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Found 67 matches for Protecting
Protecting People in Conflict and Crisis: Responding to the Challenges of a Changing World
Ten years ago the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) defined humanitarian protection as including “all activities aimed at obtaining full respect for the rights of the individual in accordance with the letter and spirit of the relevant bodies of law (i.e. human rights, humanitarian and refugee law).” Since then humanitarian protection has received growing attention within the humanitarian sector, becoming not one of the central aims of the international community but also one of its greatest challenges. This conference, which was hosted by the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC) in collaboration with the Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) and with generous support from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, convened over 180 participants from more than 40 countries to discuss the current state of humanitarian protection research, policy and practice, with a view to developing new ideas for the protection of people in conflict and crisis in the 21st century. The conference revolved around six thematic tracks: concepts of protection; the politics of protection; populations at risk; protection, security and the military; national and regional responsibilities to protect; protection in practice. Eighty-four papers were presented and it is impossible to represent the depth, richness and complexity of the debates that took place. With that in mind however, a number of key themes emerged strongly, particularly around the challenges faced by humanitarian practitioners seeking to deliver ‘protection’ in a hostile world and the role which academics could play in addressing these challenges. The text below provides some reflections of those themes.
Protecting Forced Migrants: A State of the Art Report of Concepts, Challenges and Ways Forward
This study, commissioned by the Swiss Federal Commission on Migration, investigates how the complex and multi-causal nature of forced displacement in the contemporary world has contributed to an increasing range of protection gaps and to the diminution of protection space for refugees, and especially the increasing number of people who fall outside the recognised refugee and asylum apparatus. The study explores the current and future challenges to the provision of protection, and makes recommendations on how these challenges might be met and how protection can be enhanced. The study report is available from the Commission in both English and French.
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.
Protection by Persuasion: International Cooperation in the Refugee Regime
States located near crisis zones are most likely to see an influx of people fleeing from manmade disasters; African states, for instance, are forced to accommodate and adjust to refugees more often than do European states far away from sites of upheaval. Geography dictates that states least able to pay the costs associated with refugees are those most likely to have them cross their borders. Therefore, refugee protection has historically been characterized by a North-South impasse. While Southern states have had to open their borders to refugees fleeing conflict or human rights abuses in neighboring states, Northern states have had little obligation or incentive to contribute to protecting refugees in the South. In recent years, however, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has sought to foster greater international cooperation within the global refugee regime through special conferences at which Northern states are pushed to contribute to the costs of protection for refugees in the South. These initiatives, Alexander Betts finds in Protection by Persuasion, can overcome the North-South impasse and lead to significant cooperation. Betts shows that Northern states will contribute to such efforts when they recognize a substantive relationship between refugee protection in the South and their own interests in such issues as security, immigration, and trade. Highlighting the mechanisms through which UNHCR has been able to persuade Northern states that such links exist, Protection by Persuasion makes clear that refugee protection is a global concern, most effectively addressed when geographic realities are overridden by the perception of interdependence.
Human rights and the elusive universal subject: immigration detention under international human rights and EU law
The right to liberty is ubiquitous in human rights instruments, in essence protecting all individuals from arbitrary arrest and detention. Yet, in practice, immigration detention is increasingly routine, even automatic, across Europe. Asylum seekers in particular have been targeted for detention. While international human rights law limits detention, its protections against immigration detention are weaker than in other contexts, as the state's immigration control prerogatives are given sway. In spite of the overlapping authority of international and regional human rights bodies, the caselaw in this field is diverse. Focusing on the U.N. Human Rights Committee, the European Court of Human Rights, and the Court of Justice of the European Union, this Article explores how greater interaction between these bodies could produce more rights-protective standards.
Civilian protection in Sri Lanka under threat
The papers by Benson and Fonseka are based on presentations given at the September 2009 conference hosted by the RSC on Protecting People in Conflict and Crisis: Responding to the Challenges of a Changing World. The paper by Satkunanathan was presented in a follow-up roundtable discussion on Post War Future in Sri Lanka hosted by the RSC and the Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity. These papers contribute to the debate on humanitarianism and civilian protection. They discuss the contradictions, tensions, ambiguities and dilemmas of UN and international organisations in protecting civilians in times of conflict. Benson describes UNHCR's work on both needs and rights in Sri Lanka during the peace process, particularly with regards to IDPs, at a time when the organisation's mandate was expanding to cover more rights-based protection. Satkunanathan's paper describes the tension faced by the agencies between addressing protection and assistance needs of the displaced population. Finally, Fonseka's paper is a useful summary of the dilemmas and constraints faced by humanitarian workers and NGOs within the post-war situation, and highlights many of the problems faced by activists who are working inside Sri Lanka.
