UNHCR 2022 People Forced To Flee






People
Forced
to Flee
History, Change
and Challenge
Author: Ninette Kelley
Associate Editor: Preeta Law

Researchers and Analysts: Karolin Eberle and Denise Baruch-Kotulla
Research Assistant: Alexandra Holmes
Copy Editor: Michael Hunter
Assistant Copy Editor: Shannon Lee Mouillesseaux
Advisors: Ewen Macleod, Grainne O’Hara
Production Manager: Mike Walton

Production Coordinators: Françoise Jaccoud, Russell Neal
Designer: Vincent Winter Associés (VWA)
Photo Editors: VWA, Tessa Asamoah, Anne Kellner
Statisticians: Edgar Scrase, Zaruhi Mkrtchyan, Ennie Shonhiwa-Chikwanha
Graphic Designers: Younghee Lee, Eilidh Urquhart
Cartographer: Yvon Orand
Cover artwork: “The Sphere” © UNHCR / Younghee Lee. The Sphere allows room for
interpretation. It could be an organism, a globe or the universe. Shifting sands. The aim is
to provoke deeper thought, empathy and resonance
Acknowledgements
In writing People Forced to Flee – History, Change and Challenge, I have been
fortunate to work with a committed, talented team and to draw on wide expertise
from within UNHCR and externally. Not least, there are the broad range of research
papers and commentaries marking the 70th anniversary of the 1951 Convention
relating to the Status of Refugees. A number of these authors have agreed to have
their work posted on our website at (www.unhcr.org/people-forced-to-flee-book),
and are indicated with an asterisk (*) below. I am also grateful to many colleagues
for their comments on drafts of the book.
Within UNHCR sincere thanks go to: Allehone Abebe, Denis Alma Kuindje,
Benoit d’Ansembourg, Hiroko Araki, Maria Bances del Rey, Vidjea Barathy
Ramamurthy, Christian Baureder, Emily Bojovic, Veronika Burget, Jean Paul
Cavalieri, Cirenia Chavez Villegas, Samuel Cheung*, Vincent Cochetel, Lisa
Fergusson-Nicol, Marco Formisano, Davina Gateley Saïd*, Nathalie Antoinette
Goetschi, Karen Gulick, Irina Isomova, Kerstin Jones, Elibritt Karlsen, Jasmine
Ketabchi, Shaden Khallaf, Susanne Klink, Katharina Lumpp, Mai Mahmoud, Isabel
Marquez, Pedro Mendes, Isabel Michal, Juan Ignacio Mondelli*, Debra Moore,
Alexander Mundt, Angela Murru*, Jerome Nhan, Edward O’Dwyer, Kate O’Malley,
Zeeshan Qamar, Roua Rahrah, Jennifer Roberts, Yasmine Rockenfeller, Annabelle
Roig Granjon, Marian Schilperoord, Volker Schimmel, Natalie Schmidthaeussler,
Salam Shahin, Rebecca Telford, Senai Terrefe, Alexander Tyler, Giuseppe Uniformi,
Pieter Ventevogel, Catherine Wiesner, Michelle Yonetani, and Jeanette Zuefle.
Indispensable administrative help has been provided throughout from Caroline
Charmaine Torres, Jose Rodriguez Viquez, Alexandre Sarr, Ellen Joy Sibal. Special
thanks to Jean-Nicolas Beuze, Sibylle Kapferer, Ewen Macleod, Grainne O’Hara and
Edgar Scrase for going beyond the call of duty in their careful review and comments
of previous drafts.
The World Bank and the Joint Data Center have provided considerable support
for this book under the direction of Xavier Devictor, and the positive and insightful
coordination of Caroline Verney Sergeant. Their thoughts and comments as well as
those of the following colleagues have been invaluable: Dina Abu-Ghaida*, Alain
Aeschlimann*, Michel Botzung, Ozan Cakmak*, Paola Elice*, Björn Gillsäter, Melissa
Johns, Doreen Kibuka-Musoke*, Natalia Krynsky Baal*, Zara Sarzin*, Karishma
Silva*, Domenico Tabasso* and Weiyi Wang*.
A range of academics, think tanks, and non-governmental organizations
have provided rich and varied support. Within and alongside it, are the invaluable
contributions of people with lived experience of being forcibly displaced. Sincerest
thanks to: Tsion Tadesse Abebe*, Alex Aleinikoff, David Cantor, Tatiana Castillo
Betancourt*, Christelle Cazabat*, Cathryn Costello*, Bina Desai*, Filippo Dionigi*,
Evan Easton-Calabria*, David Scott FitzGerald, Rez Gardi*, François Gemenne*,
Robert Hakiza*, Tristan Harley*, Claire Higgins, Elodie Hut*, Dragana Kaurin*,
Fatima Khan*, Christa Kuntzelman*, Adam Lichtenheld*, Susan Martin, Charles
Martin-Shields*, James Milner*, Vitit Muntarbhorn*, Phil Orchard*, Nandi Rayner*,
Sevin Sagnic, Angela Sherwood*, Paul Spiegel, David Sulewski*, Jina Elise Swartz,
Chloe Sydney*, Joseph Kofi Teye, Dzifa Torvikey, Tamara Wood*, Louisa Yasukawa*,
Caroline Zickgraf* and Pascal Zigashane*.
Several interns have provided valued research help. Warm thanks to Diana
Castillo Villaseñor, Liam Comer-Weaver, Danielle Douglas, Talia Gerstle, Niyonella
Kamera, Johannes Lang, Kanika Mahajan, and Julie Meier. A number of students
also dedicated time to writing term papers on subjects canvassed in these pages
under the supervision of Peter Hoffmann and Achilles Kallergis of The New School:
Isabel Arciniegas Guaneme, Ruben Cruz Valladares, Evelina Dahlgren, Emmanuel
Guerisoli, Leah Guyot, Julie Kim, Jessica Matis, Eugenia Nikitina, Brooke Pascarella,
Maria Julia Rivas Mor Mur, Robert Seebeck and Jodit Woldemichael.
People Forced to Flee shows how living up to humanity’s ambition to improve

responses to forced displacement is complex. It has never been easy to turn words
honouring the spirit of the 1951 Convention into the policy and best practice that
can maximize the life chances of millions of the world’s most vulnerable people.
To do so, and to deliver on the ambition of the Global Compact on Refugees, we
need the political will of States combined with the commitment of multilateral
institutions, civil society, non-governmental national and international partners,
academics and those with lived forced displacement experience.
This book has been enriched by wide engagement from all of them.
Ninette Kelley
September 2021
Preface
by the United Nations Secretary-General
The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees — crafted in the wake of
the horrors of the Second World War, and amid massive forced displacement
— established the rights of refugees and the obligations of States towards them.
As we mark its 70th anniversary, this monumental achievement remains the
foundation upon which millions of refugees find protection every day.
Today, we can find the Convention’s influence across regional refugee instru-
ments, as well as protection frameworks for internally displaced persons and
those fleeing environmental damage and natural hazards.
But while this anniversary is a time to recognize accomplishments, it is not
a moment for complacency.
The number of people forced to flee their homes due to conflict, violence,
persecution, extremism and climate events continues to soar. In 2008, as High
Commissioner for Refugees, I called attention to the unprecedented global
levels of forced displacement. Since then, the number has more than doubled,
reaching over 82 million forcibly displaced people today.
Most forced displacement occurs in low and middle-income countries
already struggling to meet the needs of their people. Humanitarian and
development assistance is growing, but so too are the demands, which too
often outstrip available resources. At the same time, some parts of the wealthier
world have, at times, closed their doors to people fleeing violence and
persecution.
The humanitarian and development impact of forced displacement is cata-
strophic. But so is the human toll. We must never forget that behind each
number is a story of deep personal suffering — a stark reminder of how quickly
lives can be upended, and how critical it is to support people at this most
vulnerable moment in their lives.
That is why this book — People Forced to Flee: History, Change and Challenge
— is so valuable and timely.
Tracing the roots of asylum from the beginning of recorded history, this
book highlights the major achievements of the last 70 years to protect and
support forcibly displaced people, while exploring setbacks along the way.
The book shows the importance of sustained engagement by governments
and development partners in supporting the forcibly displaced, as well as the
vital role of dedicated financing instruments to assist host countries.
It showcases significant policy changes in host countries that have helped
refugees access education, health services and employment, so they can build
better futures for themselves while contributing to their new communities.
It outlines the increasingly close partnerships between humanitarian
and development actors, including around a shared approach to data, evidence,
and context and risk analysis to drive greater results on the ground.
Above all, it demonstrates the critical importance of a broad range of
partners lending their comparative advantages, experience and expertise to
support those people enduring forced displacement. Public and private part-
ners are increasingly joined by civil society and faith-based partners and, most
importantly, forcibly displaced persons themselves in designing and deliver-
ing solutions.
Guided by the lessons of past experience — triumphs and failures alike
— two new multilateral Compacts hold great promise to address imbalances
and provide a blueprint for the future: the Global Compact on Refugees and the
Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. They outline critical
actions to support refugees and migrants and the communities in which they live.
While the ambitions struck in the 2018 Compacts are on the path to being
realized, significant challenges remain, as set out clearly in this publication.
Our task today is to build on this important work, and to gather more
people to our efforts — from people already engaged in this field, to students
of history, forced displacement studies and related disciplines. To them, this
book will be of great value and inspiration.
But I also hope it will spur the broader community of nations to make
bolder efforts on prevention, so we can address the root causes that drive
so many millions of people to flee. I have set this out in more detail in Our
Common Agenda report (www.un.org/en/content/common-agenda-report).
Let us learn from the lessons of this book, increase global support for people
fleeing peril and danger, and find new ways to build safer and more under-
standing communities and societies for all people.
António Guterres
Foreword
by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Seventy years have passed since nations seeking to recover from the devastation
of the Second World War drew up the landmark 1951 Convention relating to
the Status of Refugees.
In that time, the Convention (along with its 1967 Protocol) has formed the
basis of international protection of millions of refugees. It has been comple-
mented by several regional treaties, such as the OAU Convention and the
Cartegena Declaration, and other human rights instruments, allowing the
original concepts to apply to evolving contexts.
To mark the 70th anniversary of the 1951 Convention, UNHCR is releas-
ing People Forced to Flee: History, Change and Challenge, which traces the path
that led to that historic moment and then follows it through seven decades
up to the present day.
This book takes up the mantle of a series of publications, stretching back to
1993, that were previously entitled The State of the World’s Refugees. In the almost
ten years since the last edition, the global population of forcibly displaced
people has soared, to 82.4 million at the end of 2020 and rising – almost double
the number a decade ago.
The number will continue to grow so long as longstanding conflicts go
unresolved and major new emergencies arise. The failure to resolve conflict
has forced some refugees, often alongside migrants, to make perilous and
sometimes fatal journeys in search of safety. Displacement associated with the
climate emergency is adding a new dimension – one that is already a reality
for millions.
Amid this torrent of challenges, every so often it is wise to take stock. This
is the purpose of People Forced to Flee: to draw on the lessons of history in order
to examine how we can improve responses to forced displacement today and
tomorrow.
The task of protecting people forced to flee has always faced serious chal-
lenges. Humanitarian funding, despite the sustained generosity of govern-
ments, individuals and the private sector, has never been fully commensurate
with the level of need. For many of the forcibly displaced, solutions have largely
been elusive, and too often they find it hard or impossible to access the building
blocks of education, health care and economic opportunity that would enable
them to address and overcome their vulnerabilities.
More recently, the world has had to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic,
which has hit the most vulnerable the hardest and dealt a serious blow to devel-
opment gains in many low- and middle-income countries. And while conflicts
inexorably proliferate and intensify, the climate alarm is sounding ever louder.
The drivers of displacement are unrelenting; the demands placed on human-
itarian funding are growing.
Yet while the challenges are enormous, history has repeatedly demonstrated
the potential for, and power of, positive change.
Everywhere, partnerships are evolving and expanding. In 2018,
the UN General Assembly affirmed the Global Compact on Refugees, which
calls for a “whole of society” approach to supporting the forcibly displaced
and the communities that host them. Answering that call is a broad and diverse
range of partners: refugees and internally displaced persons, local and national
governments, national and international organizations, international financial
institutions and development actors, academics and civil society. This book
illustrates how those partnerships work and how they are making a difference.
Such thinking exemplifies the important changes that have taken place
over the past several years in how the world views and responds to forced
displacement, notably the wider recognition that forced displacement is both
a humanitarian and a development challenge. Development actors are adding
their weight through policy advice, data, evidence and analysis – as well as the
largest financial support ever marshalled globally to support inclusive devel-
opment, the keystone of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Underpinning these efforts are the international laws and policies that
remind us of our obligations to the most vulnerable. The 1951 Convention, a
living instrument working in conjunction with those laws as they have emerged
and developed, has strengthened protections for people at risk of harm: women,
children, people with disabilities, people with diverse sexual orientation and
gender identity, and many others. The Convention and the Guiding Principles
on Internal Displacement stand alongside other human rights treaties that also
protect those on the move who are in need of protection.
Over the past 70 years, States have at times failed to rise to the standards set
by this body of law – weakening responses to forced displacement and under-
mining the international solidarity. Nevertheless, those laws and treaties have
been the foundation for the protection of millions of people forced to flee; they
are as relevant as ever.
People Forced to Flee: History, Change and Challenge starts from the premise
that transformational action is both essential and possible. It provides a detailed
and an unflinching look at both the successes and the failures of the past, seeking
to draw from them the elements needed to support positive, sustainable change.
In that regard, it is worth noting that many of the most powerful moments
in this book come from the stories of forcibly displaced people themselves –
a reminder that the best way to understand and respond to their needs is to
listen to their opinions, wishes, grievances, aspirations and hopes for the future.
I have been working in the field of forced displacement for more than 30
years. In that time, I have never ceased to be moved and motivated by those
who put the values of altruism, compassion and solidarity at the heart of their
daily lives: refugees and the internally displaced, host communities and those
working alongside them. It is their example, above all, that gives us the great-
est cause for optimism.
Filippo Grandi
Table of Contents
24 INTRODUCTION
46 PART I: THE ROOTS OF ASYLUM

51 Pre- and Ancient History
56 Middle Ages – Early Modern Era
60 Modern Era
66 The 20th Century
67 World War I and its Aftermath
76 The Great Depression and the Rise of Fascism
82 World War II
88 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
98 PART II: PROTECTING MORE BROADLY

103 Refugees
104 Regional Refugee Frameworks
115 Responsibility- and Burden-Sharing/Shifting
132 Other Forcibly Displaced People
135 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement
141 Climate and Disaster Displacement Frameworks
152 Trends Analysis
154 Minding the Gaps
158 PART III: SOLUTIONS – AN UNEVEN RECORD

163 Solutions Overview
163 Voluntary Return
165 Resettlement
166 Local Integration
170 Normative Framework
170 Refugees
172 Internally Displaced Persons
173 The First 50 Years
175 Focus on Return
194 Selective Resettlement
200 Local Integration at the Periphery
201 New Millennium
207 Resettlement
212 Complementary Pathways
215 Integrating Locally
220 Lessons Learned
222 PART IV: IMPROVING LIFE PROSPECTS

228 Conflict and Displacement Impacts
229 Education
229 Context
232 Evolution
233 Inclusion Challenges
237 Supporting Sustainable Inclusion
243 Health
243 Context
244 Evolution
246 Advances and Ongoing Challenges
255 Economic Inclusion
255 Context
257 Evolution
259 Local Labour Market Impacts
275 Consolidated Findings
276 The 2030 Ambition
Table of Contents
278 PART V: BRIDGING THE GAP

284 Financing
286 Humanitarian Financing
287 Financing for Development
293 Private Sector Investments
299 Other Innovative Financing
304 Enhancing the Evidence Base
305 Content and Collection
308 Strengthening Capacities
311 Impact Evaluations
313 Partnerships
314 Forcibly Displaced People
318 Local Actors and Authorities
324 Private Sector
329 Academics
334 Accountability
334 International Criminal Prosecution
343 National Criminal Prosecution
349 Independent Fact-Finding
352CONCLUSION:
REFLECTING BACK AND FACING FORWARD
362 ENDNOTES
536 INDEX
560 LIST OF VISUALIZATIONS

Data Methodology
Data on forced displacement, unless otherwise indicated, comes

from UNHCR’s data-base. It encompasses refugees, asylum-
seekers, people internally displaced due to conflict and violence,
and Venezuelans displaced abroad. In addition to the data it
collects, UNHCR receives data from governments, the United
Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near
East and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Numbers
are rounded to the closest hundred or thousand.
For more on UNHCR data sets, methodologies and definitions, see:
UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder (www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/),
Methodology and Data Insights sections.
Acronyms
AALCC Asian-African Legal Consultative Committee

