that state sovereignty includes the responsibility to protect citizens and that when a state fails to do so, the responsibility of the international community to protect those citizens will overrule state sovereignty. This new doctrine is called the ―responsibility to protect‖ doctrine. Others, however, argue that state sovereignty has to prevail and that no form of foreign interference can thus be allowed. This debate has made it difficult for international law on IDPs to develop and for humanitarian aid actors to create sufficient mandates to assist IDPs. Different options to address the lacking responsibility for IDPs have been suggested, but to this day, IDPs remain a group of people who find themselves in a legal limbo and a humanitarian ‗protection gap‘.
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and worldwide, IDPs are in a state of general neglect while their numbers are enormous. This is a worrying situation that asks for an explanation.
The general goal of this thesis is to come to an analysis and explanation of the IDP problem within an International Relations Theory framework.
The leading research question in this thesis is:
How can the worldwide humanitarian and legal IDP problem from 1950 up until 2009 be characterised and to what extent can this be explained by the lasting tension between the concepts of “state sovereignty” and “responsibility to protect”?
It will be argued that the status of neglect in which IDPs find themselves is the consequence of the general sovereignty/ responsibility to protect debate that exists within international relations. It will be argued that this irreconcilable debate is the result of the incompatibility of Realist and Cosmopolitan views on international relations.
This thesis is based on an empirical research. The research has been carried out using an extensive amount of literature in the form of articles, books, reports and international law documents. The last chapter, which discusses Cosmopolitanism versus Realism and Solidarist versus Pluralist views, is based on English School methodology on the tension between order and justice. This methodology is used to explain the tension between the concepts of ―absolute sovereignty‖ and ―responsibility to protect‖.
This thesis consists of chapters that will each discuss one separate research question, to eventually come to a conclusion that will answer the leading research question. The research question for chapter 1 is: How can IDPs be defined and
what are their basic problems? This chapter discusses the conceptual definition of
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Chapter 2 will address the main reference points of international law for IDPs; the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and the African Union Convention for the protection and assistance for internally displaced persons in Africa. Also, this chapter will discuss the development of a legal basis for humanitarian involvement on behalf of IDPs from the 1950s on. The development of UNHCR‘s involvement with IDPs will play a large role here, since this has been the main organisation to get involved with IDPs from the 1950s on. (Geo-)Political influences on this development will be analysed as well, since the construction of international law and a legal basis for humanitarian involvement largely depend on the willingness of sovereign states. It will be argued that although the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and the African Convention are a step forward, IDPs still find themselves in a legal limbo when it comes to international law and that they still fall through the cracks of international protection because of a lack of a legal basis for in-country humanitarian involvement of international actors, mainly UNHCR. The research question for chapter 2 is: How have international
law on IDPs and a legal basis for humanitarian involvement on behalf of IDPs developed since the 1950s and to what extent is there an international legal problem concerning IDPs?
The research question for chapter 3 is: To what extent can the international
humanitarian aid problem concerning IDPs be explained from an international organisational-political point of view and how can this be linked to the legal protection gap discussed in chapter 2? In this chapter, the extent to which the
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In the last chapter, the long existing norm of state sovereignty and the beginning and development of a new approach to sovereignty in the form of the emerging ‗responsibility to protect‘ doctrine will be discussed and the debate between proponents of both will be analysed. The situation of lacking international law and responsibility for IDPs will be explained by showing to what extent state sovereignty has, over time, remained highly important for many states, especially concerning the debate about the responsibility to protect. It will be shown that this debate is the cause of the international legal and humanitarian aid problems concerning IDPs. The Realist and Cosmopolitan views on humanitarian interference and state sovereignty will also be analysed and it will be argued that the incompatibility of these paradigms is the cause of the irreconcilability of the sovereignty/ responsibility to protect debate and, thus, of the IDP problem. The research question for chapter 4 is: To what extent can the IDP problem from 1950
up until 2009 be explained by the lasting tension between the concepts of “responsibility to protect” and “state sovereignty”?
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Chapter 1. IDPs: A large and growing group of people in need.
Introduction.
This first chapter addresses the conceptual definition of the term ―Internally displaced persons‖ (IDPs). Also, short description of the general causes of IDP flows is made. Next, a sketch of the contemporary worldwide IDP situation and their numbers is made. A description of the basic problems that IDPs experience follows.
At the end of this chapter, the reader has an understanding of what IDPs are and what the IDP problem is in order to be properly informed before going on to the next chapters on the development of international law and humanitarian aid problems concerning IDPs.
IDPs: A definition.
Both IDPs and refugees are a subset of forced migrants, which is the general term for people who have been forced to flee their homes.1 Despite this general term, in the international humanitarian and international law system, these people do not all share the same status or rights.
It should be noted that although refugees and IDPs share many common characteristics, they do not share the same status under international law. Refugees are a subset of forced migrants who have special status in international law under the terms of the 1951 UN Convention and 1967 Protocol relating to the status of refugees. Under the 1951 Convention, a refugee is a person outside of his or her country who has a well-founded fear that he or she would be persecuted on return.2 Refugee status has, however, been applied more broadly to include other persons who are outside their country of origin because of armed conflict, generalized
1 Susan F. Martin a.o., The uprooted: improving humanitarian responses to forced migration (Lanham 2005) 5.
2 UN convention relating to the status of refugees (28 July 1951) art. 1.
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violence, foreign aggression, or other circumstances that have seriously disturbed public order, and who, therefore, require international protection and assistance.3
In recent years, the number of refugees has decreased. This does, however, not mean that the number of forced migrants has decreased. This can be accounted to an ever rising number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).4 Although an international convention similar to the Refugee Convention of 1951 is not in place for IDPs, the United Nations has promoted the ―Guiding principles on internal displacement‖ of 1998, which are based on existing international law such as human rights law and international humanitarian law.