Introduction: conservation and mobile peoples (In: Conservation and Mobile Indigenous Peoples: Displacement, Forced Settlement, and Sustainable Development)
The close of the twentieth century has witnessed an upsurge in international concern about people's impact on the natural environment. As pressure on natural resources has intensified, the conventional means of protecting habitat and preventing species extinctions, through the establishment of 'protected areas', has increasingly come into question. Conventional conservation approaches have been accused of ignoring the wider forces causing environmental damage and, even, of being part of the same mind-set, which imposes land use categories from the 'top-down', classifying lands as protected areas or zones. This, say the critics, has only legitimized and encouraged unsustainable land use outside protected areas, placing further pressure on natural resources and the beleaguered protected areas them-selves. Some have, thus, demanded broader changes in national and global economies and focused attention on the underlying causes of environmental destruction - social injustice, the lack of secure land tenure, the enclosure of the commons, consumerism, the rise of corporations, global trade, and government collusion or indifference (WRM 1990; IUCN 1991; Colchester and Lohmann 1993; Ecologist 1993; Verolme and Moussa 1999; Barraclough and Ghimire 2000; Wood et al. 2000).
Asylum Policy
This policy primer examines some of the key questions underlying the UK’s asylum policy, focusing on the challenges and tensions between protecting human rights and ensuring that immigration controls are not undermined.
Refugees’ Right to Work and Access to Labor Markets – An Assessment. Part I: Synthesis
For refugees, the right to work is vital for reducing vulnerability, enhancing resilience, and securing dignity. Harnessing refugees’ skills can also benefit local economic activity and national development. But there are many obstacles. Based on a sample of 20 countries hosting 70 percent of the world’s refugees, this study investigates the role and impact of legal and normative provisions providing and protecting refugees’ right to work within the 1951 Refugee Convention as well as from the perspective of nonsignatory states. Three metrics analyze the principle determinants of the right to work and labor market access: refugee and employment law, policies and practices that facilitate or constrain the right to work, and mediating socioeconomic conditions. Overall the study finds remarkable diversity in legal provisions and constraints on refugees’ right to work. A restrictive approach to the right to work prevails, and most states are reluctant to ease these restrictions. The majority of refugees work in the informal sector, but under much less satisfactory and more exploitative conditions compared with nationals. Informal labor markets are also constrained in countries with fragile economies which often host large numbers of refugees. Based on its findings, the study concludes that more national and international coordination is required, multiple actors should share in the responsibility to deliver decent work, labor market policies as well as training and education should be harnessed to support sustainable livelihoods, and refugee social capital should be more effectively engaged.
Refugees’ Right to Work and Access to Labor Markets – An Assessment. Part II: Country Cases
For refugees, the right to work is vital for reducing vulnerability, enhancing resilience, and securing dignity. Harnessing refugees’ skills can also benefit local economic activity and national development. But there are many obstacles. Based on a sample of 20 countries hosting 70 percent of the world’s refugees, this study investigates the role and impact of legal and normative provisions providing and protecting refugees’ right to work within the 1951 Refugee Convention as well as from the perspective of nonsignatory states. Three metrics analyze the principle determinants of the right to work and labor market access: refugee and employment law, policies and practices that facilitate or constrain the right to work, and mediating socioeconomic conditions. Overall the study finds remarkable diversity in legal provisions and constraints on refugees’ right to work. A restrictive approach to the right to work prevails, and most states are reluctant to ease these restrictions. The majority of refugees work in the informal sector, but under much less satisfactory and more exploitative conditions compared with nationals. Informal labor markets are also constrained in countries with fragile economies which often host large numbers of refugees. Based on its findings, the study concludes that more national and international coordination is required, multiple actors should share in the responsibility to deliver decent work, labor market policies as well as training and education should be harnessed to support sustainable livelihoods, and refugee social capital should be more effectively engaged.
Why they are not refugees – Climate change, environmental degradation and population displacement
Increasing attention is given to the potential for environmental degradation and climate change to be instruments of population displacement. Those susceptible to displacement have been labelled “environmental refugees”. Whilst recognising the importance of protecting livelihoods, societies and human rights of people who might be displaced, the paper challenges this label. First the paper examines the derivation and origins of the label “environmental refugees”. Second the paper challenges the conceptual, normative and empirical basis for this terminology. The final section highlights the three “Rs” of “rights”, “resilience” and “resettlement” as a more proactive and comprehensive framework for responding to the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation and the challenges of displacement.