AALCO Asian-African Legal Consultative Organization (former
AALCC)
AU African Union
CARICOM Caribbean Community

CICC Coalition for the International Criminal Court
CIREFCA International Conference on Central American Refugees
CPA Comprehensive Plan of Action
DAC Development Assistance Committee (OECD)

DIHK German Chambers of Industry and Commerce
EBRD European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

ECHR European Convention on Human Rights
ECOSOC Economic and Social Council
ECOWAS Economic Community of West African States
EGRIS Expert Group on Refugee and Internally Displaced Persons
Statistics
EIB European Investment Bank
ERC Emergency Relief Coordinator
EU European Union
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization

FARC Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
FCDO United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth and
Development Office
GCFF Global Concessional Financing Facility

GCR Global Compact on Refugees
GCM Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration
GNI Gross National Income
GNP Gross National Product
GPFD Global Program on Forced Displacement
HRC Human Rights Council
IADB Inter-American Development Bank

IASC Inter-Agency Standing Committee
ICARA I / ICARA II International Conferences on Assistance
to Refugees in Africa
ICTR International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
ICTY International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
IDA International Development Association
IDP Internally Displaced Person
IFC International Finance Corporation
IFIs International Financial Institutions
IGAD Intergovernmental Authority on Development
IIIM International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism on
Syria
ILO International Labour Organization
IMT International Military Tribunal
IMTFE International Military Tribunal for the Far East
IOM International Organization for Migration
IPCC United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
IRC International Rescue Committee
IRMCT International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals
IRO International Refugee Organization
IsDB Islamic Development Bank
ISIL Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
JE Jordan Exports
MDBs Multilateral Development Banks

Acronyms
MFU Multilateral Framework of Understandings on Resettlement

MIGA Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency
MIRPS Regional Comprehensive Protection and Solutions
Framework
OAU Organization of African Unity

OCHA Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
ODA Official Development Assistance
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
OECS Organization of Eastern Caribbean States
R2P Responsibility to Protect

RIMP Refugee Investment and Matchmaking Platform
SDGs Sustainable Development Goals

SIDS Small Island Developing States
TBB Talent Beyond Boundaries

TFD UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Task Force
on Displacement
TPS Temporary Protection Status
UDHR Universal Declaration of Human Rights

UNAIDS Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization
UNFCCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund
UNITAD Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes
Committed by Da’esh/Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
UNRRA United Nations Refugee Relief Agency
UNRWA United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine
Refugees in the Near East
WBG World Bank Group

WFP World Food Programme
WHO World Health Organization
WRC Women’s Refugee Commission
WWI World War I
WWII World War II
27
Introduction
29
DAccullenis ent
veraes estia sequid
ut erit qui blatur
sitem es quae
volest laborec
esequia
30 P E O P L E F O R C E D T O F L E E : H I S T O R Y, C H A N G E A N D C H A L L E N G E
Introduction
Previous page: There was little sign that 17 December 2019 would be significant in Geneva.
“Respect
Refugees”, It was a typical winter day in the lakeside city. A grey mist hung low in the
a mural by air, wrapping the Palais des Nations with a familiar chilling dampness. But a
artist Yuroz,
representing series of street closures was more unsual. They were in place to ease the passage
people who of diplomats to the offices of the United Nations. Once inside, together with
have been
forced to flee representatives from a broad spectrum of society, the delegates would take a
from around the positive step forward in the way the world supports refugees and the commu-
world captures
the hardship, nities that host them.
pain and sorrow, Just one year earlier, United Nations member States assembled in New
but also their
fellowship, York and affirmed the Global Compact on Refugees.1 It starts by recognizing
hope and that more equitable sharing of the burden and responsibility for hosting and
tenacity to move
forward. It was supporting the world’s refugees is urgently required.
commissioned It features a wide set of actions to meet the needs it identifies. It sets out to
by the United
Nations in the broaden, diversify and increase funding in support of host countries. It seeks
year 2000. improved reception and admission of refugees and aims to expand available
Artist: Yuroz
solutions. Importantly, it also places refugee self-reliance as a central objective,
via access to education, work, livelihoods while also improving opportunities for
INTRODUCTION 31
host communities. It recognizes the need to build on the short-term human-

itarian responses, which suit the initial phase of a humanitarian crisis, with
medium- to long-term development ones.
At the time of the General Assembly’s endorsement, commentators were
divided. Some considered the Compact a progressive achievement in a pola-
rized world of increasingly restrictive policies and negative rhetoric towards
refugees. Others felt that it did not go far enough and that, without an enforce-
ment mechanism, it could prove to be yet another in a long line of non-binding
initiatives that fade before they deliver meaningful change.2
It was on that otherwise unremarkable Tuesday in Geneva, at the Global
Refugee Forum, that the Compact’s ambitions were first tested in the form
of pledges to advance and implement its broad agenda. This was not just a
regular United Nations meeting of States, but a global gathering of countries,
refugees, multilateral institutions, civil society, international and national
non-governmental organizations, business leaders and academics coming
together at a meeting called for by the Compact to assure it lived up to its
promise.
Over 700 pledges were made that day. In the months that followed, there
were 700 more.3
Multilateral development banks including the World Bank announced
the largest number of development funding instruments for refugees and
host communities in history. States made commitments of $2 billion. Private
sector entities pledged $250 million for training and employment creation,
acknowledging that refugees not only have skills that businesses need but are
also a consumer market. Pledges from civil society were as diverse as the groups
that made them: refugees and refugee-led organizations; faith-based groups;
libraries; universities; environmental actors; sports organizations; student
unions; human rights advocates; and women, children and youth groups.4
It was a promising start to be followed by firm commitments and
implementation.5
People Forced to Flee: History, Change and Challenge looks at what will
be needed to make the aspirations of the Global Compact on Refugees a
sustained reality. Many of its core elements, as well as most of its stakeholders,
are as relevant to responding to forced displacement within borders as beyond
them. The book looks at improving responses for both, focusing on refugees
and internally displaced persons within the mandate of the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).6
Statistics and details in some periods are more available for refugees than
People Forced to Flee*
1990-2020
90 * The above includes refugees under

UNHCR's mandate, asylum-seekers,
80 internally displaced people,
Venezuelans displaced abroad and
Palestine refugees under the mandate
70 of UNRWA. Data on people displaced
in their own countries only became
available in the early 1990s. Since
Population (in millions)
60 then, data collection on internal

displacement has steadily improved
50 but can only be considered
comprehensive at a global scale from
2008.
40
30
20
10
00
04
08
06
02
20
90
10
94
98
18
96
14
16
92
12
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
19
19
19
19
19
Forcibly Displaced Populations

2010-2020
90
80 Venezuelans displaced abroad

Asylum-seekers
70
Refugees
60 under UNHCR’s mandate
Palestine refugees
50
under UNRWA’s mandate
40
30 Internally
displaced people
protected/assisted
20 by UNHCR
10
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
INTRODUCTION 33
internally displaced persons, because historically refugees have been the subject
of more analysis and focused support.7
The history and unique responses related to Palestine refugees under the
mandate of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Re-
fugees in the Near East are not dealt with here, although the number of Pales-
tine refugees are included in the global number of forcibly displaced persons.8
As the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (1951 Conven-
tion) reaches its 70th year, the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of State-
lessness turns 60. Its history, and efforts to prevent, reduce and protect stateless
persons, while not covered in this book, are reviewed in other publications and
regular UNHCR updates.9
History
In 2013, as Syrian refugees continued to flee into Lebanon, many Lebanese
opened their homes, their yards, and their fields to their neighbours. Their
hospitality was not temporary, extending at times for years. When one rural
Lebanese villager was asked why he continued to host dozens of Syrian
refugees on his modest property, he – like many others – recalled how Syrians
had helped Lebanese displaced during its 15 years of civil war (1975–1990).
Quite simply, he said: “It is a matter of history and a matter of heart.”
This book takes inspiration from that powerful maxim. It looks at how
responses to forced displacement can be improved by drawing from the lessons
of history, the blueprint provided in the Global Compact on Refugees as well
as the spirit of community and collaboration that is evident in the wide and
diverse array of partners committed to the cause.
People in danger have received protection in communities beyond their
own from the earliest times of recorded history. The causes — war, conflict,
persecution, natural disasters and climate change — are as familiar to readers
of the news as to students of the past. But, for most of recorded history, these
were ad hoc responses without a unifying foundation.
That changed 70 years ago, when the international community drew up one
of the most enduring documents to follow World War II. It set out the found-
ing principles on which millions of refugees would find protection.
The 1951 Convention came after decades of failure to protect people forced
to flee. It set out the obligations of States to ensure refugees the widest possible
exercise of fundamental rights and freedoms.10
The Convention would outlive the post-World War II period, taking on

global significance via its Protocol of 1967, and going on to inform interna-
tional protection responses ever since. It has influenced the Guiding Princi-
ples on Internal Displacement, and helped shape international responses to
protect those displaced by the adverse effects of climate change and disasters.
But, alongside the successes, there have been many failures, where States
fall short of both their obligations and the spirit of the 1951 Convention. The
long history of responding to people forced to flee provides important lessons
for the future and reveals some persistent truths.
First – the history of global responses has an overall positive trajectory but
an uneven one. Millions of forcibly displaced persons around the world have
found protection and solutions. The range of people who are now recognized
to fall within the 1951 Convention is broader than could have been envisaged
by its framers.11 And, the necessity to protect and resolve the forced displace-
ment of people displaced within their countries’ borders is widely recognized.
Yet, alongside these developments have been continuous efforts to restrict
rights, limit responsibilities, and erect barriers. Solutions to displacement
remain elusive for most.
Second – while the 1951 Convention recognizes the need for international
cooperation and burden-sharing, there has never been a time when they were
equitably shared. The majority of forcibly displaced persons have and continue
to be hosted in middle- and low-income countries, which face significant chal-
lenges in meeting the needs of their own citizens. Many high-income countries
have financially supported refugee responses from afar, although not to the level
of need, while also taking steps to unduly restrict the 1951 Convention’s appli-
cation, push back refugees at borders, and rely on other measures to intercept
refugees in flight with the aim to prevent their arrival. This has undermined
the international protection regime and stood in sharp contrast to their stated
expression of solidarity with more impacted States.
Third – all international frameworks for responding to forced displacement
recognize the right of individuals to contribute to their own well-being. Their
ability to do so is too often constrained by legal or other barriers that restrict
their access to work, education and health care: the necessities for dignified
lives and durable solutions to displacement.
Fourth – responses to forced displacement have been too reliant on short-
term humanitarian assistance, which has consistently fallen short of need. This
was not intended at the time of the 1951 Convention but became the default
approach as humanitarian crises increased along with the number of forcibly
Main host countries
of refugees, asylum-seekers and Venezuelans displaced abroad*
0 1 2 Population (in millions) 3 4
2000 Pakistan 2.0
Iran (Islamic Republic of) 1.9
Germany 0.9
United States of America 0.5 0.4
United Republic of Tanzania 0.7
Serbia 0.5
Guinea 0.4
Sudan 0.4
Democratic Republic of the Congo 0.3
China 0.3
2010 Pakistan 1.9
Iran (Islamic Republic of) 1.1
Syrian Arab Republic 1.0
Germany 0.6
Jordan 0.5
Kenya 0.4
Chad 0.3
China 0.3
United States of America 0.3
United Kingdom 0.2
2020 Turkey 3.7 0.3
Colombia 1.7
Germany 1.2 0.2
Pakistan 1.4
Uganda 1.4
United States of America 0.3 1.0
Peru 0.5 0.5
Sudan 1.0
Lebanon 0.9
Bangladesh 0.9
Refugees Asylum-seekers Venezuelans displaced abroad *Excludes Palestine refugees under UNRWA’s mandate.
displaced persons. They were persistently seen as short-term phenomena, even in

the face of growing evidence of their protracted nature. Too many host countries
have been left without sufficient support to address the challenges to their ins-
titutions, infrastructure and economies resulting from conflict and consequent
large forced displacement. And too few efforts have been made to strengthen
human capital in displacement – the skills, knowledge and experience that
enable individuals to realize their potential as productive members of society.
Change
Alongside those trends are positive signs of change.
There is now global recognition that improving responses to forced displace-
ment is as much a development imperative as a humanitarian one. The explicit
inclusion of refugees and other displaced people in the global Sustainable
Development Goals is a long awaited step. The involvement of major develop-
ment partners in forced displacement responses is evidence of this taking
hold. They have introduced new funding instruments in support of the socio-
economic development of displaced and host communities. And their work
is supporting policy changes in host countries for the socioeconomic inclu-
sion of forcibly displaced persons. This could lead to positive systemic change.
More joined-up humanitarian and development approaches are also help-
ing improve our knowledge base. Knowing the aggregate number of forcibly
displaced people and appreciating their individual characteristics has often
been limited. In some contexts, security issues have hindered access to displaced
persons. Data collection tools, methodologies and capacities, until relatively
recently, were not able to capture detailed information in an accurate, effective
and secure manner. Because short-term humanitarian interventions dominated
responses, detailed socioeconomic evidence of how forcibly displaced popula-
tions were coping over time, for good or for ill, was not prioritized. Neither
was how their presence affected the socioeconomic circumstances of host com-
munities. This is now changing for the better.
Significantly, there is greater recognition of the value of a broader partnership
base. Humanitarian efforts targeting forcibly displaced persons are centuries
older than intergovernmental humanitarian agencies. They came from national
and local authorities, civil society and international charitable groups, which
welcomed, protected, assisted and led advocacy and fundraising efforts. For
some time, however, their work has been overshadowed by that of international
INTRODUCTION 37
institutions, which have grown in both number and size to respond to human-
itarian emergencies and ever increasing levels of forced displacement. Recent
emphasis on sustainable responses is bringing needed attention to the value
of local response mechanisms and drawing on a broader array of partnerships
than ever before.
Closely associated with this is the role of forcibly displaced persons. History
reveals situations when refugees had more agency in negotiating the terms
of their asylum, and freedom to become self-reliant and contribute to the
communities which received them. As the number of refugees grew globally,
they faced greater restrictions on their ability to do so. In the last 20 years,
most major international initiatives, aimed at improving responses to forced
displacement, have called for the deeper engagement of refugees and internally
displaced persons in the design and implementation of programmes that affect
their lives.12 This call remains only partially met, but there is more momentum
and effort for resolute change.
Challenge
The lessons from the past and the changes coming on stream should inform
further efforts to improve. It is also the case that old and new challenges
complicate the task.
Political will is necessary to sustain any efforts towards positive change.
This book is full of examples of how a number of States have increased finan-
cial contributions, supported new approaches, and enacted important policy
changes to improve the lives of forcibly displaced persons. This is significant.
But more is needed. The mobilization of timely, predictable, adequate and
sustainable public and private funding called for in the Global Compact on
Refugees remains a challenge, as does broadening the base beyond traditional
core donors. Critical as well is the need to do more than improve lives in
displacement. To fulfill the ambition of the 1951 Convention and the Global
Compact on Refugees, States further afield, and with much more resources
than most host countries, must also live up to the spirit and the letter of the
international commitments and declarations they have made. This includes:
improving their reception and asylum systems rather than restricting access to
them; expanding refugee resettlement opportunities; and opening alternative
safe and orderly pathways for refugees and migrants. These are long awaited.
Prolonged conflict and instability: In the past 20 years, global forced
displacement has more than doubled with 82.4 million persons displaced
at the close of 2020.13 Many of the largest forced displacement situations
are also of the longest duration. Some have lasted for generations, such as
Afghanistan, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar,
Somalia and Sudan.14 These countries experience ongoing conflict and insta-
bility as do others that have large and protracted forcibly displaced popula-
tions, such as the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan,
Syria and Yemen.15
In these contexts, development approaches can be more difficult, depend-
ing as they do on national ownership, enabling legislation and policies, and
long-term time frames. Ongoing conflict and instability can negatively affect
all three.
Extremists, armed groups and criminal gangs: Persecution and violence by
extremists, armed groups and criminal gangs have driven millions of people to
flee their homes, and added to the complexity of forced displacement responses.
Recent years have seen the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
(ISIL) which, for a time, controlled significant parts of Syria and Iraq. Neither
its defeat in Iraq in 2017 nor in Syria in 2019 signaled the end of the group or
of its offshoots and affiliates. It remains active in both countries and operates
along with affiliated organizations in other parts of the Middle East, Africa
and Asia.16
Violence perpetrated by extremists and other armed groups has contin-
ued across Africa and, together with government counter-insurgency and
counter-terrorism operations, have led to substantial loss of life and human
rights violations. Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad,
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria,
Somalia and Sudan have been significantly affected.17 In the Americas,
armed guerrilla groups, paramilitary organizations, criminal gangs and drug
traffickers have fuelled forced displacement within and from several countries,
including Colombia,18 El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.19
Millions of forcibly displaced persons now live in areas under the control
of non-State armed and militarized groups in conditions marked by attacks,
sexual assaults, abductions, and other forms of abuse and exploitation.
Humanitarian needs are acute, yet many refugees and internally displaced
persons remain beyond the reach of international relief efforts, because
humanitarians cannot access them safely, without the agreement of the parties
controlling destinations and means of access.
The delivery of humanitarian assistance in these contexts has always been
INTRODUCTION 39
difficult, including to prevent it from directly or inadvertently benefiting those

