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The UNHCR and World Politics: A Perilous Path
Over fifty years ago governments established the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to protect the world's refugees. The UNHCR was created to be a human rights and advocacy organization. But governments also created the agency to promote regional and international stability and to serve the interests of states. Consequently, the UNHCR has always trod a perilous path between its mandate to protect refugees and asylum seekers and the demands placed upon it by states to be a relevant actor in world politics. This is the first independent history of the UNHCR. Gil Loescher, one of the world's leading experts on refugee affairs, draws upon decades of personal experience and research to examine the origins and evolution of the UNHCR as well as to identify many of the major challenges facing the organization in the years ahead. A key focus is to examine the extent to which the evolution of the UNHCR has been framed by the crucial events of international politics during the past half century and how, in turn, the actions of the eight past High Commissioners have helped shape the course of world history.
Beyond Charity: International Cooperation and the Global Refugee Crisis
With more than 18 million refugees worldwide, the refugee problem tops the agenda in intergovernmental meetings and has fostered an intense debate regarding what political changes are necessary in the international system to provide effective solutions in the 1990s and beyond. In the past, refugees have been perceived largely as a problem of international charity, but as the end of the Cold War triggers new refugee movements across the globe, governments are being forced to develop a more systematic approach to the refugee problem. Beyond Charity provides the first extensive overview of the world refugee crisis today, asserting that refugees are a political issue and must be dealt with as such. Gil Loescher argues persuasively that a central challenge in the post Cold-War era is to develop a comprehensive refugee policy that preserves the right of asylum while promoting greater political and diplomatic efforts to address the causes of flight. He presents the contemporary crisis in a historical framework and explores the changing role of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees. Loescher suggests short-term and long-term reforms that address both the current refugee crisis and its underlying causes. The book also details the ways governmental structures and international organizations could be strengthened to assume more effective assistance, protection, and political mediation functions. Beyond Charity clarifies the complex issues surrounding the global refugee crisis and offers directions for more effective approaches to refugee problems at present and in the future.
The Need to Address Conditions in Regions of Refugee Origin
This publication formed part of a report on the conference 'Listening to the evidence: the future of UK resettlement', held in London on 6 February 2003. As the United Kingdom embarks on a new refugee resettlement programme, it is important to consider the conditions of reception, the protection environment and quality of asylum, the processing of refugee claims, and resettlement opportunities in regions of refugee origin. To ignore what is happening in these regions is to risk future failure of resettlement policy and to place refugees and asylum seekers in greater danger. In 2001 and 2002, as part of a team of researchers for the European Council on Refugees and Exiles and the US Committee for Refugees, Professor Loescher conducted field research in Kenya, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon in order to examine what is possible in these regions of refugee origin in terms of conditions of reception, protection environment, and quality of asylum, processing of refugee claims and resettlement opportunities. While refugee status determination (RSD) is carried out in all these states, primarily by UNHCR, and resettlement to the West does take place, including by a selective number of European states, the conditions to carry out refugee processing and resettlement in these regions are barely permissible by international standards and are extremely undependable.
West's finger is on trigger, but will it help Iraqi victims?
War in Iraq would spark an exodus of refugees, but the West is unlikely to welcome the displaced with open arms. Gil Loescher reports.
Refugees: A Very Short Introduction
Refugees and other forced migrants are one of the great contemporary challenges the world is confronting. Throughout the world people leave their home countries to escape war, natural disasters, and cultural and political oppression. Unfortunately, even today, the international community struggles to provide an adequate response to this vast population in need. This Very Short Introduction covers a broad range of issues around the causes and impact of the contemporary refugee crisis for both receiving states and societies, for global order, and for refugees and other forced migrants themselves. Gil Loescher discusses the identity of refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced persons and how they differ from other forced migrants. He also investigates the long history of the refugee phenomenon and how refugees became a central concern of the international community during the twentieth and twenty first centuries, as well as considering the responses provided by governments and international aid organisations to refugee needs. Loescher concludes by focussing on the necessity of these bodies to understand the realities of the contemporary refugee situation in order to best respond to its current and future challenges.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR): The Politics and Practice of Refugee Protection into the 21st Century
This is a concise and comprehensive introduction to both the world of refugees and the UN organization that protects and assists them. Written by experts in the field, this is one of the very few books that trace the relationship between state interests, global politics, and the work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR). Looking ahead into the twenty-first century, the authors outline how the changing nature of conflict and displacement poses UNHCR with a new array of challenges and how there exists a fundamental tension between the UN’s human rights agenda of protecting refugees fleeing conflict and persecution and the security, political and economic interests of states around the world.