The definition of internally displaced persons according to these 1998 Guiding Principles is: ―Persons or groups of persons who have been forced, or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of armed conflict, situations of generalised violence, violations of human rights, or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized state border‖.5
Two core elements of the concept of internal displacement are clear. One, is the involuntary nature of the movement. Two, is the fact that such movement takes place within national borders, a criterion which distinguishes the internally displaced from refugees. This makes them virtually refugees in their own country, since they experience the same humanitarian needs as refugees do. However, as will be explained further on, they do not enjoy the same status under international law.
Beyond the above mentioned elements of internal displacement, however, questions remain to what is meant by ―internal displacement‖ and ―internally displaced people‖. For some, the term ―IDPs‖ refers only to people uprooted by conflict, violence and persecution, that is, people who would be considered refugees if they crossed a border. Others, however, consider internal displacement to be a much broader concept and to encompass the millions more persons uprooted
3 Martin a.o., The uprooted 5. 4
Ibidem 6.
5 UN Guiding principles on internal displacement (1998) introduction
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by natural disasters and development projects. Still others question whether it is useful to single out IDPs as a category at all.6
There also is no consensus on ―when internal displacement ends, that is, when an IDP should no longer be considered as such. Complicating matters even further, is that in common parlance the internally displaced often are referred to as ―refugees‖, which tends to be a catch-all phrase to describe all forced migrants.7
The definition in the Guiding Principles has, however, gained wide recognition as an important tool and a standard for addressing internal displacement and is being used around the world by governments, the United Nations, regional bodies, non-governmental organisations and other actors.8 Therefore it is the definition that will be used as the point of reference in this thesis.
It is important to bear in mind that the definition of IDPs is a descriptive, rather than legal, definition. It simply describes the factual situation of a person being displaced within one‘s country. The term does not refer to a special legal status in the same way that the term ―refugee‖ does.
It is also important to bear in mind that not all internal displacement will necessarily be of concern to the international community. If the needs of internally displaced populations are met effectively by their own government, the international community does not need to get involved. If, on the other hand, internally displaced persons are denied this protection and assistance of their own government, they may be of legitimate concern to the international community. Also, the UN can only act inside the borders of any given country when the problems in that country pose a threat to international peace and security. More about this will follow in chapter 4.
6 Erin Mooney, ―The concept of internal displacement and the case for internally displaced persons as a category of concern‖, Refugee survey quarterly 24 (2005) 9.
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The causes of IDP flows.
The general causes of internal displacement are described in the Guiding Principles‘ definition of IDPs: ―…armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights, or natural or human-made disasters…‖9
What is striking about recent figures is that forced internal displacement in the last decade was caused by internal rather than international armed conflicts. People were mainly displaced by government forces and allied groups, as well as by rebel groups fighting them.10 With a few notable exceptions, such as the wars between Israel and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah in 2006 and between Ethiopia and Eritrea in 1998-2000, international armed conflict has not been a significant cause of internal displacement during the last decade.11
The changing nature of conflict and with it, the disregard for such basic principles of international humanitarian law as the principle of distinction and proportionality seem to be of great influence to the growing number of IDPs.
The overwhelming majority of IDP streams are the result of civil wars, inter-communal violence or government repression. For most of the past two decades, there was a clear correlation between the number of internal high intensity conflicts and the total number of IDPs, which both peaked in the first half of the 1990s, then dropped significantly during the second half of the decade, before they rose again around the turn of the century. However, the decrease in the number of internal conflicts between 2001 and 2003 was not reflected in lower IDP figures. This could suggest that the intensity of conflicts has increased, with civilians being increasingly targeted directly by warring parties.12
The changing nature of post-Cold War conflict is probably relevant here. Many post-Cold War internal conflicts are particularly savage because they are fought between ethnic groups living together within the same territory. Along with
9
UN Guiding principles on internal displacement (1998) introduction.
10 Internal displacement: global overview of trends and developments in 2007 Report of the Internal displacement monitoring centre of the Norwegian refugee council (April 2007) www.internal-displacement.org (last consulted 11 December 2009) 7.
11
Internal displacement: global overview 14.
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a growing populations density in conflict countries, increasing availability of arms and use of land mines, and regional conflict spill-over, this explains why post-Cold War conflicts produce more displaced people as compared to conflicts during the Cold War era.13 Also, post-Cold War conflicts show a tendency to avoid battle and to direct most violence against civilians and in this context forced displacement became a popular tactic of war.14
In internal conflicts, non-state actors (NSAs) often play an important role. These are actors which take part in a conflict but are not part of any state, such as guerrilla armies or militant groups. The trans-national nature of some NSAs creates an additional challenge to engage them to respect their obligations toward the displaced. NSAs can be active in several countries, or have links to other groups or states outside the state they aim to challenge.15
While the loss of territorial control to NSAs does not in principle release a government from its responsibilities to protect and assist IDPs, it certainly makes it almost impossible to fulfil them in practice. This does not mean that these governments would have assisted IDPs if they had had access to them. In many countries undergoing internal displacement, national governments are at best indifferent to the plight of IDPs, and sometimes are even a major cause of displacement and violations against IDPs.16
The contemporary worldwide IDP problem.
IDP figures are notoriously unreliable, as most of them are based on rough estimates rather than proper surveys or registrations since IDP figures are difficult to measure because of their nature but the existing figures can at least give an indication of the scope of the problem.17
13
David Lanz, ―Subversion or reinvention? Dilemmas and debates in the context of UNHCR‘s increasing involvement with IDPs‖, Journal of refugee studies 21 (2008) 196.
14 Mary Kaldor, New and old wars: organized violence in a global era (Cambridge, 1999) passim. 15 Greta Zeender, ―Engaging armed non-state actors on internally displaced persons protection‖ Refugee survey quarterly 24 (2005) 97.
16 Ibidem 97.
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According to the Internal displacement monitoring centre of the Norwegian Refugee Council, the total conflict related IDP population in the world was 26 million in December 2007, spread over at least 52 countries. This figure is the highest one since the early 1990‘s, and marks a 6 percent increase from the 2006 figure.