engaged in the conflict. The proliferation of extremist groups, many designated
as terrorist groups, and international efforts to stop them have added to the
complexity.
Counter-terrorism measures at the global, regional and national levels,20
while important to address security threats, can adversely affect humanitarian
action if not implemented with care.21 The measures can leave humanitar-
ian agencies open to criminal prosecution, for example, if they engage with a
designated group in negotiating for access to civilian populations, and they can
restrict the provision of humanitarian aid to populations in need where there
may be members of a designated group living among them.
Humanitarians have sought exemptions to shield them from criminal liabi-
lity where reasonable efforts have been taken to prevent the diversion of support
to terrorist entities. The Security Council has recognized the difficulties and
has urged States, when designing and applying counter-terrorism measures,
to take into account their effect on impartial humanitarian activities.22 This is
positive, but more needs to be done.
These are all problems beyond what the programme of action in the Global
Compact on Refugees can address alone. There are others too.
Climate events: The increasing frequency and intensity of extreme climate
events, such as heat waves, heavy rain, drought and associated wildfires, and
coastal flooding, have also contributed to increasing displacement, most of
it internal.23 Slow and sudden onset events drive hundreds of thousands of
individuals from their homes each year across all continents. And, although
a significant proportion has been of a temporary nature, the past decade has
shown how the adverse effects of climate change and disasters can exacerbate
other causes of forced displacement.
The unpredictable and extreme weather conditions around Lake Chad,
a substantial source of food and income generation for bordering countries,
have had catastrophic consequences – contributing to instability, conflicts
and displacement, often to urban centres in the region.24 The adverse effects
of climate change, combined with conflict and instability, also contrib-
uted to forced displacement across the globe in recent years, including in
Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mozambique, Nicaragua,
Somalia and South Sudan.
The failure of governments to address the impacts of climate change and
disasters on their communities, or the partial implementation of mitigation
measures that favour one group over others, can fuel tensions and lead to
Main countries of origin
of refugees, asylum-seekers and Venezuelans displaced abroad*

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
2000 Afghanistan 3.6
Burundi 0.6
Iraq 0.5
Sudan 0.5
Bosnia and Herzegovina 0.5
Somalia 0.5
Angola 0.4
Sierra Leone 0.4
Eritrea 0.4
2010 Afghanistan 3.1
Iraq 1.7
Somalia 0.8
Colombia 0.4
Myanmar 0.4
Sudan 0.4
Viet Nam 0.3
Eritrea 0.2
Serbia 0.2
2020 Syrian Arab Republic 6.7
Venezuela 0.9 3.9
Afghanistan 2.6
South Sudan 2.2
Myanmar 1.1
Somalia 0.8
Sudan 0.8
Central African Republic 0.6
Eritrea 0.5
Refugees Asylum-seekers Venezuelans displaced abroad *Excludes Palestine refugees under UNRWA’s mandate.
INTRODUCTION 41
escalating violence. Disaffection with government responses, coupled with loss

of livelihoods and limited opportunities, can drive people into militant groups.25
This has been evident throughout sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia.26
These challenges are predicted to increase in the coming years.
Transnational human smuggling and trafficking: War, persecution, violence
and diminishing resources drive people to seek safety and better futures further
from their homes. This need, coupled with efforts to deter and restrict the
arrival of refugees, and limited legal means to migrate, has helped to fuel the
increase in human smuggling and trafficking.
Professional transnational criminal networks now control many informal
transit routes, charging increasingly high prices to move desperate people along
dangerous journeys in hope of reaching safety. The higher the obstacles, the
more work, contacts and money are needed to overcome them – all resources
that are beyond independent smugglers but well within the purview of orga-
nized criminal syndicates.27 The greater the surveillance measures imposed by
States and the more selective their migration policies, the more these networks
innovate, often by finding new and more perilous routes.28 Risks are borne by
refugees and migrants, too often at the cost of their lives.29
The fight against human smuggling and trafficking is an international
priority for many States and emphasized as reasons for substantially increased
investments in surveillance, deterrence and prosecution. But, again, it must
be accompanied by more robust efforts to improve reception conditions and
create more legal pathways for refugees and migrants, as promised in the
Global Compact on Refugees and in another international agreement, the
Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, each adopted by
States in 2018.30
COVID-19: The global pandemic has affected forced displacement in ways
unforeseen in 2018. Most countries restricted access to their territories, which
impeded refugees from seeking asylum. Some eventually relaxed controls to
provide exceptions for asylum-seekers, but many have kept them in place.31 In
2020, arrivals of refugees and asylum-seekers in most regions were significantly
under levels that would have been expected without the pandemic. Refugee
resettlement fell by close to 70 per cent.32
Millions of people have died because of the pandemic,33 with countries
around the world experiencing human and economic losses. COVID-19 has
dealt a brutal blow, particularly to low- and middle-income countries. Although
the global economy is predicted to expand by 5.6 per cent in 2021, this will
be experienced unequally. The World Bank predicts that, for many emerging
markets and developing economies, per capita income will likely remain below
pre-pandemic levels for a protracted period.34 Fragile and conflict-affected,
low-income economies have been the hardest hit, with setbacks in previous
gains in poverty reduction to be felt in the years ahead, according to the World
Bank.35
Most of the world’s forcibly displaced populations are in countries that will
continue to struggle due to COVID-19 related losses for some time. These
include an erosion of skills from lost work and schooling, a sharp drop in
investment, higher debt burdens and greater financial vulnerabilities.36 Adverse
impacts on trade and rising food prices could aggravate matters. Overall projec-
tions suggest that, by the end of 2021, around 100 million people will “have fallen
back into extreme poverty”.37 The impact continues to be particularly severe
on vulnerable groups – women, children, and unskilled and informal workers.38
The necessity to increase humanitarian and development funding for forced
displacement situations, therefore, comes at a time of heightened global need.
Funding pandemic-related responses is now a common priority. Host States
may be less inclined to accept loans, even on the most favourable terms, for
forced displacement responses. This reinforces the importance of the empha-
sis in the Global Compact on Refugees on ensuring that responses to forced
displacement are effective, efficient, tailored to the specific context, and of
benefit to forcibly displaced and local communities. It also suggests that the
advances promoted by the Compact may take longer to realize due to these
additional, unforeseen challenges.
Structure of the Book

Part I: The Roots of Asylum. Refugees have received protection from others from
the earliest periods of civilization. For most of history, this has been a localized
response, made by those who share some affinity for those seeking their help,
or who could benefit from the skills and resources that refugees could provide.
Part I shows how the definitive ideals of the current international protection
regime – safety, solidarity and solutions – are not new. But, the longevity of
these ideals is matched by their uneven application, making the main trajectory
of protection both positive and incremental. This pattern defines its history
from the beginnings in ad hoc provision through its development into a broad
and universal concept. Even as its ideals become established norms, their appli-
cation remains imperfect.
INTRODUCTION 43
Part II: Protecting More Broadly. The 1951 Convention set out refugees’
rights and acknowledged that protecting and assisting refugees is a shared
responsibility among States. Together with successive human rights instru-
ments and regional refugee agreements, it has protected a broader group
of people than initially envisaged, providing safety, solidarity and solutions
for millions. But, while countries express support for the international refugee
protection regime, they simultaneously limit access to it. This creates a persis-
tent gap between commitment and practice, an area the Global Compact on
Refugees seeks to address. Part II examines these tensions. It also reviews
how growing levels of forced flight within borders, and displacement due to
the adverse effects of climate change and disasters, led to multilateral protection
and response mechanisms that have drawn from the 1951 Convention. Part II
considers how these frameworks have helped advance protection, assistance
and solutions and what is needed to address weaknesses in implementation.
Part III: Solutions – An Uneven Record. Over time, many millions of refugees
and internally displaced persons have safely returned home or been accepted
permanently in new communities, allowing them to forge new futures for
themselves and their families. But many more have not. Part III examines
the framework for solutions, the historical record, lessons learned and current
efforts to improve.
Realizing a solution to displacement is a process. Solutions are not simply
bestowed on forcibly displaced persons but are ones they seize, based on their
calculation of what will be best for them. Solutions have a greater chance of
success when they build on prior investments to help forcibly displaced persons
retain and reinforce their social and economic capital in a manner that also
benefits host communities.
Part IV: Improving Life Prospects. Improving lives and advancing human
development for forcibly displaced persons is a global ambition, reflected in
the international community’s Sustainable Development Goals and the Global
Compact on Refugees. However, the fact that refugees and internally displaced
people should be included in development efforts does not mean that they are.
Part IV looks at some of the barriers that exclude forcibly displaced persons
from national development efforts, as well as positive changes that are begin-
ning to take root.
Achieving socioeconomic inclusion and improved outcomes for host and
forcibly displaced communities calls for an appreciation of the local context,
including the structure of the economy, related laws and policies, economic
trends and the potential for growth. It also requires information on the
People displaced internally
2010 & 2020
Syrian
Arab Republic
Democratic
Republic of
the Congo
Colombia
Yemen
Afghanistan
Somalia
Sudan
Iraq
0 2 4 6 8
2010 2020
Source: Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).
INTRODUCTION 45
economic impact of conflict and forced displacement, and the relative skills
and capacities of displaced and host populations. Interventions to improve
human capital in displacement – through education, health care and employ-
ment – are expanding and need to be based on reliable, context-specific data,
analysis and evidence of what is feasible.
Part V: Bridging the Gap. More is needed for the Global Compact on
Refugees to live up to its promise. Part V looks at efforts to expand the fun-
ding base and to improve data, evidence and analysis, which not only help build
donor confidence but also effectively design, deliver and evaluate programmes.
Success depends on genuine political will to secure the changes necessary for
long-term solutions to be found. That shift is as significant as the challenges it
aims to address – challenges which would be insurmountable without today’s
unprecedented and broad spectrum of expertise. Part V looks at operational
approaches needed to sustain this effort, alongside the growing attempts to
hold those who cause displacement – the perpetrators of serious human rights
abuses – criminally liable.
Improving responses to forced displacement must be accompanied by efforts

to address their root causes. Protecting human rights, preventing conflict,
achieving sustainable peace and development, and promoting climate action
are the core commitments of the United Nations. Efforts to improve across
these areas are central to the Secretary-General’s agenda.39 The advances and
setbacks of this work are reported on annually by the Secretary-General and
through specific departments and agencies within the United Nations system.40
Sadly, without significant improvements across all these fronts, we can expect a
continuation of the steady annual increase in lives lost, damaged and uprooted
by persecution, climate, conflict and violence.
Time will tell whether the Global Compact on Refugees marks a historic
positive step that many believe it to be. The Global Refugee Forum, to be held
every four years, is a mechanism to assess this periodically.41 In the meantime,
a High-Level Official’s Meeting is scheduled for December 2021 in Geneva
to identify progress, ongoing challenges and areas where further engagement
is needed.42
The large and diverse number of delegates at the first Global Forum was
an initial indication of progress. The positive changes these engaged actors
are making are evident in the pages of this book. While the challenges are
significant, they would be insurmountable without this broad coalition of part-
ners committed to improve the lives of people forced to flee.
Table of Contents
51 Pre- and Ancient History
56 Middle Ages – Early Modern Era
60 Modern Era
66 The 20th Century
67 World War I and its Aftermath

PA R T I
76 The Great Depression and the Rise of Fascism
The Roots 82 World War II
of Asylum 88 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees

The Roots of Asylum
The Roots
of Asylum
Previous Human flight from harm to safety is a consistent story throughout history.
page: The
Great Ludovisi Long before the right to seek asylum was formally recognized in international
Sarcophagus law in 1946,1 persons fleeing war, conflict, territorial encroachment, and perse-
depicting a battle
scene during the cution received protection in communities beyond their own.
Roman Empire. One of the earliest documented examples of a ruler providing asylum to a
Conflict has been
one of the main political refugee was in Ancient Egypt over 3,000 years ago.
causes of forced Much of what we know today about the history of asylum is focused on
displacement
throughout displacement in Europe caused by religious, ethnic and political persecution
human history. and conflict. The crucible of two world wars, the European experience largely
Unknown
artist; Found in spurred the development of an international refugee regime that emerged
1621 near the following those global conflicts.
Tiburtina Gate in
Rome; Ludovisi Even with much of the history of forced displacement unwritten or incom-
Collection; plete, there is enough evidence to help place current trends in a much larger
Photographer:
Marie-Lan historical context. Part I traces the roots of asylum leading to the emergence
Nguyen / of an international refugee regime and highlights five consistent trends.
Wikimedia
Commons First – the causes of forced displacement have been relatively consistent.
Key drivers have been and continue to be: climate, disasters, war, conflict and
PART I / THE ROOTS OF ASYLUM 51
hunger; as well as persecution based on ethnicity, nationality, religion, perceived

political opinion or other salient characteristics.
Second – refugees have received protection from others from the earli-
est periods of civilization. Yet, for most of history, this has been a localized
response, made by those who share some affinity for those seeking help.
Third – people forced to flee are far from passive victims. Rather, they have
been and remain central in shaping their own futures, including at times
negotiating favourable terms of settlement, contributing to the growth of the
communities that took them in and helping define the ideas and language of
international refugee conventions of the modern period.
Fourth – voluntary and non-governmental institutions have long played
an important role in the provision of protection and assistance. They have
marshalled coordinated international responses even before centralized govern-
mental or multinational ones became the norm.
Fifth – the definitive ideals of the current international protection regime
– safety, solidarity and solutions – are not new. They have been evident in the
human response to forced displacement for centuries before being written down.
Safety to those who are forcibly displaced.
Solidarity through support to countries confronted by large numbers of
forcibly displaced populations.
Solutions through secure legal status and the ability of those who have been
uprooted to move on with their lives, provide for their families, and contribute
to their new communities.
But the longevity of these ideals is matched by an uneven application of
them, which also dates way back from the present day, to as far as the records
reach. This makes the main trajectory of asylum both positive and incremental,
a pattern that defines its arc – from its beginnings in ad hoc provision through
its development into a broad and universal human concept. Even as its ideals
become established norms, their application remains imperfect.
Pre- and Ancient History

