Change and Challenge at UNHCR: A Retrospective of the Past Fifty Years

Refuge

Volumn 19, Issue 6, 2001, Pages 45-53

  Hyndman, Jennifer ^a  

^a SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84937338489     PISSN: 02295113     EISSN: 19207336     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.25071/1920-7336.21238     Document Type: Article

References (54)

1. M. Barutciski, “Confusion about UNHCR’s Role,” UNHCR and International Refugee Protection, by D. McNamara and G. Goodwin-Gill (Refugee Studies Programme Working Paper No. 2, June 1999), 2.
2. J. Boutwell and M. T. Klare. “A Scourge of Small Arms,” Scientific American (June 2000): 47–55.
3. Francis M. Deng, “The International Protection of the Internally Displaced,” International Journal of Refugee Law (summer 1995): 74–86.
4. Dennis McNamara notes that UNHCR does have a supervisory role under Article 35 of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. See D. McNamara, “Opening Address,” in UNHCR and International Refugee Protection, 6.
5. US Committee for Refugees, World Refugee Survey, 2000 (Washington, DC: Immigration and Refugee Service of America, 2000), 9. Note that four more states are signatories to only the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, including the US, Venezuela, Swaziland, and Cape Verde.
6. James C. Hathaway, The Law of Refugee Status (Markham/ Vancouver: Butterworths, 1991).
7. Ibid., 8.
8. The Convention entered into force April 22, 1954; this excerpt is taken from note 27, Article 1(A)(1), cited in Hathaway, “The Law of Refugee Status,” 6.
9. McNamara, “Opening Address,” 8.
10. Fifteen years later, in 1966, two legally binding human rights instruments were created to protect civil and political rights on the one hand, and on the other, economic, social, and cultural rights. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights most closely expresses the emphasis of the Convention. It ensures respect for citizens, regardless of language, religion, sex, political opinion, etc., as well as “the right to liberty of movement and freedom”; The State of the World’s Refugees: The Challenge of Protection (Toronto: Penguin, 1993), 164. The Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights includes provisions that are more applicable to the so-called developing world than to Western countries, such as the right to food, shelter, and basic medical and educational services. While the first covenant applies to individuals, the second refers to particular groups of people.
11. Hathaway, “The Law of Refugee Status,” 6.
12. Ibid., 9.
13. Article 2 of The Statute of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (1950) in UNHCR, 1993, op. cit., 162.
14. Article 2 of The Statute of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (1950) in UNHCR, 1993, op. cit., 162.
15. Louise Holborn, Refugees: A Problem of Our Time: The Work of UNHCR 1951–72 (N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1975).
16. Guy S. Goodwin-Gill, “The Language of Protection,” International Journal of Refugee Law 1, no. 1 (1989), 10.
17. Ibid., 12.
18. Good offices referred to the office of UNHCR, which could be called upon on a discretionary basis to undertake special missions or to fill in gaps where the organization’s mandate or statute did not apply.
19. Holborn, Refugees: A Problem of Our Time, 838.
20. Ibid., 440.
21. Ibid., 294.
22. Ibid., 837.
23. Statement of R. Rochefort of France, UN Doc A/CONF.2/ SR.22 at 15, July 16, 1951, emphasis added; cited in Hathaway, “The Law of Refugee Status,” 7.
24. Hathaway, “The Law of Refugee Status.”
25. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (Cleveland/ New York: Meridian, 1958).
26. Hathaway, “The Law of Refugee Status,” 93.
27. Ibid., 18.
28. Ibid., 18–19; emphasis added.
29. As international law, the OAU Convention is legally binding and applicable to all signatory states. The OAS definition is based on the Cartegena Declaration, which, like the UN Declaration of Human Rights, is not binding. The ten states that signed the Cartegena Declaration in 1984 basically agreed to a definition of refugee similar to that enacted by the OAU, though not quite as comprehensive in terms of protection.
30. Ibid., 21.
31. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention against Torture, as well as the Declaration of Human Rights and the two international covenants, are also relevant instruments.
32. Hathaway, “The Law of Refugee Status,” 26.
33. The Economist, “Get Out, Maybe,” reprinted in the Globe and Mail, February 20, 1996.
34. Convention refugees, as noted, are those defined in law under the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol.
35. The source of this information is an e-mail transcript in response to request for clarification of UNHCR’s interpretation of these terms in Kenya, June 12, 1996.
36. Mandate refugees do not meet the eligibility criteria of the Convention definition, yet are designed as in need of protection by UNHCR on the basis of its mandate, as outlined in the statute. Some countries may recognize their protection needs and designate their status as mandate refugees; some may not. I thank Viktor Nylund for his comprehensive tutorials in making this clear to me.
37. Francis M. Deng, “The International Protection of the Internally Displaced,” International Journal of Refugee Law (summer 1995): 82.
38. Articles 13.2 and 14 of the UN Declaration outline these rights. Article 15 states, “(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality; (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his [sic] nationality nor denied the right to change his [sic] nationality.” See Annex II.3 in UNHCR, The State of the World’s Refugees: The Challenge of Protection (New York: Penguin, 1993).
39. Interview, senior manager, UNHCR, Geneva, October 18, 1994.
40. Aristide Zolberg, “Migrants and Refugees: A Historical Perspective,” Refugees 91 (1992): 37.
41. Hathaway, “The Law of Refugee Status.”
42. This impetus resonates with Canadian immigration law that became exclusionary only in the late 1870s and early 1880s.
43. Holborn, Refugees: A Problem of Our Time, 153.
44. Guy Goodwin-Gill cited in James Hathaway, “Reconceiving Refugee Law as Human Rights Protection,” Journal of Refugee Studies 4, no. 2 (1991): 116. See also Jennifer Hyndman, Managing Displacement: Refugees and the Politics of Humanitarianism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000).
45. Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 288.
46. Ibid., 286, 296.
47. J. Hyndman, “International Responses to Human Displacement: Neo-liberalism and Post–Cold War Geopolitics,” Refuge 15, no. 3 (June 1996), 5–9.
48. J. Boutwell and M. T. Klare. “A Scourge of Small Arms,” Scientific American (June 2000): 51.
49. Comparing both per capita GNP contributions and total contributions over the decade, the US Committee for Refugees (1992, 1995, 2000) documents a steady climb in donations from countries in the North. For example, the US contributed $1.10 per capita or $277.73 million total in 1991; $1.53 per capita or $397.74 million in 1994; and $1.63 per capita or $444.9 million in 1999. Norway, as the most generous non-G7 country, donated $11.28 per capita or $48.51 million in 1991; $13.53 per capita or $58.2 million in 1994; and $15.62 per capita or $70.3 million in 1999; see US Committee for Refugees, World Refugee Survey, 2000 (Washington, DC: Immigration and Refugee Service of America, 1992, 1995, 2000).
50. Barutciski, “Confusion about UNHCR’s Role,” 2. As of January 1, 2001, UNHCR has a staff of 5000; see Mike Crawley, “UN Refugee Agency Turns 50,” Globe and Mail, January 1, 2001.
51. UNHCR, The State of the World’s Refugees: In Search of Solutions (Oxford/NY: Oxford University Press, 1995), 255.
52. Crawley, “UN Refugee Agency Turns 50.”
53. Barutciski, “Confusion about UNHCR’s Role,” 3.
54. Rosemary Rogers & Emily Copeland, Forced Migration: Policy Issues in the Post–Cold War World (Massachusetts: Tufts University, 1993).