The countries with the highest numbers of IDPs in 2007 were Sudan (5.8 million), Colombia (up to 4 million), Iraq (2.5 million), Democratic Republic of the Congo (1.4 million) and Uganda (1.3 million). Africa hosts almost half of the world‘s IDPs.18
These figures are recognised by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).19
Although international attention to the plight of IDPs has grown over the past years, there was still no breakthrough in reducing the numbers and measurably improving the situation of IDPs. According to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, displacement remains ―arguably the most significant humanitarian challenge that we face‖.20
IDPs’ basic and material problems.
Once it occurs, internal displacement brings about a set of circumstances that renders those affected highly vulnerable. Most obviously, it forces people from their homes, depriving them of shelter and the basic protection it can provide. Cut off from their land, traditional livelihood and means of generating income, and compelled to leave all but a few possessions behind, IDPs suddenly find themselves stripped of their means of survival. At the same time, it breaks up families and community support networks.21
Children are particularly affected as displacement not only disrupts their education and normal development but also frequently results in their being
18 Internal displacement: global overview 2007 6. 19
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separated from their families. This leaves them to fend for themselves and at heightened risk of abuse.22
To make things worse, the displaced often are stigmatised and may also be viewed with suspicion and hostility in the areas to which they flee. They are especially vulnerable to acts of violence and human rights violations, including round-ups, forced conscription and sexual assault.23
Forced to leave their homes, a lack of shelter is IDP‘s most obvious particular need. Other than protection, providing IDPs with emergency shelter persistently proves to be among the poorest addressed and most neglected aspects of humanitarian response. In the case of IDPs, there is no UN agency that predictably meets this need in humanitarian crises. Many IDPs are not found in camps but seek out shelter where they can, including in railway cars, aluminium containers, abandoned buildings and urban slums.24 Staying with family is common as well, such as in Colombia. However, this puts quite a lot of pressure on the hosting family in terms of space and resources to live from.
One of the most urgent needs of the internally displaced is food. With limited, if any, access to land and also cut off from their normal means of income, IDPs tend to be more dependent on food assistance than others in the local population. In fact, they typically comprise the majority of beneficiaries of World Food Programme (WFP) assistance.25
Food insecurity also contributes to other serious health risks. It is well documented that the lack of food and of income-generating opportunities to secure food leads to higher rates of prostitution and sexual exploitation among displaced women and girls. In Uganda, this consequence of the lack of adequate food has resulted in the HIV/AIDS infection rate being six times higher in IDP camps than in the rest of the country. Further health risks result from the conditions of poor sanitation, lack of clean water and overcrowding that typically characterise IDP camps and settlements.
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Epidemics like cholera and tuberculosis commonly arise. Generally, a lack of access to adequate medical services exacerbates the health situation of many IDPs. The trauma of displacement also accounts for a high prevalence of psychosocial problems among IDPs. In Sri Lanka for example, it is reported that the suicide rate in IDP camps is three times higher than the national average.26
Women and children typically make up the majority of internally displaced populations and face a range of particular risks. Heightened levels of sexual and gender-based violence, especially among single unaccompanied women and girls as well as women heads of household, have been well documented. Higher rates of domestic violence are also not uncommon.27
Trafficking is another serious risk that increases when people are displaced, families are separated and livelihoods are destroyed. Children who have lost their homes and families are particularly at risk of being militarily recruited and abused.28
Lack of documentation is a common characteristic among the internally displaced as documentation is often lost or confiscated during flight. It may also have been destroyed in the course of violent attack or as a result of natural disaster. Displaced women and children who suddenly find themselves widowed or orphaned may not have documentation in their own names. This can lead to denial of access to health care, education and other government services as well as problems in resolving issues of property restitution or compensation. Also, a lack of documentation commonly results in the disenfranchisement of the internally displaced, depriving them of a say in the political, economic and social decisions that affect their lives.29
Conclusion.
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a very large group of people in need of help. Obviously, IDPs are among the most vulnerable people in the world. Their number keeps growing due to an increase in internal conflicts as opposed to international conflicts. This makes the IDP problem an alarming one since although it is enormous, it is predicted to become an even greater problem in the future.
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Chapter 2. International law on IDPs and the development of a
legal basis for international humanitarian involvement with IDPs.
Introduction.
In the previous chapter it has become clear that there is a large worldwide IDP problem that keeps growing. This chapter discusses to what extent there is a legal protection gap with regards to IDPs. The development of a legal basis for international involvement with IDPs from the 1950s on is analysed first. The UNHCR takes a large role in this development, since it was the first agency to deal with refugees explicitly and, through time, with IDPs as well. (Geo-)Political influences on this development are analysed as well, since the construction of international law and the legal basis for international involvement are processes that inevitably involve politics.
Second, an introduction to the debate on the legal basis for humanitarian involvement with IDPs follows. Although the next two chapters will elaborate on these subjects further, concepts like ―state sovereignty‖ and the ―responsibility to protect‖ will be discussed shortly, because they play an important role in the development of international law and a legal basis for international humanitarian involvement with IDP‘s. Again, the UNHCR forms a significant part of this debate since the question of a legal basis for involvement has mainly concerned the UNHCR until now.
Third, the Guiding Principles and the recently signed African Union Convention for the protection and assistance for internally displaced persons in Africa are discussed, since these are the most important contemporary reference points of international law concerning IDPs, although they are not legally binding.
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UNHCR’s involvement with IDPs until the 1990s and the implications of the end of the Cold War.