Two million years ago, some of the first hominins were on the move out from
the African continent. Seventy thousand years ago, Homo Sapiens followed.
Over the course of tens of thousands of years, they spread from Africa to the
Middle East, eventually reaching Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas
to become the only surviving human species on the planet.2 These journeys
needed great innovation and adaptation. While it is not possible to know all of
the factors that induced such mass migrations, physical artifacts reveal influ-
ences that remain relevant.
Climate is one of the oldest known factors. Changes in climate spurred
pre-historic migrations as well as altered physical geography in ways that
influenced migration routes. Glacial periods of low sea levels exposed land
bridges enabling humans to move between mainland Europe and the United
Kingdom, Russia and Alaska as well as South and North America, tens of
thousands of years ago.3
Later, warmer temperatures and rising sea levels led to massive human
displacement. Current estimates suggest that sea levels could rise from one
third to more than one metre over the next 80 years.4 An increase of that scale
is enough to lead to the displacement of millions of people.
During the warming period around 7,500 years ago, glacial melting and
consequent mounting sea levels of up to 400 meters were proportionately, if
not more, consequential. When the elevated waters of the Mediterranean
Sea broke through the land bridge between Bulgaria and Turkey, creating the
Bosporus Strait, vast tracts of land were submerged and humans displaced to
areas of Hungary, Iraq and Slovakia.5 In Africa, rising seas led those in flooded
areas to move to the southern half of the continent while increased rainfall in
the Sahara and consequent formation of lakes and marshes attracted move-
ment to northern Africa.6
Climate-induced forced displacement, therefore, is not a new phenome-
non. As we will see in Part II, however, principles to guide State responses to
it have only emerged in more recent times.
Violence and war also appear to have contributed to human forced displace-
ment in pre-historic times. Archeologists and ethnographers have unearthed
evidence to suggest that intercommunal violence and war were common
between foraging communities around the world. And the causes were simi-
lar to those of today, including resource scarcity, population pressures, and the
arrival of new groups in a region.7
Historical records of mass population movements improve over time.
Archeological remnants reveal significant forced displacement between the
early city-states dating back thousands of years. The pattern intensifies with the
emergence of empires,8 which continued through most of the Common Era.
At this point, asylum enters the historical record, with early records show-
ing two clear forms of asylum, both thousands of years old.
One was provided on holy ground. The other was political.
The rights to protection, and its duration, varied between different societies.
But, then as now, there was a central, common element: Flight from serious
harm.
Protection within temples of worship or other sacred places was believed to
come straight from deities. It was applied widely to those fearing retribution
for alleged crimes and unpaid debts, as well as to those escaping active conflict.
It was afforded to defeated warriors, escaped slaves, and social and political
outcasts.9 Safety depended on their physical presence within the sacred space.
Seal impression
of Mursili III.
© Archive of
the Bogazköy/
Hattusha
This tradition continues, with sanctuary still offered to refugees in places of excavations
worship today.10 (Deutsches
Archäologisches
Ancient political asylum was more analogous to international protec- Institut, Berlin;
tion. It was provided by the ruler or State and generally reserved for allies of Photographer:
P. Neve)
importance.
One of the first known political refugees was Mursili III, also known
as Urhi-Teshub, king of the Hittite Empire which in the 13th century BCE
stretched across Anatolia, present-day Turkey. During his relatively short
several-year reign beginning in 1272, Urhi-Teshub battled against his uncle
for the throne, and was defeated and banished to contemporary northern Syria,
whereupon he fled to Egypt.
There, Ramses II granted his request for protection and refused demands for
his extradition. Urhi-Teshub eventually left Egypt when his safety there was
compromised by the signing of a treaty between Ramses II and his uncle. The
treaty contained extradition clauses for the return of fugitives and for amnesty
to be granted to them upon return.11 Urhi-Teshub, apparently wisely, did not
put the latter provision to the test. He fled Egypt and did not return home.12
The asylum initially provided to Urhi-Teshub has features that have been
replicated over time. Asylum could be provided when politically expedient
and abandoned for the same reason. Moreover, even where protections were
enacted in law (such as the amnesty provision in the Hittite-Egyptian treaty),
they could be abrogated in practice.
Additionally, the quality of asylum also very much depended on personal
status. Urhi-Teshub was a deposed leader and the amnesty he enjoyed, albeit
temporary, was more robust than that accorded to others of lesser rank and
political status during the Bronze Age. Most commonly, refugees in the Ancient
Near East, who were given asylum were relegated to the lowest economic ranks,
some serving as mercenaries or sold as slaves.13
The exercise of asylum in a politically motivated manner continued in
subsequent eras and was evident in Ancient Greece.14 It was not uncommon
for Greek city-states to provide refuge and special privileges to citizens from
other city-states fleeing civil war and conquest. Those who benefited, tended
to be from allied city-states or those who ascribed to the same political philo-
sophy as opposed to other resident foreigners who were subject to heavy taxes
and compulsory military service.15 Refuge provided to those of shared political
values would become common in the modern world.
Shared political ideology was not the only animating value for exten-
ding protection to refugees. Another motivating ideal in Ancient Greece was
humanitarianism: “equal, unconditional compassionate concern for all fellow
humans” which should be put into practice to alleviate suffering and depriva-
tion wherever possible.16
This more universalistic humanitarian approach grew in prominence in
the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE. Love of humanity, “philanthropia”, came
to be expected of good citizens. Refugees were included as those worthy of
charitable treatment.17 Thousands of years later, the right to seek asylum and
the provision of asylum without discrimination are reflected in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and the 1951 Convention relating to the Status
of Refugees (1951 Convention).18
Examples from Athens and elsewhere in the Greek city-states, reveal that
refugees who were given asylum could also be afforded opportunities to be
independent and self-reliant, providing the conditions necessary for them to

realize a solution to their displacement.19 Many formed their own cities in
exile, often in bordering regions or marginal regions. Others settled in urban
areas and formed professional and other associations with local citizens.20 The
expectation and facilitation of their independence was consistent with Classical
Athenian ideology, which considered it demeaning for men to accept charity.
Athenians “strove to equip adult male refugees with the means to continue to
act, even in exile, as self-sufficient, autonomous political agents”.21
Greek drama and oratory also reveal obligations due to refugee women
and children. While men were expected to be independent and self-reliant,
women and children seeking refuge were assumed to be in need of assistance
and support. In the classic Athenian tragic play, Suppliant Women, written by
Aeschylus, the 50 daughters of Danaus, the mythical son of the King of Egypt,
flee to Argos a major Greek city. They are escaping what today is commonly
considered a modern claim to asylum: forced marriage. They are granted safety,
“asylia”, the ability to remain and be protected.22
Evidence of flight and finding refuge can also be found in the records of
the Roman Empire, a vast empire, encompassing European, Middle Eastern
and North African territories. It lasted hundreds of years becoming one of the
longest imperial powers in history.
The Roman Empire was both the source of forced displacement, as well as a
recipient of people fleeing war, oppression and food shortages. While scholars
agree that the Empire received many thousands of foreigners, and that they
came as vanquished rivals, economic migrants, allies, mercenaries, and refugees,
the relative size of each is not known and the cumulative numbers disputed.23
What is clear, however, is that like the Ancient Greeks, the treatment accorded
to refugees was not uniform.
Some refugee groups were permitted to remain on reasonable terms allow-
ing them to maintain a degree of economic and cultural autonomy. These
conditions were governed by political and military considerations. Other
groups could be forced to disperse, forcibly conscripted or sold into slavery.24
Forced displacement caused by climate, war, conflict, conquest and political
dissent were features of pre-historic and ancient periods. Asylum was sought
from deities in sacred temples, and from rulers. With respect to the latter, when
extended, it was generally to political allies on terms that could be upended
when the usefulness of the alliance ceased.
The treatment accorded depended on status as well as political affilia-
tion, with the most favourable treatment encouraging and facilitating agency
through land concessions, as well as through the rights to work, to protect one’s
community and to contribute to the host community. Far less favourable treat-
ment, including death and enslavement, fell upon others in flight if they were
vanquished rivals or persons who had no political cachet.
In the midst of this very mixed picture, a few glimmers of light emerge:
including opportunities given to refugees to be self-sufficient, assistance
provided to those with specific needs, and emergence of the humanitarian
principle of impartiality in extending refuge and assistance, each of which was
evident at times in Ancient Greece.
Middle Ages - Early Modern Era

A feature in the asylum narrative that emerges in this period is flight and refuge
from religious persecution, which would later become a recognized basis for
providing asylum in the 1951 Convention. Europe in the late 12th–17th centu-
ries holds many examples.25
Beginning in the late 12th century, the Catholic Church took measures
to root out heresy largely through the offices of the Inquisition. Many thou-
sands of people suspected of heresy were persecuted, tortured and executed. In
1478, the Catholic monarchs of Spain (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II
of Aragon) established the Inquisition. This was followed by one of the most
notorious and consequential acts against a minority faith- the Alhambra Edict
of 1492.
The Edict ordered the expulsion of practicing Jews from the Kingdoms of
Castile and Aragon. Those who chose not to convert were forced to leave.26
Tens of thousands left, followed by thousands more in the mid-16th century
after the installation of the Inquisition in Portugal upon its union with Spain.
Religious cleansing in Iberia also targeted Muslims. Forced to convert to
Catholicism in the early 16th century, their descendants faced expulsion a
century later. Hundreds of thousands fled or were expelled, many settling in
North Africa.27
The Protestant Reformation, which posed a challenge to the Catholic
Church, and the Counter Reformation that sought a Catholic resurgence of
the 16th century, were marked by massive religious persecution and conflict,
claiming millions of deaths and mass displacement well into the 17th century.28
Of the Christian refugees of the period, Huguenots fleeing persecu-
tion in France were among the first and largest number. Following the St
Bartholomew’s massacre of Huguenots across France in 1572, refugee numbers

increased and rose further 100 years later once the policies of toleration that
had been granted to them were revoked.29
Although they were prohibited by law from leaving France, an estimated
200,000 Huguenots fled, accounting for close to one quarter of the French
Huguenot population.30 Accounts of their escape routes and concealed flight
ring familiar today. As recounted by Susanne Lachenicht, they escaped with
Expulsion of the
Moriscos, port
of Denia, Spain
in 1609.
La Expulsión
the “help of trafficking gangs or illegal emigration networks on board vessels… en el Puerto de
Denia, Vicente
[some] packed in barrels or crates” and others fleeing on foot through moun- Mostre, 1613,
tainous regions to Swiss cantons and to Savoy.31 Many other religious minor- Colección
Bancaja;
ities, including different denominations within the Protestant and Catholic Photographer:
faiths, also fled religious persecution within and beyond Europe.32 Juan García
Rosell/Wikimedia
As in Ancient Greece, many found refuge within countries of shared Commons
values. In Europe, Catholic monarchies of France, Spain, and the Habsburg
dynasty received Catholic refugees while Protestants received protection in the
Netherlands, England, Switzerland, Scandinavia, and Brandenburg-Prussia.
Some States also extended protection to those of other religions.
The Ottoman Empire accepted non-Muslims who, while granted a large
degree of autonomy, could be subject to various conditions such as extra taxes
to be paid and limitations on where they could live and professions in which
they could work.33 Elsewhere, within Europe and also overseas, protection
and assistance to “religious others”, Lachenicht observes, depended on how
useful the State considered them.34 Admission of refugees was often viewed
in these terms.
Huguenots, Catholics, Mennonites, and Jews promoted the ways they
could be useful as a means of negotiating certain privileges, such as the ability
Huguenots on
the road to
Brandenburg.
Frederick William
of Brandenburg,
the Great Elector, to settle collectively, administer the affairs of their community, and establish
grants the right their own schools. These terms varied by group and country but could include
to settlement
to Huguenot tax concessions, exemptions from military service, and representation in State
refugees. administrative offices.35
Potsdam Edict,
29 Oct. 1685. Concessions won, however, could depend on the contributions realized.
© akg-images They could be altered or restricted if expectations were not met. Jews, in
particular, experienced this across Europe. Scholars describe their posi-
tion as “a tolerated minority” whose position “was hardly stable, but rather
ambiguous and in need of constant renegotiation”.36 Relative auton-
omy also came with the expectation that refugees would take care of
their own communities. This included organizing poverty relief, accom-

modation, education and being accountable for the actions of their members.37
What is novel about the period is the degree to which some groups could
negotiate the terms of their asylum.38 This was due in large part because
they were regarded as bringing significant economic as well as strategic
advantages. For example, Jewish refugees were seen as being able to enhance
commercial trade with Africa, the Americas and Asia, while the Huguenots’
expertise in wine growing, silk production and manufacturing could boost
these sectors.39
Foreigners and refugees were also important in helping consolidate fron-
tier territories, replenish depopulated areas, and secure territory. Philip Ther
observes that “as in early modern Poland and Prussia, the interests of the
Ottomans lay in increasing the number of their subjects after population
losses incurred in the costly conquest of Constantinople and the Balkans”.40
Lachenicht too gives many examples from the 15th through the 18th centu-
ries of persecuted ethnic and religious minorities helping to consolidate
Austrian-Hungarian, British and Russian Empires.41
A sustained period of cold temperatures, known as the “little ice age”,
and particularly harsh weather events like storms, heavy rains and droughts
across the northern hemisphere during the 1600s42 led to massive crop fail-
ures, famines and diseases. These contributed to great population losses of the
period: losses which foreigners, including refugees, could help fill.
In the United Provinces of the Netherlands, receiving refugees and migrants
also was important to strengthen economic and political power.43 According
to Geert Janssen, by the 17th century in the Netherlands, the arrival of many
thousands of persecuted minorities contributed to the development of a new
national narrative. Having fought a drawn-out struggle for independence from
Catholic Spain and experienced exile, the Dutch were open to fellow Europe-
ans fleeing persecution. Offering refuge and freedom of conscience and religion
became “at the heart of Dutch identity.”44 In fact, to be a refugee from religious
persecution carried such a cachet that even those who had migrated there for
other reasons often cast themselves as exiles.45
Asylum in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe was not universally
extended. At the same time that the Netherlands was re-imagining itself
as a cosmopolitan country of tolerance, it was engaged in one of the most
prolonged human trafficking exercises in history.46 For over 200 years,
the Netherlands – along with the Belgium, France, Germany, Portugal,
Spain and the United Kingdom – enriched themselves and their colonial
possessions through the slave trade while, at the same time, selectively
providing asylum to groups or individuals within Europe.47
The Peace of Westphalia of 1648 largely concluded the Thirty Years
of War waged within the Holy Roman Empire between Catholic- and
Protestant-dominated States. By this time, securing refuge on the grounds
of religious persecution was widely accepted, although the security received,
and the autonomy permitted were often contingent on how beneficial the
refugees could be to the State which admitted them.
The Peace of Westphalia is attributed as marking the beginning of a national
legal order for among its provisions was recognition of the territorial sover-
eignty of States within the Empire and, by extension, the right to control their
own borders. The Peace recognized the right of sovereign rulers to enter treaties
(provided they were not prejudicial to the Empire), and the right of Catho-
lics, Calvinists and Lutherans to freely worship and not be forcibly expelled.
Some consider these latter provisions as notionally bringing the concept
of refugees and asylum more firmly into the modern State system.48 It is also
the case that the religious liberties were not extended to other faiths and the
treaty also affirmed the sovereign right to determine the official State religion.
Flight for religious freedom from Europe would continue.49
Modern Era
The Peace of Westphalia and the Age of Revolutions
Following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, religious conflict in Europe began
to abate. For the next two centuries, revolutionary movements and uprisings
against imperial powers – often referred to as the “Age of Revolutions” – were
the causes of significant refugee influxes across Europe and North America.50
This period marked the beginning of a recognized class of “political” re-
fugees and prompted some of the first legislation regulating entry, treaties that
prohibited the forced return – or “refoulement” – of political exiles, and the
first state bureaucracies for managing refugee arrivals. As in previous centuries,
the terms of their asylum were discretionary and often depended on whether
they shared common values which, in the case of revolutionaries, were shared
political aspirations.
In the course of the American Revolution 1775–1783, over 60,000 British
loyalists, whites, blacks and indigenous Americans, along with 15,000 slaves,
fled to other parts of the Empire.51 Over half went to Canada, several thousand
to England, others to the British colonies in the Caribbean and over 1,000 to
Sierra Leone. British authorities rewarded them for their allegiance by provid-
ing material assistance, cash compensation and allocations of land, including
the freed blacks among them. However, as Maya Jasanoff points out, many
of the 15,000 slaves discovered “first-hand how slavery was preserved if not
reinforced in the British Caribbean domains” and some 2,000 were taken to
Canada as slaves.52
Nearly three times as many refugees, close to 150,000 French citizens,
sought safety following the French Revolution of 1789 throughout Europe,
the United States and the overseas colonies of France, Spain and the United
Kingdom.53 Those who left after 1789, or who were already abroad and failed
to return, were viewed by the French authorities as being against the ideals of
the revolution. Referred to as “émigrés”, their properties were confiscated and
their return prohibited on pain of death.54 The émigrés were largely tolerated
in European States, in part because most States had limited means to restrict
their entry.
Like refugee movements of earlier periods, refugees were given agency to
provide for themselves, although in Britain, they received government assis-
tance and charity drives were encouraged. It is estimated that 40 per cent of
French exiles drew from the political and social elite, including clergy and
nobles, with many of the remainder being those who provided services to them,
such as artisans, musicians, and domestic servants.55 Over time, those of higher
status had to find work wherever they could and many set up businesses, schools
and bookstores and engaged with other refugees from revolutionary struggles.
Because they retained contacts inside France and with other French
exiles, they were an important source of information to the States in which
they resided56 and, in turn, were influenced by the ideas and culture of their
hosts.57 Large numbers returned to France at the end of the reign of terror
in 1799 and following the 1802 Napoleonic declaration of a wide-ranging
amnesty.
Among the earliest legislative provisions regulating entry was the United
Kingdom Aliens Act of 1793, passed amid fears that among the arriving French
émigrés were those wishing to stoke unrest in the United Kingdom.
Ships’ captains had to provide the names of all wishing to disembark, and
the authorities decided who would be permitted entry, which was also condi-
tional on registering at the place of intended residence. And, as a forerunner to
modern carrier sanctions, ships’ captains could be fined if they did not comply
with the Act.58 The preamble of the subsequent Act of 1798 recognized the
concept of political asylum as well as the need to distinguish between those