Refugees in International Relations
Refugees lie at the heart of world politics. The causes and consequences of, and responses to, human displacement are intertwined with many of the core concerns of International Relations. Yet, scholars of International Relations have generally bypassed the study of refugees, and Forced Migration Studies has generally bypassed insights from International Relations. This volume therefore represents an attempt to bridge the divide between these disciplines, and to place refugees within the mainstream of International Relations. Drawing together the work and ideas of a combination of the world's leading and emerging International Relations scholars, the volume considers what ideas from International Relations can offer our understanding of the international politics of forced migration. The insights draw from across the theoretical spectrum of International Relations from realism to critical theory to feminism, covering issues including international cooperation, security, and the international political economy. They engage with some of the most challenging political and practical questions in contemporary forced migration, including peacebuilding, post-conflict reconstruction, and statebuilding. The result is a set of highly original chapters, yielding not only new concepts of wider relevance to International Relations but also insights for academics, policy-makers, and practitioners working on forced migration in particular and humanitarianism in general.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR): The Politics and Practice of Refugee Protection, 2nd Edition
This revised and expanded second edition of The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) continues to offer a concise and comprehensive introduction to both the world of refugees and the organizations that protect and assist them. This updated edition also includes: up to date coverage of the UNHCR’s most recent history and policy developments; evaluation of new thinking on issues such as working in UN integrated operations and within the UN peacebuilding commission; assessment of the UNHCR’s record of working for IDP’s (internally displaced persons); discussion of the politics of protection and its implications for the work of the UNHCR; outline of the new challenges for the agency including environmental refugees, victims of natural disasters and survival migrants. Written by experts in the field, this is one of the very few books to trace the relationship between state interests, global politics, and the work of the UNHCR. This book will appeal to students, scholars, practitioners, and readers with an interest in international relations.
Protracted Refugee Situations: Political, Human Rights and Security Implications
Over two-thirds of the world’s refugees are trapped in protracted refugee situations, struggling to survive in remote and insecure parts of the world. This volume brings together a collection of eminent scholars and practitioners to explore the sources, nature and consequences of these situations and the record of the international community’s attempts to find durable solutions. On this basis, the volume presents new thinking to address protracted refugee situations that incorporates security and development—as well as humanitarian—actors and attempts to reconcile the policy difficulties which have obstructed progress for many years.
Responding to protracted refugee situations: lessons from a decade of discussion
This RSC Policy Briefing analyses the impact of protracted displacement on the human rights and access to livelihoods of millions of people and examine how protracted displacement situations accentuate the risk of chronic regional insecurity, fragility and conflict spillover. Through tracing the history of international responses to protracted refugee situations (PRS), the brief examine the complexity of the negotiations process that led to the adoption of the 2009 UNHCR Executive Committee Conclusion on PRS while suggesting steps that will be required from a broad range of actors if there is to be an adequate response to PRS in the future.
Human rights and forced migration
Book description: Comprehensive human rights textbook which takes politics students beyond a legal approach to human rights, combining coverage of core approaches with detailed studies of key issues; Makes extensive use of case studies to illustrate key points and emphasize the practical and political dynamics of human rights; Takes a multi-disciplinary approach, drawing together contributions from political and social scientists, philosophers, lawyers, and policy experts; Ensures that students are up to date with cutting edge research in a constantly evolving field; Includes practical chapters and well-received pedagogical features.
UNHCR and the global governance of refugees
Book description: Unlike many other trans-boundary policy areas, international migration lacks coherent global governance. There is no UN migration organization and states have signed relatively few multilateral treaties on migration. Instead sovereign states generally decide their own immigration policies. However, given the growing politicisation of migration and the recognition that states cannot always address migration in isolation from one another, a debate has emerged about what type of international institutions and cooperation are required to meet the challenges of international migration. Until now, though, that emerging debate on global migration governance has lacked a clear analytical understanding of what global migration governance actually is, the politics underlying it, and the basis on which we can make claims about what 'better' migration governance might look like. In order to address this gap, the book brings together a group of the world's leading experts on migration to consider the global governance of different aspects of migration. The chapters offer an accessible introduction to the global governance of low-skilled labour migration, high-skilled labour migration, irregular migration, lifestyle migration, international travel, refugees, internally displaced persons, human trafficking and smuggling, diaspora, remittances, and root causes. Each of the chapters explores the three same broad questions: What, institutionally, is the global governance of migration in that area? Why, politically, does that type of governance exist? How, normatively, can we ground claims about the type of global governance that should exist in that area? Collectively, the chapters enhance our understanding of the international politics of migration and set out a vision for international cooperation on migration.
A universal mandate to protect: the challenge of refugee protection
This article argues that UNHCR must preserve a careful balance between engaging in the political interests of its donors and allowing them to shape its agenda.