From an international legal point of view, refugees and IDPs are two clearly distinct categories, both with regard to the normative frameworks as well as the institutional mechanisms for their protection. Refugees benefit from a specific international regime, the cornerstones of which are the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol relating to the status of Refugees and their supervisory agency the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
The UNHCR was initially conceived as an agency to safeguard the rights of foreigners whose countries of origin were no longer willing or able to protect them. The treatment of people staying within their countries of origin, displaced or not, was considered, by virtue of the principle of sovereignty, to be the sole matter of concern for the national government. However, that situation has radically changed. By the end of 2006, nearly half of the people assisted by UNHCR were IDPs.30
Initially, UNHCR was reluctant to get involved with the internally displaced. However, practical imperatives made it impossible to maintain this position. IDPs frequently appeared in conjunction with refugees or returnees and in many cases it would have been impractical and morally questionable for UNHCR not to extend assistance to them. Subsequently, between 1971 and 1991, UNHCR supported IDPs in 15 operations. However, UNHCR was not involved in any programme strictly designed for internally displaced persons.31
Not only did the mandate of UNHCR define an exclusive focus on refugees, but the legal basis for UNHCR‘s IDP activities was also somewhat vague. In some cases, they were endorsed in country-specific General Assembly resolutions, such as in Central America. In many instances, however, UNHCR acted essentially in an
ad hoc manner, solely based on the General Assembly‘s tacit approval of previous
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IDP operations as well as on a request from the UN Secretary-General and the state concerned.32
Basically, UNHCR lacked both a clear mandate as well as the political will to get involved with IDPs, but it sporadically did so nonetheless because it was often practically impossible to distinguish between refugees and IDPs or between returnees and returned IDPs.
When the Cold War came to an end, the issue of internal displacement was placed at the centre of the international community‘s attention. On the one hand, this was due to the rise in IDP numbers, partly because of an increase in internal conflicts as opposed to international conflicts. While the end of the cold war made it possible to settle many of the conflicts of the 1980s, a different and more unruly type of violence erupted (see also chapter 1). The disintegrating Soviet empire opened the stage for a multitude of conflicts and simultaneously removed the restrictions on exit. Conflicts in the Caucasus and Balkans generated massive displacement of war victims, many of whom among the latter sought refuge in Europe and North America. Already in 1992, the number of asylum seekers in the European Community states had increased to 700, 000, compared with 50, 000 ten years earlier.33
The collapse of an international political order that had helped to contain, control and separate refugee flows by region coincided with the effects of growing globalisation. The vast increase in speed and the decrease in the cost of transportation and communication produced an escalation in the volume and values of all kinds of exchanges. Spontaneous asylum seekers now crisscrossed the globe in a manner previously never seen.34
In Europe, the increase in asylum seekers coincided with structural unemployment and financial difficulties of the welfare state. The mix tapped into racial animosities and deep-seated insecurities about how to handle minorities within while relating to a poor but populous world outside. States sought to reassert control, and they did so with considerable success in the asylum arena. Already by
32 Ibidem 196. 33
A. Suhrke and K. Newland, ―UNHCR: uphill into the future‖, International migration review 35 (2001) 289-290.
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the mid-1990s, official asylum applications in Europe decreased sharply due to restrictions that made lodging an asylum application increasingly difficult.35
The main reason for UNHCR‘s weakness at this time lay in the vast imbalance of its power relative to states. When governments were determined to interpret the Convention narrowly, UNHCR could oppose it armed only with the power of international law and the general utility to states of having an international refugee agency regulate matters of common concern. UNHCR‘s heavy dependence on Northern states for resources with which to assist refugees further blunted the force of its protest against Northern asylum policies.36
The conflict between the interests of states and the rights or needs of refugees came to a head at a time when the agency was led by High Commissioner Sadako Ogata, inclined to seek compromises between idealised norms and pragmatism. A new departure had become evident when the agency strove to cope with the massive population displacements caused by the violent break-up of Yugoslavia. Recognising that European states were unwilling to provide sufficient conventional asylum, Ogata proposed in July 1992 an alternative, ―comprehensive response‖. This involved two key elements. One was the novel concept of ―preventive protection‖, which entailed humanitarian action within the area of conflict designed to assist and protect civilians. If successful, the action would reduce both suffering and the need to flee, hence ―averting‖ refugee flows. The other element was a request that states, particularly in Europe, at least give some form of protection to those who nevertheless fled, until they could return safely.37
A widening space for humanitarian involvement: towards a more active and homeland-oriented approach.
The lead agency role assigned to UNHCR during the war in Yugoslavia had important implications. It marked a decisive move from the traditional ―refugee-centric‖ orientation to a focus on ―country of origin‖, as it came to be known. It
35
20
also altered the balance between the agency‘s traditional protection and assistance function. When UNHCR was first established, legal protection had been the primary activity. Assistance activities now increased relative to traditional protection functions.38 The advocacy efforts and direct involvement with IDPs of the NGO community have contributed to raising awareness of the problem of internal displacement at the UN Commission on Human Rights. Two major international conferences in December 1988 and May 1989 focusing on refugees and IDPs also examined the issue of internal displacement. In March 1991, the Commission on Human Rights requested that the Secretary-General prepare a report on IDPs. This important report prompted a much more active involvement of the UN, as a whole, in the issue. It defined the scope of the problem and called for more vigorous action, which resulted in the appointment of a Special Representative on Internally Displaced Persons.39 In 1992, Francis M. Deng was
appointed as the Secretary-General‘s Special Representative on Internally Displaced Persons and mandated to recommend international action to address the IDP problem.