who seek refuge from “oppression and tyranny” and those who come for a
“hostile purpose”.59
Across the Atlantic, concern over foreign subversives was addressed in four
bitterly contested acts passed by the United States Congress in 1798. Collec-
tively known as the Alien and Sedition Acts, they provided for the imprison-
ment and deportation of foreigners considered dangerous (Alien Friends Act),
or who were from a hostile nation (Alien Enemies Act), as well as made it a
criminal offence to make false statements critical of the federal government
(Sedition Act). The Naturalization Act imposed more stringent requirements
for naturalization.60 The legislative provisions were met with considerable
opposition among Republicans and contributed to their election victory in
1800.61 The Acts were short-lived, save for the Alien Enemies Act62 that was
used during World War II (WWII) to arrest and incarcerate resident foreign-
ers from countries with which the United States was at war.
The Greek War of Independence from 400 years of Ottoman rule was
among the bloodiest of the 19th century. Stretching over a nine-year period,
it was marked by tens of thousands of deaths, huge population displacements
and massive atrocities committed on both sides. Independence was secured
by 1832 with the assistance of French, British and Russian intervention. By
that time, the newly independent Greek territories were in ruins. The ethnic
Turk population of these territories had fled to the Ottoman Empire and many
thousands of Greeks were displaced internally and externally.
The majority of Greek refugees found safety in the Russian Empire among
their co-religionists, supported by central, local and religious authorities and
civil society.63 Sympathetic reports favouring the Greek cause sparked public
sympathy throughout Europe also due to the growing popularity of Greek poli-
tics, philosophy and art that was enjoying a revival.64 Private charities in support
of the independence movement flourished and the engagement of the non-
governmental sector in assisting refugees continued to grow.
Inspired by the Greeks but not as successful, in 1830, Polish revolutionaries
staged a series of uprisings against their Russian and Prussian imperial over-
lords. Just as French émigrés remained connected and engaged in the political
future of France, so too did the Polish refugees who were concentrated mainly
in western Europe, with some making their way to the United States. They were
well received in France and Belgium where they were given residency permits,
financial assistance and protection against deportation.65
The significance of the movement lay well beyond its relatively modest
PART 1 / THE ROOTS OF ASYLUM 63
size of some 20,000 refugees. In exile, they maintained active political, artis-
tic, scientific, military and social committees, nurturing the ambition for an
independent Poland throughout the century. They also actively supported the
national uprisings that swept Europe in 1848.66
The Revolutions of 1848–1849 were the largest simultaneous series of
revolutions in European history. Fueled by demands for democratic reform,
they erupted in Austro-Hungary, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland,
Romania, and throughout German-speaking States. Largely unsuccessful, they
Polish refugees
with their
belongings.
© Smith Archive/
resulted in many thousands of deaths and significant forced displacement.67 Alamy
Refugees were received by the Ottoman Empire and many also were admit-
ted to France and the United Kingdom. The welcome in France diminished due
to German pressure to locate the refugees away from the border area where, as
in contemporary conflicts, it was feared the refugees would launch or support
cross-border raids.
German refugee involvement in uprisings in Baden and elsewhere contri-
buted to a hardening of attitudes. Following the coup of Napoleon III and the
imposition of a more authoritarian regime, France was no longer as receptive to
revolutionary refugees.68 Many moved on to Switzerland where Swiss cantons
welcomed and assisted the refugees as they had the Huguenots of the 16th
century. Several thousand of the fleeing refugees, who came to be known as the
“Forty-Eighters”, immigrated to the Unites States, with many enlisting during
the American Civil War, the overwhelming majority for the Unionists.69
Refugees were admitted generally under regular immigration processes,
and not as a distinct class of persons with internationally recognized rights to
seek asylum. However, the non-return of political offenders became a feature
of extradition treaties of the 19th century.70
In 1833, Belgium prohibited the extradition of political offenders and
included this in its extradition treaty with France the next year. Other States
soon followed. The Ottomans referred to these norms in refusing demands
by Austro-Hungary to return Hungarian dissidents following the failed up-
risings of 1848. Ahmed Cevat Pasha, who would become the Grand Vizier,
later recalled that the decision was also based on Islamic principles.71 But
the fact that France and the United Kingdom promised military support if
Austro-Hungary and Russia attacked, 72 could also have been decisive.
Beginning in 1843, the United States also had legal provisions to prevent
the extradition of those wanted for political offenses.73 And this protection also
found expression in the first multilateral Latin American Penal Law Treaty of
1889 which recognized the right to political asylum decades before any multi-
lateral European treaty.74
The 19th century also featured the beginning of government-coordinated
responses to refugee arrivals. While Swiss cantons had initially taken in refu-
gees from the 1848 revolutions, they soon became overwhelmed. Switzerland
was also under pressure not to accommodate refugees near the border from
where they could launch raids in support of neighbouring insurrections.
The national authorities stepped in and appointed a commissioner to
redistribute the refugees internally and encourage refugees to move onward
to other countries. Through both financial incentives and political pressure
the number of refugees was reduced from several thousand in 1849 to some
500 persons in 1851. Those who left were asked to sign a form indicating
they did so voluntarily. While the Swiss actions were consistent with past
trends of restricting asylum when it was politically expedient to do so, the
authorities retained asylum for high profile political dissidents who faced
serious harm or death.75
The Ottoman Empire also was at the forefront of establishing a central-
ized administration for refugees. By the 1800s, the over 500-year-old Empire
stretched across three continents and had taken in hundreds of thousands of
refugees fleeing religious persecution and political unrest.
Non-Muslims were accorded various degrees of autonomy over religious

and civil affairs.76 As the Empire continued to fray, riven by discontent, nation-
alist movements and successful independence struggles in Greece and Serbia,
consecutive Sultans carried out a 37-year period of reform beginning in 1839
to modernize, centralize, consolidate and unify the Empire. Measures to attract,
receive and settle immigrants and refugees formed part of these efforts.
Specifically, in 1857, to attract more immigrants to land depopulated by
wars, uprisings, disease and famine, an imperial decree permitted anyone to
immigrate who agreed to abide by the laws of the Empire and be a subject of
the Sultan.77 The decree was published widely in European newspapers and
newcomers were enticed by guarantees of citizenship, religious liberty, and
free plots of agricultural land.78 Other inducements included time-limited
exemption from military service, tax concessions,79 and the provision of cattle,
farming tools, grain and temporary financial aid. Benefits were contingent on
immigrants remaining in rural areas.80
Within years, the promotion of immigration was no longer necessary. Vari-
ous groups faced persecution and expulsion from the Russian Empire in the
18th and 19th centuries leading to mass emigration into Ottoman territories.
Crimean Tatars were among the largest number. Circassians too fled ethnic
cleansing in the 1860s leading hundreds of thousands to flee to Ottoman areas.
In the 1870s and 1880s, the Empire received other large influxes of refugees as
a result of the Russian-Turkish War and rising nationalism in the Balkans.81
Estimates suggest that by 1914 between 5 and 7 million Muslims were forcibly
displaced to the Ottoman Empire within a period of some 85 years.82
To manage these mass influxes, the Ottomans created the Migration
Commission in 1860 with a specific mandate for immigrants and refugees.83
It marked the beginning of a series of time-limited Commissions, some with
a mandate for managing specific influxes.
Broadly speaking, these State institutions were established to facilitate the
smooth settlement of immigrants and refugees. This included selecting land,
determining settlement locations, maintaining statistical records of arrivals
and settlements, and, depending on the time and the finances at their disposal,
providing transportation, in-kind support, targeted monthly allowances and
mediating disputes between locals and refugees.84 Successive administrative
departments for management of refugee affairs continued into the 20th century,
until the end of the Ottoman Empire.85
Another aspect of the Ottoman experience that remains relevant is that
immigrants and refugees were encouraged to economically integrate and there
was a clear legal framework for their settlement: elements that today are consi-
dered important in advancing development for refugees and their hosts.86 In
some instances, Tatar and Circassian elites were also given representation on
the migrant commissions.87
Settlements that tended to thrive were ones where land was plentiful, with
transportation links to urban areas and, importantly, where the State provided
generous subsidies which enhanced social cohesion between new arrivals and
local communities.88
By the end of the 19th century, various trends in asylum policy had emerged.
Throughout Europe and the Americas, States had shown a readiness to receive
and protect refugees of shared religion or political ideology. This was done
through regular immigration channels that were relatively open at the time.
There was no predictability regarding whether protection would be extended
in all situations, the terms upon which it would be granted or its duration. This
still was very dependent on State self-interest.
Refugees who received asylum were largely able to move on with their lives
and build their futures, sometimes with assistance from State or voluntary
associations. Centralized State administrations for the management of refugee
arrivals were starting to emerge.
The 20th Century

Nationalism and forced flight
Civil unrest, national uprisings and the outbreak of World War I (WWI)
within the first 15 years of the 20th century led to unprecedented levels of
forced displacement from religious, ethnic and political persecution and the
beginnings of an international protection regime.
The century opened with mass flight of Jewish refugees from a series of
pogroms in the Russian Empire, heavily concentrated in modern-day Ukraine,
Moldova and Poland. The violence perpetrated against Jews was a bellwether
for what was to follow in subsequent decades. Already by the outbreak of WWI
over 2 million Jewish refugees had taken flight, mostly to the United Kingdom
and the United States.89
The rise of nationalism added further justification to the persecution of
religious and ethnic minorities as newly independent States increasingly saw
their development and security as contingent on a unified national identity.90
Ethno-nationalist inspired violence was brutally on display during the Balkan
Wars of 1912–1913, which altered the map of Europe, reduced Ottoman terri-
tories on the continent and helped forge alliances that helped set the stage for
WWI. Thousands died and widespread State-sponsored acts of ethnic clean-
sing against civil populations led to significant forced displacement and deep
enmities that would explode during the Great War and in later periods.91
Estimates of the number of forcibly displaced due to the Balkan Wars vary
between 0.5–1 million people.92 Reception of refugees was readily extended to
co-religionists. Thousands of Christians were displaced from Ottoman-held
territories and their reception in Balkan States was facilitated by State and
charitable institutions.93 Muslim displacement, mostly to the remaining Otto-
man territories, was significantly larger. Some 180,000 people fled to Istan-
bul and other towns in the first six months of 1913 alone.94 The scale of these
population transfers, large as they were, would be surpassed and their manage-
ment was a motivating factor for the emergence of an international protection
regime.
Within the Ottoman territories, as initial towns of refuge came under
siege, many were killed or died of starvation – and thousands fled again further
inland.95 Reception of so many people in such a condensed period of time
proved a challenge for the authorities, at the central and local levels. Adopting
the same approach as had been taken to receive early waves of refugees, the
new arrivals were assisted in relocating to the interior on vacant arable land
facilitated through the provisions of tools, livestock and tax exemptions.96
Those remaining in cities were also encouraged to be economically self-
reliant, and small business loans advanced. Funding for this enormous endeav-
our came from the State, local communities, and donations from all over the
Muslim world.97
The facilitation of settlement by the State was also, more ominously, accom-
panied by detailed profiling efforts which, according to Peter Gatrell, helped
to identify political affiliations and determine “Turkishness”.98 Moreover,
lands given to the refugees were often in Anatolia which had previously been
inhabited by Armenians before the purge against their community in 1896.
World War I and its Aftermath
The outbreak of WWI in 1914 marked the beginning of massive death and
forced displacement across Europe and the Middle East.
At its conclusion in 1918, the conflict had claimed more than 14 million
military and civilian deaths. Seven million soldiers returned home with severe
disabilities.99 Over 10 million people were driven from their homes.100 Lands
were devastated, infrastructure destroyed, and farmland rendered unculti-
vatable for years due to chemical contamination. Economies were broken and
the loss of a large proportion of a productive generation was felt for decades.101
The war precipitated the collapse of four Empires: Russian (1917); German
(1918); Austro-Hungarian (1918); and Ottoman (1922). It brought about the
Armenian
refugees in
Jerusalem in
1918.
© Science
History Images/ creation of new countries102 and the birth of the Soviet Union – all of which
Alamy
led to further mass forced flight. It saw the emergence of the first international
efforts to respond to forced displacement, the successes and failures of which
informed the international protection regime that emerged in the contem-
porary period.
Russians accounted for the largest number of people forced to flee. Among
them were hundreds of thousands who were forcibly relocated within Russia
because they lived in areas of military operations or because they were minor-
ities whose loyalties were in doubt.103 The Russian revolution, and ongo-
ing conflict between pro and anti-Bolshevik factions through 1923, also
contributed to large displacements.104 By that time, several million Russians
were internally displaced and approximately 1 million had sought refuge

elsewhere.105
Across Europe, millions of people fled enemy advancements. Over 2 million
people in France and Belgium fled, as did 1.5 million from Austria and many
hundreds of thousands throughout southern Europe.106
Ethnic cleansing and mass expulsions also accounted for considerable
loss of life and displacement. Close to 1.5 million Armenians were killed and
hundreds of thousands expelled from Turkey, reducing the centuries-old Arme-
nian populations there by at least 50 per cent.107 Others fled the Greco-Turkish
War. By 1924, an estimated 200,000 Armenian refugees had fled to parts of
Europe and the Middle East.108
The mass movements of refugees within and across borders, often with no
assets, no immediate means of sustaining themselves and many in poor health,
was challenging for State authorities fully occupied with fighting a war.
While many of the most impacted countries, like France, Italy, the
Netherlands, Prussia, Russia, Serbia and the United Kingdom, instituted
centralized responses, these were augmented by local and international human-
itarian organizations which grew during this time. Displaced persons partici-
pated in these organizations, drawing from all sectors of society and supported
by the diaspora. Ethnic and cultural groups invested heavily in supporting
their displaced communities, helping reinforce loyalties to their correspond-
ing nation-states.109
War-time relief work launched the careers of individuals who became lead-
ing politicians, as well as those instrumental in establishing enduring interna-
tional humanitarian institutions that today remain prominent players in forced
displacement situations.110
At the end of the war, many people who had been displaced returned to
their places of origin or were absorbed in the nations of their shared ethnicity.
Tens of thousands also emigrated to North America with the United States
taking in close to 100,000 Russians.
There continued to be many thousands, however, with no place of perma-
nent safety. Jews who remained or returned to Austria, Galicia, Germany, and
Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe lived an uneasy existence, often
denied nationality and subjected to ongoing discrimination and persecution,
which increased severely over the subsequent decade.
In 1921, the Soviet Union revoked the citizenship of all Russians living
abroad,111 effectively rendering them stateless. Most remained in Europe but
often with insecure status. Viewed as a social welfare burden, as well as a threat
Refugees in to the ethnic homogeneity of the new States, they were often denied natu-
Antwerp during
WW1.
ralization. Without travel documents, they could not move elsewhere to join
© Keasbury- friends, family or look for employment.112
Gordon
Photograph
Archive/Alamy The emergence of an international protection regime
The plight of Russian refugees was so dire and the capacities of aid agencies
stretched so thin that the circumstances led to a defining moment in response
to forced displacement. For the first time, a High Commissioner was appointed
to lead the international response to the situation. Fridtjof Nansen was the
League of Nations’ choice and would become one of the most influential lead-
ers of a global refugee relief effort.
Nansen was a Norwegian innovator, renowned scientist, pioneering arctic
explorer, and diplomat. He was also known to be extraordinarily humble
and eloquent and was initially reluctant to assume the position knowing the
commitment it would entail and the scientific inquiry he would need to put
on hold.113
Initially appointed High Commissioner for Russian Refugees, the League