Protracted Refugee Situations: Domestic and International Security Implications
Protracted refugee populations not only constitute over 70% of the world’s refugees but are also a principal source of many of the irregular movements of people around the world today. The long-term presence of refugee populations in much of the developing world has come to be seen by many host states in these regions as a source of insecurity. In response, host governments have enacted policies of containing refugees in isolated and insecure camps, have prevented the arrival of additional refugees and, in extreme cases, have engaged in forcible repatriation. Not surprisingly, these refugee populations are also increasingly perceived as possible sources of insecurity for Western states. Refugee camps are sometimes breeding grounds for international terrorism and rebel movements. These groups often exploit the presence of refugees to engage in activities that destabilise not only host states but also entire regions.
The long road home: protracted refugee situations in Africa
Since the early 1990s, the international response to refugee emergencies has focused on delivering humanitarian assistance to war-affected populations, and encouraging large-scale repatriation programmes in high-profile regions such as the Balkans, the African Great Lakes or, recently, Darfur and Chad. The majority of today’s over 12 million refugees, however, are trapped in protracted refugee situations. Such situations – often characterised by long periods of exile, stretching to decades for some groups – occur on most continents in environments ranging from camps to rural settlements and urban centres. In addition, a large proportion of the world’s internally displaced people, around 25m (about half of them in Africa), have been displaced for a decade or more.
Protracted refugee situations: the search for practical solutions
Report description: The majority of today’s refugees have lived in exile for far too long, restricted to camps or eking out a meagre existence in urban centres throughout the developing world. Most subsist in a state of limbo, and are often dependent on others to find solutions to their plight. Their predicament is similar to that of the tens of thousands of refugees who stagnated in camps in Western Europe in the 1950s and 1960s. The High Commissioner for Refugees at the time, Gerrit van Heuven Goedhart, called those camps ‘black spots on the map of Europe’ that should ‘burn holes in the consciences of all those privileged to live in better conditions’. If the situation persisted, he said, the problems of refugees would fester and his office would be reduced to ‘simply administering human misery’. The issue of displaced persons in Europe was finally settled some 20 years after the end of the Second World War; today’s protracted refugee crises, however, show no signs of being resolved in the near future.
The global crisis of protracted displacement
One of the most complex and difficult humanitarian problems confronting the international community today is that of protracted refugee situations. These are refugee situations that have moved beyond the emergency phase, but where solutions in the foreseeable future do not exist. Many of the refugees left behind in these situations have to live under terrible conditions, warehoused in camps or stuck in shanty towns, exposed to dangers, and with restrictions placed upon their rights and freedoms.
Introduction
Book description: Refugees lie at the heart of world politics. The causes and consequences of, and responses to, human displacement are intertwined with many of the core concerns of International Relations. Yet, scholars of International Relations have generally bypassed the study of refugees, and Forced Migration Studies has generally bypassed insights from International Relations. This volume therefore represents an attempt to bridge the divide between these disciplines, and to place refugees within the mainstream of International Relations. Drawing together the work and ideas of a combination of the world's leading and emerging International Relations scholars, the volume considers what ideas from International Relations can offer our understanding of the international politics of forced migration. The insights draw from across the theoretical spectrum of International Relations from realism to critical theory to feminism, covering issues including international cooperation, security, and the international political economy. They engage with some of the most challenging political and practical questions in contemporary forced migration, including peacebuilding, post-conflict reconstruction, and statebuilding. The result is a set of highly original chapters, yielding not only new concepts of wider relevance to International Relations but also insights for academics, policy-makers, and practitioners working on forced migration in particular and humanitarianism in general.
Protracted refugee situations and the regional dynamics of peacebuilding
The international community's approach to refugees focuses largely on mass influx situations and high profile refugee emergencies, delivering humanitarian assistance to refugees and war-affected populations, and encouraging large-scale repatriation programmes. In stark contrast, of the total number of refugees in the world (which exceeds 10 million) some 70%—or 7.7 million—are not in emergencies, but trapped in protracted refugee situations. Such situations, often characterised by long periods of exile, stretching to decades for some groups, constitute a growing challenge for the international refugee protection regime and the international community. While global refugee populations have fallen to their lowest in many years, the number of protracted refugee situations and their duration continue to increase. There are now well over 30 protracted refugee situations in the world, and the average duration of these refugee situations has nearly doubled over the past decade: from an average of nine years in 1993 to 17 years in 2004.
Burma: refugees and regional relations
For nearly sixty years, the regime in Rangoon has remained in power by preventing democratic change and waging war against the country's numerous ethnic nationality parties. This is the oldest ongoing conflict in the world. At the end of May, in response to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's appeal to free Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Prize winning prodemocracy activist, the military regime extended her house arrest for at least another year. This step is the latest demonstration of the unwillingness of the military regime to share power. As a direct consequence of the fighting and in response to sustained and widespread human rights violations throughout the country, hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced and huge numbers of refugees have fled to neighbouring countries.