Additionally, the idea that events taking place within a country are of legitimate concern for the international community as a whole gained momentum. This helped re-think and re-conceptualise ‗sovereignty as responsibility‘.40 With regard to IDPs, this meant that states‘ ability to invoke sovereignty as a means for rejecting international involvement in situations of internal displacement significantly diminished. The ―country of origin‖ orientation was part of a trend in the UN system. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali had revived the concept of ―preventive diplomacy‖ already in 1992, in the process questioning the concept of sovereignty in ways that the previous Secretaries-General had been unable to do. The 1992 assertion by Boutros-Ghali that ―the time of absolute and exclusive sovereignty… has passed‖ was carried forward in an emboldened form by the next Secretary-General, Kofi Annan. Introducing the radical concept of two
38 Ibidem 294.
39 Catherine Phuong, The international protection of internally displaced persons (Cambridge 2004) 8.
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sovereignties- state sovereignty and the sovereignty of individuals defined in terms of human rights and fundamental freedoms, Kofi Annan called on the UN to support consistent humanitarian interventions on the grounds that ―massive and systematic violations of human rights….should not be allowed to stand‖. 41
Annan‘s opening speech to the General Assembly in 1999 is symptomatic of the widening space for international humanitarian action that progressively had been claimed by humanitarian agencies, organisations and by some states as well. Presented as an innovation during the Gulf crisis in 1991, ―humanitarian intervention‖ by the end of the decade had become part of the established discourse at the UN. While intervention remained selective (Kosovo) or came belatedly (East Timor), the possibility that the UN would enter a conflict area to protect civilians was gaining ground. UNHCR‘s orientation towards humanitarian action within the conflict area was in this sense part of a structural change in the international system.42
This can be explained by the demise and end of the Cold War. It rejuvenated the claim that domestic governance is related to international governance and, therefore, the international community has a legitimate right to consider domestic issues. Specifically, the end of the Cold War shifted the security agenda and the ideological fault lines, and there was growing acceptance of the claim that most wars are internal wars, that internal wars almost exclusively occur within illiberal states, and that these internal wars can represent ―threats to international peace and security‖. This increasingly accepted causal logic and discourse gave international organisations opportunity and motive to become more thoroughly involved in domestic politics.43
UNHCR was not immune to these global developments as it quickly became more deeply involved in domestic affairs and increasingly noted that internal conflicts led to massive refugee flows and that refugee flows could trigger regional instability and challenge ―human security‖.44
41 Suhrke a.o., ―UNHCR: Uphill into the future‖ 296. 42 Ibidem 296.
43
M. Barnett, ―Humanitarianism with a sovereign face: UNHCR in the global undertow‖, International migration review 35 (2001) 254.
22
As mentioned before, under Ogata‘s leadership, UNHCR shifted from a reactive, exile-oriented and refugee-specific approach to a proactive, homeland-oriented and holistic paradigm. Part of this shift was the recognition of voluntary repatriation as the pre-eminent solution for refugees as well as a growing focus on in-country protection and assistance, which was believed to contribute to preventing refugee flows. Inextricably linked to its in-country presence is the extension of UNHCR‘s responsibilities for IDPs.45
Another influential force on the new attitude towards humanitarian involvement was the enormous global media coverage of refugee movements. Governments felt more compelled to respond to refugee disasters, especially those covered extensively by the media, and therefore were likely to ask the UNHCR and other international agencies to provide relief aid. The provision of humanitarian assistance is financially and politically a relatively low risk option for governments because it satisfies the demands of both the media and public opinion for some kind of action to alleviate human suffering. But it can also be used by governments as an excuse for refusing to take more decisive forms of political and military action.46
Thus, in the early 1990‘s, UNHCR took on IDP programmes in 20 countries, many of which were IDP-specific and entailed protection activities. Some of UNHCR‘s IDP operations were highly publicised and sparked significant criticism, including from within the organisation.47
The need for a legal basis for involvement.
As the issue of internal displacement rose in prominence in the early 1990s, there was a growing recognition of the need for a general legal basis for UNHCR‘s involvement with IDPs. Also, it became necessary to rationalise this involvement and to develop criteria for UNHCR‘s engagement in order to select situations which should be prioritised.48 In 1992, following a note issued by the High Commissioner
45 Lanz, ―Subversion or reinvention?‖ 197.
46 G. Loescher, ―The UNHCR and world politics: state interests vs. institutional autonomy‖, International migration review 35 (2001) 42-43.
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as well as Conclusion No. 68 (XLII) of the Executive Programme of the High Commissioner for Refugees, the General Assembly adopted landmark Resolution 47/105 in which it expressed support for UNHCR‘s efforts on behalf of IDPs on the basis of specific requests from the Secretary-General or the competent principal organs of the United Nations and with the consent of the concerned state. Subsequent General Assembly resolutions confirmed these criteria.49
In 1993, the General Assembly in Resolution 48/116 added a ‗link criterion‘ restricting UNHCR‘s involvement with IDPs to situations where internal displacement and refugee flows are connected. Subsequently, UNHCR attempted to clarify the link criterion and identified three scenarios where it was considered appropriate to assist and protect IDPs: when IDPs and refugees return or are present in the same area; when the same cause produces internal displacement and refugee flows; and when providing assistance to IDPs helps prevent cross-border exodus, while guaranteeing the safety for IDPs. In 1994, UNHCR added that activities on behalf of IDPs must not undermine the institution of asylum.50
In his program for reform of the UN in July 1997, the UN Secretary-General at the time, Kofi Annan, recognised the challenge of providing protection, assistance and reintegration, and development support for the internally displaced and cited this area as an example of a humanitarian issue that falls between the gaps of existing mandates of the different agencies.51
Despite UNHCR‘s increasing involvement, the institutional response to crises of internal displacement remained ad hoc and thus, millions of IDPs continued to fall through the cracks of the international assistance and protection regime. To remedy deficiencies, several reforms have been suggested by scholars and organisations. However, these are part of the subject of the next chapter and will thus not be discussed at this point. It should be clear though, that there is at least a problem with there being no agency with an explicit general mandate to protect IDPs and that as far as UNHCR assists IDPs, situations with refugees take precedence over situations with IDPs. It has also become evident that the debate on
49
Ibidem 198. 50 Ibidem 198.
24
the legal basis for humanitarian assistance in the country of origin has gained new momentum during the 1990s and is still going on.
The debate on legal competence for humanitarian involvement with IDPs.