widened the remit of the High Commissioner in succeeding years but always in
regard to specific refugee situations.114 And, although a global mandate would
come later, the efforts of the High Commissioner’s Office during the inter-war
period informed the mandate that would eventually be accorded to the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) following WWII.
Nansen set to work with a skeletal staff and a limited budget to facilitate the
repatriation or resettlement of hundreds of thousands of Russians. Initially, he
focused on repatriation and established procedures with the agreement of the
Soviet Government that in key respects resemble modern protections related
to return. Return was to be voluntary and to non-famine-affected areas, and
returnees were to have access to Nansen representatives posted to areas of
return.115
Returnees were also able to travel to other countries to speak to prospective
returnees about conditions back home to help boost confidence for return. On
the heels of the first repatriation, however, rumors spread of summary execu-
tions, and confirmed reports of disappearances dampened interest in return. The
movement was altogether dealt a fatal blow in 1923 when the Government of
Bulgaria was overthrown with the assistance of anti-Bolshevik Russian forces.
Both the Bulgarian and the Soviet authorities refused to restart the repatria-
tion programme.116
In terms of resettlement, Nansen also faced challenges for States did not
distinguish between immigrants and refugees in their admission policies
and refugees had to meet the same conditions for entry as other immigrants.
Asylum, as in the past, was largely exercised in accordance with self-interest.
Already by the turn of the century, States had started to erect more border
controls including requiring passports and/or visas, defining admissible classes,
setting quotas, and imposing registration requirements upon arrival.117 Admis-
sibility criteria included a security dimension to exclude criminals, radicals and
others suspected of being a threat to public safety. They were also a means to
exclude those considered likely to become a public charge. Importantly, admis-
sion criteria and quotas were designed to give preference to the most “desira-
ble” immigrants, often determined by race or place of origin.118 These controls
were later tightened in the 1920s and further in the 1930s as the full force of
the Great Depression hit economies hard across Europe and the Americas.
Most refugees at the time did not have passports, which prevented them
from being admitted to another State even when they met the admissibility
criteria. Nansen successfully convinced States to agree to a special refugee
travel document which permitted refugees to move between States to look for
work. Subsequently known as the “Nansen Passport”, its application was later
extended to Armenians, Assyrians, Assyro-Chaldeans and some Turks under
a new arrangement in 1928.
Importantly, the arrangements included agreed (albeit non-binding) stand-
ards of treatment in regard to recognizing the identity, good character and civil
status of the bearer, the right to work, legal assistance, equality in taxation and
protection from expulsion.119 The right to a refugee travel document, as well as
Fridtjof Nansen
in New York
in 1929.
© UNHCR photo
associated standards in the Nansen Passport arrangements, would be reflected
in the 1951 Convention.
Although the Nansen passport did not guarantee the bearer would receive
a visa to enter a State or permanent residence to those who did, it was none-
theless significant for it allowed refugees to cross borders in search of work
and provided them with a more secure legal status.120 As Dorothy Thompson,
a journalist at the time, observed: A refugee could not be assured of obtaining
a work permit but “could be sure that without the Nansen certificate he would
never get it”.121 By 1929, over 50 States were party to the arrangement.122
The money charged to obtain the passport was used to finance small loans
to refugees. The International Labour Organization (ILO) complemented the
work of the Nansen Office by matching refugees with work opportunities in

other countries and monitoring conditions of work to guard against exploita-
tion. Between 1925 and 1929, the ILO helped place over 50,000 refugees in
jobs, mostly in France as elsewhere in Europe, the Americas, Asia, and the
Middle East.123
Relief and development

The League’s engagement on refugee issues further intensified following the
Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) leaving both a negative legacy of overseeing
massive forced population transfers, as well as a positive one of managing the
first extensive international development effort for the socioeconomic inclusion
of refugees. Fridtjof Nansen and his Office were central in this effort as well.
The brutal conflict claimed tens of thousands of civilian deaths and displaced
over 1.5 million people.124 The terms of settlement provided for the denatu-
ralization and transfer of all Greek Orthodox Christians in Turkey to Greece
and all Muslims in Greece to Turkey. Transferred populations gained the citi-
zenship of their new State of residence, while facing difficulties in transferring
assets or receiving compensation for property left behind.125 They had no right
to refuse the transfer nor a right of return.126
Close to 1.4 million people were affected by the transfers.127 The effects of
these transfers were felt for decades. The mobility of Christians and Muslims to
their former ancestral lands was tightly circumscribed until the 1990s.128 Addi-
tionally, aside from sharing the same religion, the refugees in both countries were
culturally and often linguistically different from their hosts. The newcomers were
frequently perceived negatively and viewed with derision, and they themselves
often felt culturally apart. Integration would be a multigenerational affair.129
On the Turkish side, keeping with its long tradition, the Government
assumed centralized authority for the reception and settlement of new
refugees, creating a new ministry for this purpose, and accepting relatively
little international assistance while relying on the Turkish Red Crescent to
complement its efforts. Many refugees found the lands assigned to them to be un-
cultivatable or were expropriated by Turkish army and police officers,
compounding adjustment problems.130
Greece, however, welcomed international assistance, and help poured in
from international charities around the world as well as from several European
governments. Additional support came in the form of a multi-million-dollar
loan raised and administered by the League of Nations for development initia-
tives aimed towards the integration of refugees.131
Close to doubling over the next several years, the loan was a precursor to
modern-day trust funds established to support countries experiencing large
refugee influxes. It was serviced by the International Financial Commission
and administered by a newly created Refugee Settlement Commission under
the League of Nations, with representation from the Greek Government, the
League of Nations and relief organizations.132 The scheme included land grants,
settlement assistance and investments in infrastructure.
The Commission had wide-ranging autonomy to carry out its work, which
was largely focused on the agricultural settlement of refugees, many on lands
forcibly vacated by Muslim populations. Refugees were provided houses,
livestock, seeds, agricultural machinery and tools,133 and investments were
made for the construction of roads, bridges and schools, building villages, and
capacitating public health services.134 Within a few years, crop production
increased substantially. The Refugee Settlement Commission also facilitated
refugee settlement and investments in industrial areas leading to an increase
in industrial activity.135
Over 600,000 refugees were settled with the scheme bringing economic
improvements and enhancing social cohesion between the refugees and host
communities.136 It marks one of the early successes of international coopera-
tion in supporting refugees and their hosts.
A recent study on the long-term impact of the 1923 population transfer
to Greece found that locations that received high concentrations of refugees,
today are economically more prosperous than comparable areas in Greece
that did not.137 Among the leading factors that contributed to this higher
performance were the fact that refugees were granted citizenship, permitted
to settle together, provided initial financial assistance and were free to work
and establish businesses helping to create favourable conditions for early indus-
trialization and economic development that persist today.138
Refugees, when permitted to exercise their own agency, were able to
strengthen their capacities in ways that also contributed to the broader com-
munity. The findings are consistent with the results of studies of the economic
effects of more recent refugee influxes. Beyond the initial economic shock,
refugees can have a net positive economic impact in the longer term.139
A similar loan scheme was employed to assist in the settlement of refugees
in Bulgaria: These were mostly former citizens of Bulgaria forcibly displaced
during the Balkan Wars and WWI. The United Kingdom, the United States
and three other countries provided a loan of over £3 million. Land was provided
to refugees and infrastructure improved. Some 125,000 refugees benefited.
Local communities also benefited from improved transportation, communi-

cation and health services.140
A more modest settlement scheme took place for Armenian refugees in
the French mandated territories of Lebanon and Syria. It was supported
with both grants and loans financed largely by the French Government and
private organizations. The money was used to construct homes, help refugees
settle in urban and agricultural areas and improve water and sanitation in
settlement areas. The settlement efforts are credited with improving public
works, creating jobs and benefiting refugees and the communities in which
they lived.141
As the 1920s drew to a close, the provision of asylum remained rather ad
hoc, more readily extended to those of shared ethnicity or religion or who were
otherwise regarded as “desirable” on the basis of the economic contributions
they could make and the cultural affinity they shared with the receiving State.
State self-interest continued to be decisive. On the other hand, by the end of
the decade, the High Commissioner for Refugees could point to hard-wrought
achievements that were helping to nudge international protection in a more
positive direction. Many wartime refugees had voluntarily repatriated or reset-
tled in another country with international assistance. Successful multilateral
development initiatives had helped secure the economic and social inclusion of
various refugees and contributed to the economic health of host communities.
Non-governmental organizations proliferated, lending substantial support
to local and national relief and settlement efforts. Refugees and refugee-led
organizations were active participants in advocating and designing relief
and development efforts and, by 1934, they were firmly embedded in the
work of the Nansen Office, serving as delegates and technical advisors and
as members of the Management Committee of his Office, and holding seats
on the Governing Body.142
The Great Depression and the Rise of Fascism
National policies, inter-State disputes, and the rise of fascism in Germany, Italy
and Spain all contributed to sizable and growing refugee influxes throughout
the 1930s. Efforts to forge a coordinated international response to refugees
remained ad hoc and situation-specific. Adding to the challenges was the
massive economic downturn of the Great Depression and the imposition of
even tighter immigration restrictions across many States.
Dramatic declines in industrial production, severe losses in trade, mass
unemployment, business failures and social unrest contributed to public

support for tighter immigration controls. Widespread overt anti-Semitism
was also at the root of resistance to assisting Jewish refugees.
Fridtjof Nansen died in 1930 and the work he steered fell to the newly
established Nansen International Office within the League. For years, Nansen
had advocated for a convention of common standards to be accorded to re-
fugees. This became most urgent in the early 1930s as refugees were increasingly
prosecuted, imprisoned and expelled for violating immigration and labour laws.
As Louise Holborn described the situation, refugees were caught between
two sovereign wills, “the one expelling them, the other forbidding their entry”.
The result was high rates of vagrancy and suicides, with governments spending
vast sums on enforcement but not achieving solutions.143 The need for a more
coordinated response brought several of the receiving countries to agree to
the League-sponsored 1933 Convention relating to the International Status
of Refugees (1933 Convention).144
The 1933 Convention was an important step in the road to more univer-
sal refugee protections. Positively, it was the first codification of standards of
treatment towards refugees including the rights to: a Nansen certificate; not
be expelled at the border or from within the country subject to limited excep-
tions; access to the courts; and exemptions from certain labour restrictions
applied to foreigners.145
Refugees were to receive the most favourable treatment accorded to foreign-
ers in regard to industrial accidents, social welfare and access to education.146
Moreover, the role of refugees in refugee responses was also explicitly acknowl-
edged in provisions concerning the setting up of refugee committees responsi-
ble for finding employment, coordinating assistance and collecting the fees for
the Nansen certificate.147 Refugees were also among the Committee of Experts
involved in the drafting of the initial text and the negotiations among States.148
While impressive in its scope, the 1933 Convention faced severe limita-
tions. It only applied to those already recognized as refugees by the League,149
was ratified by just eight States,150 and did not apply to two of the largest
movements in Europe at that time: refugees from the Spanish Civil War and
refugees from the Third Reich. It also had no bearing on the dramatic forced
displacements in China.
The three-year Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) claimed 750,000 deaths
both in battle and due to atrocities against civilian populations committed by
both sides.151 Over 3 million people were displaced throughout the country and
over 400,000 sought safety outside.152 The overall response to Spanish Civil
War refugees was mixed. International solidarity was evident in the human-
itarian support marshalled by national and international non-governmental
agencies working inside Spain as well as in France and other countries. But
finding asylum proved to be difficult for many.
France received most of the refugees whose numbers climbed steadily from
1936 onwards. A signatory to the 1933 Convention and a country with a strong
asylum tradition, France had a relatively favourable attitude towards refugees
at the beginning of the decade. However, with the onset of the Great Depres-
sion and in a climate of political polarization and rising xenophobia, by 1937,
refugee policies became restrictive.153
In early 1939, on the eve of the Republican defeat in Spain, there were
some 300,000 Spanish refugees at the French border. The authorities restricted
admission, permitting one third of them to enter France.154 Soldiers were
disarmed, and many men, along with some women and children, sent to camps
concentrated in the south. Conditions were harsh as shelter was often inad-
equate and those interned there also faced food shortages, disease outbreaks
and lack of adequate health care.155
Options to remain were extended to those qualified to join the French
Foreign Legion, who had a private sponsor or who were willing to work in
industries in need of labour.156 Others were pressured to leave, and many did.
Overall, France provided asylum to approximately 150,000 refugees from
Spain. But a larger number, more than 250,000 persons, were compelled to
return to Spain.157
Latin America accepted over 30,000 Spanish refugees, two thirds of whom
were admitted to Mexico and most of the remainder to Argentina. An addi-
tional 12,000 went to countries in North Africa and over 6,000 were admitted
to the Soviet Union.158
A child evacuation programme, conceived as a humanitarian contribution
through the provision of temporary stay to over 30,000 children in various
countries in Europe, Mexico and the Soviet Union, did not live up to the initial
ideal. Criticized for being chaotically administered and not having sufficient
protections in place for children, including means for family tracing, its legacy
was not positive overall. Many of the evacuated children experienced extreme
hardship during their exile and upon return in Spain.159
The steady imposition of persecutory laws and policies after the rise of Adolf
Hitler in 1933 led to ever increasing flight from Germany. The international
response to Jewish refugees during this period marks the nadir in asylum history
of this troubled period, which the 1951 Convention was intended not to repeat.
Refugees from the Third Reich rose to 400,000 persons in the 1930s, the
vast majority of whom were Jews. Revocation of citizenship, mass firings of
Jewish workers, and economic boycotts accounted for the initial exodus. By
1937, over 150,000 mostly Jewish refugees had fled Germany. These numbers
increased further once Germany annexed Austria and the Sudetenland and
persecution extended there. Flight from Germany was accelerated following
the pogroms of November 1938, which saw the country-wide rampage against
Jewish homes, businesses, schools and synagogues, scores of deaths and the
mass arrests of tens of thousands of Jews.160
While neighbouring countries, as well as those abroad, expressed their
opprobrium to events in Germany, few stepped forward to provide asylum.
Most did not relax their immigration restrictions and, after the horrors of the
November Pogroms, many tightened them further including expanding powers
of deportation and expulsion.161
In 1933, the League of Nations appointed an independent High Commis-
sioner for Refugees ( Jewish and others) from Germany, James G. McDonald.
McDonald was a United States citizen whose long career spanned academia
and the civil service. He was a specialist in foreign relations. Like Nansen, he
was dedicated and committed to the refugee cause, and he worked for their
admission to other countries and urged international condemnation of the
persecution they experienced.162
His 1933 meeting with Hitler left no doubt of Hitler’s intention to exter-
minate the Jewish population.163 McDonald repeatedly warned world leaders
of the looming tragedy to no avail. So limited were the means at his disposal, so
uncompromising the position of States, and so unwilling were they to confront
Germany, that McDonald resigned just two years after being appointed to the
post. His letter of resignation documented the conditions prevailing within
Germany and the need for international action.164
McDonald’s relatively short tenure secured some gains. Largely with
the help of voluntary organizations, he was able to assist 50,000 refugees to
emigrate, most to European countries. Close to one third went to Palestine,
and 10 per cent to the Americas.165
His successor, Sir Neil Malcolm who held the post from 1935 to 1938 was a
career British Army officer, who carried out his responsibilities very differently
than had Nansen and McDonald. He did not concentrate on humanitarian
work or intervene in individual cases but focused on improving the legal status
of refugees by engaging States.
He was known for not being one to take initiatives, but to respond to the
interests of States. He was also of the view that the best solution for refugees
was to emigrate with the assistance of voluntary organizations.166 His tenure
was marked with a lack of significant progress on the German refugee crisis. A
travel document for German refugees was secured but limited in application
to German nationals and not to the tens of thousands, mostly Jews, who had
been stripped of their nationality.167
The 1938 Convention concerning the Status of Refugees coming from
Germany that came into being in the last year of his tenure was inclusive of
stateless refugees. However, its provisions were relatively weak,168 it was signed
by only six States, most with reservations to parts of it, and it was ratified by just
two.169 It reflected the poor performance of the League in regard to refugees
from Germany and was soon overshadowed by the events of WWII and the
genocide of those the international community largely failed to rescue during
the preceding years.
The absence of States’ willingness to step up and assist Jewish refugees was
infamously on display at the 1938 Evian Conference. Convened by President
Roosevelt and attended by 32 governments, the nine-day event was an utter
failure. States were invited on the understanding that they would not be asked
to change their laws and that settlement costs would be borne by private organ-
izations. The speeches of State delegates, while acknowledging the human-
itarian need and imperative of greater burden-sharing, strongly emphasized
sovereignty and respect for existing immigration regulations.170
No meaningful outcomes were reached. States agreed to participate in a
new Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees to coordinate multilateral
resettlement efforts for refugees from the Third Reich; however, their ongoing
unwillingness to ease restrictive immigration criteria or make other meaning-
ful commitments rendered the work by the Intergovernmental Committee’s
efforts largely ineffective.171 The Third Reich, meanwhile, was quick to point
out the apparent hypocrisy of States that condemned it while themselves being
unwilling to accept Jewish refugees.172
The League’s failures in the 1930s stood in sharp contrast to the energy,
commitment and accomplishments of non-governmental institutions. Despite
the obstacles, at the close of the decade, close to 300,000 Jewish refugees
managed to escape the Third Reich, often with the help of private institu-
tions. The British Mandated Palestine and the United States each accounted
for the resettlement of one quarter of the total. Approximately 50,000
refugees managed to reach safety in the United Kingdom, over 43,000 made it to
Argentina and over 20,000 were admitted to China, concentrated in Shanghai.173
At the same moment – on the eve of WWII – another major displacement

was in full swing, and it too illustrated the deficiencies in international action.
The Japanese imperialist conquest of Manchuria (1931–1932) was a prelude to
Japan’s more ambitious invasion of China in 1937 and its occupation of Beijing,
Shanghai and surrounding areas that summer, causing millions of citizens to
flee inward. The subsequent Japanese advance west on Nanjing added to the
massive number of deaths and forced flight.174
In a matter of months, more than 16 million people were on the move
within China, a number that rose precipitously when China deliberately
destroyed dikes along the Yellow River in an attempt to frustrate further
Japanese advancements. Later referred to as the greatest environmental act
of war in history, 1 million people died and many more were displaced.175 The
survivors were compelled to settle in other provinces and in remote areas and,
by 1945, as many as 6 million people remained without a home.176
At the end of WWII, over 90 million people are estimated to have been
forcibly displaced in China177 – one of the greatest forced displacements in
human history. Many were never able to return to their homes and it took
generations before some of the most impacted cities recovered from the
economic devastation caused by the conflict.
The war imposed huge economic and psychological scars, yet, as in
Europe, also saw the emergence of coordinated government and voluntary
responses that helped shape social service work of the future.
In Wuhan, which became the de facto capital, an impressive response
to meet the needs of displaced populations was marshalled. Inspired by local
individuals, the effort engaged local civil society, merchant associations, reli-
gious organizations, benevolent societies, a high-level National Relief Com-
mittee as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross. Govern-
ment-led education, nutrition and health interventions would later become a
model both for the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China.178
In Claudena Skran’s history of refugees during the inter-war years, she
traces the gradual expansion of the international protection regime. Positively,
international cooperation did increase to the benefit of individuals and certain
groups of refugees, notably through the extension of consular services, protec-
tion from expulsion, provision of humanitarian aid, settlement and emigra-
tion assistance. Refugees were increasingly seen as a specific class of persons
in need of protection.179
The establishment of specialized agencies, like the International Labour
Organization and the High Commissioner for Refugees, facilitated
international cooperation and set in motion collaborative practices that could

be applied elsewhere and upon which future multilateral institutions would
expand and rely.
It is also the case that the inter-war period, especially during the 1930s,
demonstrated the extent to which States would go in exerting their sovereign
right to control their borders and deny admission to those who were not seen
as advancing their economic, social or foreign policy objectives. Admissions
were relaxed in times of labour shortages and preferences maintained for those
who were culturally or ethnically similar. States were more likely to provide
humanitarian and development assistance to host countries that were their
allies and to provide refuge to those fleeing their enemies than those fleeing
their friends. And, while voluntary organizations grew in size and influence
throughout this period, much to the benefit of refugees, some also responded
partially, reaching out to help those of shared religion or ethnicity.
World War II
WWI set the record for the largest number of deaths and displacement due
to war in modern history. It was a record of relatively short duration, totally
eclipsed by the mammoth consequences of WWII.
Waged across six continents, engaging more than 30 countries, over 70
million people died and tens of millions were forcibly displaced throughout
its six-year duration. Six million Jews, two thirds of the Jewish population of
Europe, were systematically killed. At its conclusion, borders were redrawn,
mass ethnic expulsions were brokered, millions of people were returned to
their countries of origin, including forcibly to situations of risk, and hundreds
of thousands resettled, often continents away.
The sheer scale of the needs of displaced populations demanded a coor-
dinated multilateral response. The war marked the beginning of more joined
up responses to forced displacement and led to the 1951 Convention, which
remains the foundational legal instrument of the international protection of
refugees.
In Europe, tens of millions of people were killed and over 30 million civi-
lians displaced within their countries or across borders.180 Causes and patterns
of displacement were complex. Refugees fled invading armies and persecution
and were deported with many moving through several countries seeking safety.181
Ethnic cleansing accounted for large-scale displacement. In 1940, German
forces drove out francophones, Jews, Roma and others from Alsace-Lorraine.
The next year, the Serbian minority was expelled by Croatia.182 Following the
German invasion of Poland, hundreds of thousands of people were forced out
of the country.183 In Soviet-controlled areas, ethnic minorities such as German
farmers, Crimean Tatars and Chechens were also forcibly displaced and deported
to Central Asia.184 Meanwhile, over 16 million Soviet citizens were internally
displaced, evacuated to the interior, many unwillingly and without the right
to return.185 Millions of prisoners of war were also displaced, many of whom
had been deported to work in Germany to help feed the German war machine.
At the war’s end, there were over 14 million Europeans in Allied-controlled
areas “fleeing, or heading home, or searching for family members, or simply
trying to survive”.186
While most were displaced within their own countries, millions were
displaced elsewhere throughout Europe and tens of thousands, mainly
Eastern European refugees, were in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.187 Thou-
sands of Jewish refugee survivors of the Holocaust endured years in displaced
persons camps in the face of no possibility of return, either because they had
been stripped of their citizenship or forced to flee pogroms and persistent
persecution in their home countries.188 An additional several million foreign
workers, many of them forced, and prisoners of war in Germany completed
the picture of displaced persons on the continent.189
In Asia, a similar picture emerged. Among the legacies of the war was the
first use of the atomic bomb and, as in Europe, millions of deaths, massive war
crimes committed, severely damaged infrastructure, redrawn borders, and many
millions of people displaced. India received hundreds of thousands of Indian
workers and allies fleeing the Japanese occupation of Burma while, in Burma,
tens of thousands of people were internally displaced.190 In China, in addition
to the millions of people uprooted from the Sino-Japanese conflict, close to 20
million civilians died during WWII. An estimated 7.5 million people perished
from massive war-related famines in Bengal, China and Indochina during the
second half of WWII.191
Just as borders were redrawn in Europe, so too in Asia. Imperial powers were
weakened, contributing to the independence of most countries in the region
within a quarter of a century after the end of WWII.192
While some countries achieved independence peacefully, the struggle for
independence turned violent in others. The partition of British India into the
two newly independent States of India and Pakistan in 1947 led to the massive
population exchange of over 14.5 million people: Hindus from Pakistan to
India and Muslims in the opposite direction.193
This displacement occurred amidst ferocious violence that claimed over

half a million deaths.194As homes were burned, mass murders, abductions,
beatings, forced conversions, rape and disfigurement were widely perpetrated.
One of the most extensive population relocations in history was not a short-
term displacement. Having left property and other assets behind and lacking
capital, millions remained uprooted for years.195
Well before the conclusion of WWII, it was apparent that attending to the
needs of the burgeoning number of refugees required a coordinated multilateral
effort. Conceived, driven and largely funded by the United States, the United
Nations Refugee Relief Agency (UNRRA) was established in 1943, represen-
ting 48 nations. Compared to previous multilateral efforts, its budget of close to
$4 billion was relatively robust as was its workforce of close to 13,000 persons.196
UNRRA was set up to provide immediate assistance to war-affected coun-
tries and displaced populations as well as to fund development programmes
in agriculture and industrial and social service sectors. Most of UNRRA’s budget
and efforts, however, were concentrated in Europe, excluding Germany.197
Working under the authority of the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied
Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF) and alongside non-governmental partners,
UNRRA coordinated and provided food, clothing, shelter and other forms of
relief, establishing 800 camps for over 7 million displaced persons in Europe.198
UNRRA’s work on repatriation, beyond assisting the voluntary return of
millions of Germans, Italians and Austrians, proved much more controver-
sial.199 As a result of the agreement of the Yalta Conference,200 the Soviet
Union, United Kingdom and United States exchanged 50,000 Western Allied Refugees in
prisoners of war in Soviet-controlled territories and over 2 million Soviet Europe after
World War II.
citizens in Western Allied countries. Many among the latter were dissidents © UNHCR
or prisoners of war and feared reprisals upon return. Their fears were not
misplaced.201
Many returning men to the Soviet Union were interned and executed or
forced to serve in the Army and later conscripted to work in mines and timber
industries in Siberia. Most women returnees faced discrimination for the
remainder of their lives.202 UNRRA’s engagement in this forced repatriation
compromised its reputation and constituted another low point in international
refugee responses.
Strong advocacy by refugees and the diaspora in the United States even-
tually led to the withdrawal of United States support for the forced repatria-
tions. The discontinuation of compelled returns aggravated tensions between
the democracies of the West and the Soviet republics, the former maintaining
that displaced persons should not be forced to return to Communist States

and the latter insisting they should.203
Meanwhile, within the United States, there was also mounting criticism of
relief being provided to countries under Communist rule and a growing sense
that United States foreign policy was no longer best served by this multilateral
effort.204 The United States withdrew its support for UNRRA in 1947 on the
eve of its launch of the Marshall Plan and its $13 billion in support of recon-
struction in Western Europe.
With the loss of its major donor, the mandate of UNRRA was not extended
beyond its scheduled expiry in 1947. The work of UNRRA was transferred
to other newly established agencies, such as the International Refugee
Organization (IRO), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Mass expulsions were not confined to the war but also featured promi-
nently in the negotiated terms of settlement. The Soviet border was expanded
300 kilometres into Poland, the western border of which was extended into
former German lands. And as agreed by the Allies, the remaining German
populations in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland would be transferred to
Germany.205 Ethnic Germans were also expelled from other areas of Central
and Eastern Europe.
These were often very violent movements. Germans were attacked, maimed
and killed during their exodus by armed and civilian groups in revenge for
German atrocities of the war.206 Many tens of thousands died in the process
from injuries, hunger and disease. Others died upon reaching Allied-controlled
Germany, where food was scarce, transportation networks destroyed, water
often contaminated and fuel in short supply.207 By 1950, over 12 million ethnic
Germans had fled to west Germany. Estimates place the number of deaths in
this movement at between 200,000 and over 2.3 million people.208
Smaller yet significantly large numbers of other populations including
Poles, Turks, Ukrainians and Hungarians were expelled from the Soviet
Union, Bulgaria, Poland and Slovakia, respectively. 209 Meanwhile, new
refugee movements of Jews fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe210 and defec-
tors from the Eastern Bloc kept the refugee issue very high on the interna-
tional agenda.211
The tensions between the West and the Soviet Bloc over refugees did not
dissipate with the creation of the International Refugee Organization (IRO).
Established by treaty in 1948 as a time-limited United Nations specialized
agency, the IRO was mandated to help refugees and displaced persons return
home or establish elsewhere and, in the interim, to provide them with mate-
rial assistance.212 The IRO Constitution excluded persons of German ethnic
origin who during the war were evacuated or fled from Germany, sought refuge
in Germany, as well as those who were or could be transferred there.213 They
were considered to be the responsibility of Germany.
Importantly, the IRO Constitution, passed by the United Nations General
Assembly, provided that no person with valid objections should be compelled
to return.214 This reflected international condemnation of forced repatria-
Signing the 1951

Convention in
Geneva.
Seated, left-to-
right: Margaret
Kitchen, Deputy
Executive
Secretary; John
tions. Funded largely by the United States, with over 5,000 staff, IRO assisted Humphrey,
Director of
over 1.5 million refugees.215 It did not resolve the refugee situation, for there the Human
remained hundreds of thousands of refugees in Europe and millions of Rights Division;
Knud Larsen,
refugees in Asia in need and without solutions. Conference
As discussed more in Part III, securing permanent refuge for Jewish Holo- President; Gerrit
Jan van Heuven
caust survivors and those fleeing pogroms was fraught. Many were temporar- Goedhart, High
ily assisted in displaced persons camps within zones under the control of the Commissioner
for Refugees.
United Kingdom and the United States, including in former concentration © Arni/UN
camps.216 In the months following the war, these camps were cramped, lacked Archives
proper sanitation, often encircled with barbed wire, and the shelter provided
was inadequate protection against the elements. Initially, many Jews were
also accommodated in camps alongside Nazi collaborators. During the mass

resettlement drives to find solutions for remaining camp populations, Jewish
refugees were deliberately overlooked by resettlement countries.217
1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
In 1941, spearheaded by President Roosevelt, allied nations signed a declara-

tion reflecting their joint commitment to uphold human rights and justice and
to work collectively to defeat their common enemies.218 It was a foundational
step in the formation of the United Nations that emerged at the conclusion
of the war. The United Nations Charter was deliberated and drafted in the
spring of 1945 by countries that had joined the wartime alliance and with
representation from non-governmental organizations. By the end of the year,
51 nations had joined.
From the outset, its mandate was broad: to maintain international peace
and security, promote respect for human rights and international law, and
collectively address international problems of a social, economic and human-
itarian nature.219
The problems faced by refugees and displaced persons featured early in
the United Nations’ agenda especially given the large number remaining in
Europe and the controversy over the forced return of so many. Recognizing
the immediate and urgent need to distinguish between genuine refugees and
displaced persons on the one hand and “war criminals, quislings and traitors”
on the other, early in 1946, the General Assembly referred the matter to the
Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) for consideration.220
This launched a four-year exercise that would culminate in the 1951
Convention. In the interim, two other significant developments advanced
the protection of refugees. The first was the development of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The second was the creation of the
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees with a mandate
far broader than any previous specialized refugee institution.
Work on an international bill of rights came on the heels of the United
Nations’ creation. The aim was to give effect to the commitment of the United
Nations Charter to promote universal respect for human rights for all indi-
viduals without distinction. In 1949, the UDHR was adopted with support
from 48 of the 58 United Nations member States.221 It included the right “to
seek, and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution”; however, it
did not include a specific, corresponding obligation for States to provide it. 222
That responsibility was the focus of discussions in ECOSOC concerning

a new international convention for the protection of refugees. Meanwhile, the
United Nations established the Office of the United Nations High Commis-
sioner for Refugees. Recognizing the global scope of the refugee problem, the
mandate of this Office was not confined to a specific group of refugees or to a
particular location.223
UNHCR’s Statute specifies that the work of UNHCR is humanitar-
ian, entirely non-political and dedicated to two main priorities. One is the
provision of international protection to refugees. The other is seeking perma-
nent solutions for them by assisting governments to “facilitate the voluntary
repatriation of such refugees, or their assimilation within new national com-
munities”.224 Created by the General Assembly, UNHCR remains accountable
to it through ECOSOC to whom it reports annually.225
The Office was given a global mandate but, like High Commissioners of the
inter-war period, there were no guaranteed sources of funding, beyond a limited
contribution to administrative expenses through the United Nations regular
budget. This was to allay the concerns of States that they only be required to
finance relief efforts that they approved on a discretionary basis. Several of the
same States also insisted that the term of the Office be temporary, which is
why it was initially established for a three-year period.226
The funding constraints proved a serious and immediate problem for the
first High Commissioner, Gerrit Jan van Heuven Goedhart, who was himself a
refugee from the Netherlands. During the war, van Heuven Goedhart worked
for the resistance, which was targeted during the German occupation. A
warrant for his arrest and the capture, execution or detention of many of his
colleagues prompted his eventual flight and ultimate refuge in the United
Kingdom. There he became the Minister of Justice for the Government of the
Netherlands in exile.
As High Commissioner, he was faced with the rather impossible task of
assisting millions of refugees with an insufficient budget of just $300,000,
prompting him to remark on the danger that his Office “would simply ‘admin-
ister misery’”.227
Van Heuven Goedhart moved in three ways that helped set the course for
future High Commissioners. He sought voluntary contributions,228 devel-
oped strong partnerships with non-governmental agencies and established a
representational presence in countries around the world to help refugees access
his Office.229 His Office was also active in drafting the 1951 Convention.
Much of the drafting work on the 1951 Convention occurred in the Ad
Hoc Committee, established by ECOSOC in 1949.230 The Committee