It is important to note that any attempt since the beginning of UNHCR to now to giving general competence for IDPs to UNHCR or any other new agency has been at least legally problematic. Moreover, many states continued to consider situations of internal displacement to be their primary responsibility and objected to the intrusion of a high-profile international agency such as UNHCR.52
Debates concerning UNHCR‘s role with IDPs reach back to the organisation‘s very foundation. When negotiating UNHCR‘s mandate in 1949, states expressed fundamentally different visions for the future UN refugee agency. The US wanted to establish an agency that would be primarily concerned with protection to persecuted persons who had left their countries. Eleanor Roosevelt, then US ambassador, stressed that internal refugee situations were separate problems of a different character that should not be confused with the problem before the General Assembly, namely, the provision of protection for those outside their own countries, who lacked the protection of a government and who required asylum and status in order that they might rebuild lives of self-dependence and dignity.53
India at the time, along with other countries that were burdened with large numbers of IDPs like Greece and Pakistan, maintained that the main task of the new High Commissioner should be the provision of material assistance to displaced populations, disregarding their location outside or inside their own countries.54
As described in the previous section, the debate started again half a century later, when the 1990s saw an explosion of the number of IDPs and the need for a legal basis for UNHCR or any organisation to assist them. In 2000 it was Richard
52
Lanz, ―Subversion or reinvention?‖ 199. 53 Ibidem 201.
25
Holbrooke55, at the time US ambassador to the UN on Refugees, who argued that UNHCR should be given full competence for IDPs on the grounds that there is no difference between being a refugee or an IDP. He said that in terms of what happened to them, they are equally victims, but they are treated differently.56 This suggests that both IDPs and refugees flee from their homes for the exact same reasons and that they thus have the same need for international protection.
A completely different point of view than that of Holbrooke and others is that of Guy Goodwin-Gill57, who made a strong case for maintaining a clear distinction between IDPs and refugees. His argument was that in a society of independent, sovereign nation states, international relevant juridical facts, such as cross-border movement, still retain their importance. According to Goodwin-Gill, the calling into question of the distinctive quality enjoyed by refugees constitutes a slippery slope at the end of which ‗rights, duties, and responsibilities will be eradicated, and the refugee left, once more, unprotected in an era of uncontrolled and uncontrollable discretion‘.58
Ruud Lubbers, successor of Ogata as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in 2000, while emphasising the primary responsibility of states to protect their own citizens, stressed the importance of a clear system for allocating responsibility among UN and other humanitarian agencies for the provision of help to internally displaced people in dire need. He also said humanitarian involvement in internal displacement situations must be accompanied by an effort to resolve the political problems which cause the crises in the first place.59
The foregoing examples of argumentation go to the core of the debate on the legal status of humanitarian involvement with IDPs. Humanitarianists believe that
55 Richard Holbrooke is a United States diplomat and member of the Democratic Party. He is also an author, investment banker and director of the Peace Corps. He became well known when he was part of the negotiations for a peace treaty between the warring parties in Bosnia, which led to the Dayton Treaty in 1995. He was the US ambassador to the United Nations on Refugees from 1999 until 2001.
56
Lanz, ―Subversion or reinvention?‖ 201.
57 Guy Goodwin-Gill is a barrister and a professor of public international law at Oxford University. His research areas include international organisations, human rights, migrants and refugees, elections and democratisation and children‘s rights. He teaches Human rights and International law. 58
Lanz, ―Subversion or reinvention?‖ 202.
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the main criterion for involvement is humanitarian necessity. The decisive factor for them is the need for protection; it is, thus, of secondary concern whether a displaced person has crossed a border or not. On the other hand, there are those who see matters from a traditional international law perspective. IDPs, according to them, still enjoy the protection of their state and they do not therefore need an international agency to safeguard their rights. It is also argued that in the case of general competence of for instance the UNHCR on IDPs, its involvement with IDPs would compromise UNHCR‘s independence and non-political character.
An important part of the question of the legality of UNHCR‘s involvement with IDPs is the scope of paragraph 9 of the 1950 Statute of the UNHCR, stipulating that ‗the High Commissioner shall engage in such additional activities….as the General Assembly may determine.‘ Goodwin-Gill argues that UNHCR has no legal authority to protect persons within their own country; there is no treaty, no customary international law, and no locus standi60 . He argues that paragraph 9 ‗is not a blank check for everything and anything…and especially not a formal, legal basis for activities that compromise its primary function of providing international protection to refugees and trespass on the jurisdiction of other actors‘.61
Goodwin-Gill, along with others, maintains that UNHCR‘s involvement with IDPs is inconsistent with its mandate, unless incidental to programmes for the benefit of refugees.
This argument rose long before Goodwin-Gill‘s comments though, in the 1960s, when it was already argued that UNHCR‘s IDP efforts lacked a legal basis. Confronted with large internally displaced populations in Indonesia, South Vietnam, and Nigeria in the late 1960s, UNHCR chose not to get involved. UNHCR maintained that it took a legalistic position, arguing that these situations were not a matter within the competence of the High Commissioner and were not a
60 Locus standi literally means ―a place of standing‖. It is judicial language for ―a right to be heard in court or other proceeding‖. In this case, the argument that UNHCR has no locus standi to protect persons within their own country means that UNHCR does not have the right to be heard in court or another proceeding when it is trying to protect persons within their own country: that protection has no legal basis, according to Goodwin-Gill.
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matter of direct concern to the UNHCR for ‗constitutional‘ and legal considerations.62
According to paragraph 2 of the Statute, the work of the UNHCR shall be of an entirely non-political character. Some critics claim that UNHCR‘s IDP operations are essentially induced by political interests of powerful industrialised states on which the organisation is financially dependent and that therefore, they threaten the organisation‘s non-political character. In this context, UNHCR‘s role in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia is important. While some authors claim that UNHCR‘s lead position there has led to its ‗subversion‘ and ‗politicisation‘, others commend UNHCR for its enterprising humanitarian role, which is said to have reinvented the organisation.63
Michael Barutciski64 argues that for a UN agency that is supposed to represent the various members of the General Assembly and that is explicitly prohibited by its mandate from intervening in political affairs, some of UNHCR‘s positions were contestable and appeared biased during the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia65 This suggests a declining non-political character of the UNHCR. He also claims that given UNHCR‘s limited deference to state sovereignty in various conflict situations, governments in less affluent parts of the world now have legitimate reasons to fear its presence.66 He doubts that in-country presence by UNHCR has been successful in preventing displacement.
Moreover, he calls the constant extension of the UNHCR‘s mandate ―institutional opportunism‖. To those who claim the extended mandate is an extension of flexibility and innovation, he responds that a regime that is not based on coherent and workable legal principles is destined to fail. Also, according to him, this confusion allows any capitulation to donor pressure to be distinguished as an innovative and flexible response. Thus, in undervaluing recognised sources of
62 Ibidem 202. 63 Ibidem 203. 64
Prior to joining York University and the Glendon faculty, Canada, Professor Barutciski directed the diplomacy program at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. He was during 4 years a member of Oxford University‘s department of international development. He has carried out research in conflict zones and refugee camps in Asia, Africa and the Balkans.
65
Michael Barutciski, ―A critical view on UNHCR‘s mandate dilemma‘s‖, International journal of refugee law 14 (2002) 375.
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international refugee law, this non-legal approach to UNHCR‘s mandate extension reflects an understanding of international relations in which legal positivism does not occupy a serious place, which is fundamentally wrong according to Barutciski.67
Apparently, the legal basis of humanitarian involvement, whether by UNHCR or any other organisation, is questioned by those who are concerned with the absence of political neutrality of this involvement and the neglect of the doctrine of absolute sovereignty of states.
Apart from the discussion on the status of the legal basis for humanitarian involvement described above, there have also been developments in the area of international law on IDPs. The next section will analyse these developments.
The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and the African Union
Convention for the protection and assistance of internally displaced persons in Africa.
IDPs remain entitled to enjoy the full range of human rights as well as those guarantees of international humanitarian law that are applicable to the citizens of that country in general. However, IDPs have special needs because of the fact of their displacement, and this requires special legal protection. At the same time, they are faced with the fact that, except for the African Union Convention for the protection and assistance of internally displaced persons in Africa (October, 2009) which has not entered into force yet, no specific international convention exists for the protection of their rights and that none of the innumerable provisions of international human rights, humanitarian and refugee law treaties explicitly addresses their plight. Thus, the challenge is to identify those guarantees and concepts implicit in the body of existing international law that respond to the special needs of IDPs, and to make this protection explicit. This is what the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement were developed for.
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The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement were developed by a team of international legal experts under the auspices of the first Secretary General‘s Special Representative on Internally Displaced Persons, Francis M. Deng, and presented to the Commission on Human Rights in 1998. The document details, in 30 principles, the specific meaning of the general human rights and humanitarian law guarantees for IDPs. It covers all three phases of internal displacement: the pre-displacement phase, the situation during pre-displacement, and the phase of return or resettlement and reintegration.
As the UN Representative of the Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons Francis Deng stressed at the time, the purpose of these Principles was ―to address the specific needs of internally displaced persons worldwide by identifying rights and guarantees relevant to their protection‖ and thus to provide guidance to the Representative in carrying out his mandate; to states when faced with the phenomenon of displacement; to all other authorities, groups and persons in their relations with IDPs; and to intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations when addressing internal displacement.68
Regarding their legal character, the Guiding Principles reflect and are consistent with international human rights law and international humanitarian law and restate the relevant principles applicable to the internally displaced. The Guiding Principles are, however, not a legally binding instrument. Unlike declarations, resolutions or recommendations by international organisations, they have not been negotiated by states but prepared by a team of experts in close consultation with the concerned agencies and organisations and then submitted to the UN Human rights commission. Thus, they do not even constitute typical soft law; they do not belong to those recommendations that rest on the consensus of states and thereby assume some authority that may be even taken into account in legal proceedings, but whose breach does not constitute a violation of international
68 Report of the Representative of the Secretary-General, Mr. Francis M. Deng, submitted pursuant to Commission resolution 1997/39, Addendum, Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/1998/53/Add.2, 11 February 1998, Introductory note to the Guiding Principles, paras. 9 and 10 http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/refworld/rwmain?page=search&docid=3d4f95e11
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law in the strict sense, and thus does not entail state responsibility.69 It is, on the other hand, possible to cite a multitude of existing legal provisions for almost every principle in the Guiding Principles, which provided the drafters with strong normative guidance. Even where language was used that was not to be found in existing treaty law, no new law in the strict sense of the word was created in most cases.70
Although the Guiding Principles are not legally binding, they are widely recognized by both states and organisations. In April 2005, the UN Human rights commission welcomed ―the fact that an increasing number of states, United Nations agencies and regional and non-governmental organizations are applying the Guiding Principles as standard‖, and encouraged ―all relevant actors to make use of the Guiding Principles when dealing with situations of internal displacement‖.71
The Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union) formally acknowledged the principles; the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) called on its member states to disseminate and apply them; and in the Horn of Africa, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), in a ministerial declaration, called the principles a ―useful tool‖ in the development of national policies on internal displacement. In Europe, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) recognised the principles as ―a useful framework for the work of the OSCE‖ in dealing with internal displacement, and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe urged its member states to incorporate the principles into their domestic laws.72 It is also encouraging that several states including Angola, Burundi, Colombia, Peru, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Uganda have made explicit reference to the Principles in their national laws and policies on internal displacement. However, as encouraging as this development is, some of the resulting laws and policy documents have not made
69
Walter Kalin, ―The guiding principles on internal displacement as international minimum standard and protection tool‖, Refugee survey quarterly 24 (2005) 27.
70 Ibidem 29.
71
United Nations, Commission on Human Rights, U.N. Doc.
E/CN.4/2005/L.60, (April 14, 2005) para. 7.
http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/LTD/G05/123/18/PDF/G0512318.pdf?OpenElement (last consulted 11 December 2009).
31
very clear how the rather abstract general principles of international law articulated by the Guiding Principles should translate into concrete action on the ground.73
Apart from the Guiding Principles, The African Union, in October 2009, adopted the African Union Convention for the protection and assistance of internally displaced persons in Africa (Kampala Convention). The African Union is the first regional organisation worldwide to adopt a legally binding instrument to protect the rights of internally displaced people. The Convention adopted by the heads of state in Kampala is the opportunity for the continent to be at the forefront of ensuring that the rights of displaced populations are upheld.
The Convention has been signed by 18 states until now and 15 of those must now ratify it for it to enter into force. By so doing they will commit to preventing arbitrary displacement, to the protection of the rights of displaced people, and to lasting solutions to displacement which recognise people‘s rights to voluntarily return home but also to settle in areas of displacement or elsewhere in their country. However, none of the 15 necessary African states have ratified the Convention until now.
So the Guiding Principles are a widely accepted minimal standard of protection, but they are not a treaty and not legally binding. For them to become binding, they have to be translated to domestic law, which is for any national government to decide. The African Union Convention is a treaty, but will not be legally binding until 15 African Union member states ratify the convention. Whether that shall happen in the future and if so, how long it will take for it to happen remains to be seen.
Conclusion.
In this chapter, developments of a legal basis for international involvement with IDPs from the 1950s on have been discussed. It has become clear that neither the UNHCR, nor any other institution has a generally accepted legal basis on which to interfere on behalf of IDPs inside the borders of any country. This means that many IDPs still fall through the cracks of the humanitarian response system. Although
32
UNHCR has assisted IDPs in an ad hoc manner, it has also resisted assisting IDPs in certain situations.
It has become clear that developing a legal basis for assisting IDPs to fill this protection gap has been extremely difficult because many believe that no agency should intervene in the sovereign business of states. Others believe, however, that IDPs are entitled to the same aid as refugees, since they find themselves in the same humanitarian need for assistance as refugees do. How this contradiction of opinions about the humanitarian involvement with IDPs can be explained and why it seems to be such an everlasting struggle, will be analysed in chapter 4.
Apart from a legal basis for humanitarian involvement with IDPs, the main reference points of international law for IDPs until now have been discussed: the Guiding Principles and the African Union Convention. It has been made clear that although the Guiding Principles are basically restatements of existing international humanitarian and human rights law and they are more and more widely accepted by states as well as international organisations and institutions, they are not legally binding. This means that there is no specific international law document, except for the African Union Convention, designed explicitly for IDPs that can actually be referred to in judicial proceedings. The African Union Convention is a step in the right direction and may well become the first legally binding treaty on IDPs, but it has only been signed recently and none of the necessary 15 African states have ratified it yet. Possible explanations for the absence of a legally binding document will also be given in chapter 4.
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Chapter 3. The international humanitarian aid problem concerning
IDPs from an organisational-political point of view.
Introduction.
It has been made clear in the previous chapter that within humanitarian organisations, there is a lack of sufficient mandates on the basis of which to assist IDPs inside their home countries. In this chapter, the extent to which the international humanitarian aid problem can be explained from an organisational-political point of view will be discussed. It will also be shown how this can be linked to the legal problem discussed in chapter 2. Not the least because without binding international law and a legal basis for humanitarian involvement concerning IDPs, it is hard for humanitarian aid actors to develop a solid regime to address the IDP problem. The other way around, the unwillingness to develop a solid regime to address the IDP problem can impede the process of developing international law and a legal basis for involvement concerning IDPs. As in the previous chapter, (geo-) political influences on the humanitarian aid problem will be addressed.
UNHCR’s (un)willingness to take responsibility for IDPs.
34
system (although some of them may have been covered by UN programmes targeting other vulnerable groups or vulnerable populations at large).74
In the previous chapter it has become clear that despite UNHCR‘s increasing involvement, the institutional response to crises of international displacement remained largely ad hoc and patchy. It has been repeated on many occasions in UNHCR official documents that the agency ―does not have general competence for internally displaced persons‖. Since the criteria for involvement mentioned in chapter 2 are ―purposely broad and flexible‖,75
one cannot predict whether UNHCR will get involved in any given IDP situation. Indeed, even when the criteria are met, this does not automatically lead to UNHCR‘s involvement.
For instance, one of the former High Commissioners, Ogata, turned down requests for UNHCR to intervene in Cambodia and Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1992. Loescher believes that the criteria for involvement were worded in such a way as to avoid a formal commitment to the internally displaced, while allowing for the flexibility to get involved in IDP emergencies which are considered to be politically important to address.76
Such finding was supported by a recent review of UNHCR‘s decisions to become involved in IDP situations. The criteria were not really meant to clarify the scale, scope, or duration of the UNHCR‘s operational involvement. Moreover, it is not always up to the agency to decide to engage in activities in favour of the internally displaced, as there must be a request from the Secretary-General or the General Assembly according to article 9 of the Statute.77 Nevertheless, the General Assembly has consistently supported UNHCR‘s work with internally displaced persons throughout the 1990s.78 This might be seen as a sign of unwillingness within the organisation to get involved in some situations that are politically sensitive. This would mean that Loescher´s arguments are credible in that the UNHCR avoids making a formal commitment to the internally displaced, but keeps room for flexibility to get involved when politically desirable. If it is true that there
74 Eschenbacher, ―The global internal displacement crisis‖ 54.
75 G. Loescher, The UNHCR and global politics: a perilous path (Oxford 2001) 294. 76 Ibidem 294.
77
C. Phuong, ―The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and internally displaced persons‖, Refugee survey quarterly 24 (2005) 75.