was comprised of 13 governments.231 Legal experts from within the United
Nations, including the IRO, and non-governmental agencies contributed as
observers. Just as many refugees in earlier periods were actively engaged in the
terms of their settlement, former refugees also played an influential role in the
drafting of the 1951 Convention and State negotiations.
Paul Weis was the chief drafter for the IRO and future first Director of
Protection for UNHCR. Born in Austria, he was interned in the late 1930s
The High
Commissioner
for Refugees,
Gerrit Jan van
Heuven Goedhart
(right), talks with in Dachau concentration camp before fleeing to the United Kingdom where
Egypt’s Omar
Loutfi in October
he became naturalized. Jacques L. Rubinstein, a member of Weis’ team, was a
1955, before a Russian refugee and jurist who had advocated close to 25 years earlier for an
debate at the
UN General
international binding legal convention regarding refugees and was involved
Assembly. He is in the drafting of the 1933 Convention.232 Also assisting Weis was Gustave
holding a Nansen
Medal, awarded
Kullman, a Swiss jurist whose wife had been a Russian refugee. Their experi-
for outstanding ences helped shape their understanding of the protections needed in the 1951
work on behalf of
refugees.
Convention, including ensuring the refugee definition was inclusive of the
© UN photo diversity of refugee experiences, the importance of socioeconomic rights, and
the necessity of non-refoulement.233
Others with refugee experiences contributed as government delegates and
leaders of non-governmental organizations. Jacob Robinson, the chief negotia-

tor for Israel, was a Lithuanian politician who had fled religious persecution in
1940 prior to the Soviet occupation. Rabbi Isaac Lewin represented a Jewish
organization that argued persuasively for due process protections for refugees
at risk of expulsion on the grounds of national security or public order.234
The drafting history reveals that one of the most contentious issues was
whether the 1951 Convention should be wide enough to encompass present
and prospective refugee situations or be confined to existing and geographi-
cally defined ones. Western countries differed in their perspectives on this, with
some States changing their positions at various times in the drafting process.
Soviet bloc countries were generally hostile to the idea of the Convention,
perceiving it as a means for the West to encourage defections and, in the words
of one delegate, to benefit from “slave labour”.235 France and the United States
wanted to limit responsibilities to refugees within Europe, while Belgium,
Denmark, Egypt, Germany, Norway, Sweden were among those States who
saw value in the application of the Convention to all parts of the world.236
In the end, the 1951 Convention had both a temporal and geographic limit,
appealing to those who wanted to limit its reach. It was approved at the Con-
ference of Plenipotentiaries in July 1951 and came into effect three years later
when the requisite number of ratifications was reached. Of the 26 countries
represented at the conference, 17 were from Europe, five from the Americas
and three from the Middle East and one from Asia Pacific.237
The 1951 Convention was initially limited to those who became refugees
as a result of events prior to 1951 and permitted States to further limit its
application to events occurring within Europe prior to this time, although
only four did so.238 These significant temporal and geographic limitations
were removed 15 years later, with the 1967 Protocol reflecting the widening
scope of the international protection regime as did the definition of a refugee.239
The 1951 Convention definition was more universal, not restricted to a
specific group or nationality but to persons unable or unwilling to return to
their country of origin, owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for
reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a
particular social group. All but the last of these grounds were familiar to the
European refugee experience of the early and late modern period.240
The addition of particular social group was at the recommendation
of Sweden and, while there is no definitive record as to the rationale, it
helped to ensure that definition could be interpreted inclusively in the years
to come.241
1951 Refugee Convention Party to the 1951 Convention
and/or its 1967 Protocol
States parties to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and/or its 1967 Protocol
as of 05 October 2021
e
ag
x tp
GREENLAND [DNK]
ne
e
Se
RUSSIAN FEDERATION
CANADA
KAZAKHSTAN
MONGOLIA
UZBEKISTAN
KYRGYZSTAN DEM.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PEOPLE’S
TURKMENISTAN TAJIKISTAN REP. OF KOREA
REP. OF KOREA JAPAN
AFGHANISTAN
ISLAMIC REP.
OF IRAN CHINA
PAKISTAN NEPAL
CANARY ISLANDS [ESP]
BHUTAN
BAHAMAS Western
MEXICO Sahara
SAUDI ARABIA TAIWAN [CHN]
BANGLADESH
CUBA HONG KONG [CHN]
UNITED ARAB MYANMAR MACAO [CHN]
EMIRATES INDIA
HAITI MAURITANIA
MALI QATAR
JAMAICA NIGER LAO PEOPLE’S
CABO VERDE SUDAN YEMEN BAHRAIN DEM. REP.
ERITREA
KUWAIT VIET NAM FEDERATION
BURKINA NORTHERN STATES OF MICRONESIA
BELIZE OMAN CAMBODIA MARIANA ISLANDS
GUYANA FASO [USA]
GUATEMALA GUINEA
SURINAME SENEGAL DJIBOUTI
BOLIVARIAN NIGERIA SOMALIA
EL SALVADOR FRENCH GUIANA [FRA] PHILIPPINES
REP. OF GAMBIA CÔTE SOUTH THAILAND
ETHIOPIA SRI LANKA BRUNEI
HONDURAS VENEZUELA D’IVOIRE SUDAN CHAD PALAU
GUINEA-BISSAU DARUSSALAM
NICARAGUA CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC MALAYSIA
COLOMBIA SIERRA LEONE
COSTA RICA UGANDA
LIBERIA GHANA
PANAMA SINGAPORE
KENYA
TOGO
ECUADOR RWANDA
BENIN INDONESIA
BURUNDI
CAMEROON MALDIVES
MALAWI PAPUA
UNITED
SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE NEW
REP. OF SEYCHELLES GUINEA
EQUATORIAL GUINEA TANZANIA
COMOROS
GABON TIMOR LESTE
PERU BRAZIL
REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF ZAMBIA MADAGASCAR SOLOMON
PLURINATIONAL THE CONGO
MAURITIUS ISLANDS
STATE
ANGOLA VANUATU
OF BOLIVIA
BOTSWANA ZIMBABWE MARSHALL ISLANDS
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
ANGUILLA [GBR]
NAMIBIA
PUERTO RICO [USA] REUNION [FRA] FRENCH NEW
PARAGUAY CALEDONIA [FRA]
BRITISH VIRGIN SAINT MARTIN [FRA]
ISLANDS [GBR]
SINT MAARTEN CHILE AUSTRALIA
[K. OF THE NLD]
ANTIGUA MOZAMBIQUE KIRIBATI

UNITED STATES
AND BARBUDA ESWATINI NAURU
VIRGIN ISLANDS [USA] ARGENTINA
SABA [NLD] MONTSERRAT [GBR] LESOTHO
SINT EUSTATIUS [NLD] SOUTH AFRICA
SAINT KITTS DOMINICA
URUGUAY
AND NEVIS MARTINIQUE [FRA]
GUADELOUPE [FRA]
SAINT LUCIA NEW ZEALAND
SAINT VINCENT
AND THE GRENADINES BARBADOS TUVALU
ARUBA [K. OF THE NLD] COOK ISLANDS [NZL]
GRENADA
BONAIRE [NLD]
CURAÇAO [K. OF THE NLD]
SAMOA AMERICAN
TRINIDAD SAMOA [USA]
AND TOBAGO
FIJI
International boundary
Undetermined
The boundaries and names shown and the designations used on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations. NIUE [NZL]
international boundary
Final boundary between the Republic of Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan has not yet been determined.
Abyei region
Dotted line represents approximately the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir agreed upon by India and Pakistan. The final status of Jammu and Kashmir has not yet been agreed upon by the parties. TONGA
The initials in [ ] refer to the administering Power or the Power involved in a special treaty relationship. Administrative line Sources: UNHCS, UNHCR
... 1951 Refugee Convention as of 05 October 2021
States parties to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees

1 BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

2 CROATIA
3 SERBIA*
4 MONTENEGRO
JAN MAYEN
ISLAND [NOR] 5 SLOVENIA
6 NORTH MACEDONIA
7 ALBANIA
ICELAND
SWEDEN
FAEROE ISLANDS [DNK]

FINLAND
NORWAY
UNITED KINGDOM ESTONIA

OF GREAT BRITAIN RUSSIAN FEDERATION
AND NORTHERN
IRELAND DENMARK LATVIA
NETHERLANDS
LITHUANIA
IRELAND
BELARUS
POLAND
GERMANY
CZECHIA
UKRAINE
SLOVAKIA
REP. OF
FRANCE AUSTRIA HUNGARY MOLDOVA
BELGIUM
5 2 ROMANIA
LUXEMBOURG
SWITZERLAND ITALY
1
3
4 BULGARIA
MONACO GEORGIA
PORTUGAL 6
ANDORRA 7 AZERBAIJAN
SPAIN
LIECHTENSTEIN
SAN MARINO TURKEY ARMENIA
HOLY SEE GREECE NAKHCHIVAN
ISLAMIC [AZE]
REP.
OF IRAN
SYRIAN
MALTA ARAB REP.
CYPRUS
LEBANON IRAQ
TUNISIA ISRAEL
MOROCCO STATE OF PALESTINE JORDAN
ALGERIA SAUDI
ARABIA
LIBYA
EGYPT
Party to the 1951 Convention

The boundaries and names shown and the designations used on this map do not imply
International boundary Undetermined Administrative line
official endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations. international boundary
The initials in [ ] refer to the administering Power or the Power involved in a special treaty relationship.
* Serbia and Kosovo (S/RES/1244 (1999)). Sources: UNHCS, UNHCR

The 1951 Convention reflects the ideals of safety, solidarity and self-
reliance for refugees, reflected at various points in history. Protection from
return (refoulement) to harm for political reasons, that had long featured in
extradition treaties, was expanded in the 1951 Convention, to prohibit the
expulsion or return of a refugee to a territory where the person’s life or free-
dom is threatened for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a
particular social group or political opinion. The only exception is on the grounds
of national security or public order.242 This principle of non-refoulement was
considered so fundamental that no reservations or derogations on it were
permitted and has since become a principle of international customary law.243
In regard to solidarity, the Preamble of the 1951 Convention recognizes that
refugee problems are of international scope and nature. The provision of asylum
can impose heavy burdens on States, necessitating “international cooperation”.
As for self-reliance, in addition to ensuring safety to refugees, the 1951
Convention includes other rights important for enabling refugees to rebuild
their lives, such as the provision of identification documents, access to work
and freedom of movement internally and externally with State-issued travel
documents.244
Some rights in the 1951 Convention are provided at the same level as to
nationals. These rights include access to the courts, public relief, rationing,
elementary education, artistic rights and industrial property, fiscal charges,
labour standards and social security.245
In other areas, refugees are to benefit from the most favourable treat-
ment provided to non-nationals, such as wage-earning employment and the
right of association.246 In regard to self-employment, housing, secondary and
tertiary education, refugees are to be treated as favourably as possible and no
less favourably than aliens generally.247 And to ensure refugees have a stable
legal status, States shall as far as possible facilitate their assimilation and
naturalization.248
The 1951 Convention provisions, which aimed at ensuring that refugees
would be able to move on with their lives, not be dependent on assistance, and
contribute to their new communities, were similar to the expectations of coun-
tries and empires that had taken in groups of refugees in preceding centuries.
The 1951 Convention was a historic milestone that sets out the broadest
set of rights accorded to refugees in an international instrument. And while it
fell short of including an enforcement mechanism, which some commentators
view as its greatest limitation, it entrenched a supervisory responsibility with
UNHCR with whom signatory States agreed to cooperate.249
It provided a benchmark of rights and principles that would be reaffirmed

by States to the present day, even though their practical adherence to the
standards has been imperfect.250 The standards would be reinforced by other
international and regional instruments and national laws.251 They would also
inform the development of additional frameworks to respond to internal and
climate-induced displacement discussed in Part II.
The 1951 Convention would also be the focus of much debate and reflec-
tion with some arguing that it and the 1967 Protocol did not go far enough to
protect refugees or to support States that receive them, and others asserting that
the 1951 Convention has proven to be an enduringly relevant and visionary
instrument capable of addressing situations of modern displacement. The gaps
in the provision of international protection and international cooperation, they
claim, do not lie with the 1951 Convention and its Protocol, but rather in the
failure of States to apply its provisions consistently and without reservation.252
Acknowledging the limits in the 1951 Convention, and anticipating these
future debates, the President of the Conference of Plenipotentiaries, Knud
Larsen, explained at the closing ceremony of the Conference, that they never-
theless achieved what was possible at the time and established “a satisfactory
legal status, which would be of material assistance in promoting international
collaboration in the refugee field”.253
In the intervening 70 years, 149 countries became party to the 1951
Convention or 1967 Protocol or both, reflecting 77 per cent of the United
Nations membership.254 The 1951 Convention has been a source of protec-
tion and solutions for millions of refugees. From a historical perspective, the
1951 Convention was a singular achievement: codifying universal rights and
standards of treatment afforded to refugees to enable them to live securely and
rebuild their lives.
It is also the case that progress continues to be incremental and uneven.
The number of forcibly displaced persons continues to substantially increase
with over 82 million forcibly displaced at the end of 2020. The opportunities
of forcibly displaced persons to return to their places of origin are limited
particularly due to prolonged conflict. Rights set out in the 1951 Convention
are not systematically honoured, limiting access to safety as well as to oppor-
tunities to become self-reliant. The vast majority of people forced to flee are
in developing countries, a significant challenge borne by States with limited
means and insufficient support from others.255
These are among the many challenges that led the United Nations
General Assembly, in 2016, to commit to new ways of responding to forced
displacement. The resulting Global Compact on Refugees seeks to give better

effect to the Convention’s core aims of ensuring safety to refugees, helping
them rebuild their lives and supporting States in which they reside.
The perennial challenge – which subsequent Parts address – is how best to
ensure that these aims can be met.
Table of Contents
103 Refugees
104 Regional Refugee Frameworks
115 Responsibility- and Burden-Sharing/Shifting
132 Other Forcibly Displaced People

PA R T II
135 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement
Protecting 141 Climate and Disaster Displacement Frameworks
More Broadly 152 Trends Analysis
154 Minding the Gaps

DAccullenis ent
veraes estia sequid
ut erit qui blatur
sitem es quae
volest laborec
esequia
Protecting
More Broadly
In this Part, we look at the influence of the Convention relating to the Status
of Refugees (1951 Convention), beyond its roots in the realities of post-
war Europe. In particular, we see how its protections have reached a much
broader group of people than the drafters could have envisaged, and how it
Previous page: has informed subsequent regional refugee instruments. It has also inspired
Three South
Sudanese international frameworks for protecting internally displaced persons and those
internally forced to flee in the context of climate change and environmental disasters.
displaced women
walk to their These additional State efforts have responded to growing levels of forced
family after displacement within borders as well as beyond them, reflecting its multiple causes.
registering their
arrival with local The frameworks cited above recognize the right of forcibly displaced persons
authorities in to receive the protection and assistance required to overcome the vulnerabilities
Leer, Unity State,
November 2014. of displacement. They also show the necessity of genuine cooperation among
© UNHCR/ States to share responsibilities and burdens equitably. Tracing these develop-
Andrew
McConnell ments reveals the extent that the frameworks have widened the arc of protec-
tion. It also outlines where adherence to them has fallen short of the ideals
of solidarity and inclusion necessary for forcibly displaced persons to live in
dignity and achieve a better future.
PA R T I I / P RO T E C T I N G M O R E B RO A D LY 103
Refugees
1951 Convention
The 1951 Convention outlines the rights of refugees, and the obligations
of States towards them as well as towards UNHCR. States are obliged to
cooperate with UNHCR in the exercise of its mandate, to provide it with
information on the number and condition of refugees as well as relevant laws
and regulations affecting them.1 They are also required to cooperate with
UNHCR’s supervisory responsibility2 for ensuring governments take the
necessary measures to meet their obligations for people under UNHCR’s
mandate.3
As discussed in Part I, the 1951 Convention initially applied to those who
became refugees due to events before 1951. It also allowed States to restrict its
application to events within Europe. These limitations were lifted in the 1967
Protocol amid rising forced displacement, principally in Africa. The Protocol
ensures that the Convention obligations apply to all refugee situations, regard-
less of where and when they arise.
Although forged from the circumstances of World War II (WWII), the
1951 Convention was intended to be of enduring nature: providing protection
to refugees in varied circumstances and not confined to the post-war context.
As observed in the UK House of Lords in 2003, “while its meaning does not
change over time its application will”.4 And so it has broadened.5
International protection has been extended to those fleeing persecution
by non-State agents. People have been recognized as refugees when in fear of
persecution by organized gangs, traffickers and others in circumstances where
the State is unable or unwilling to provide protection.6 People fleeing disasters
and famines have also been recognized as Convention refugees, when armed
conflict or individual or group identity are also a source of the harm feared.
And persecution on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity has also
counted.7
Recognition of the broad scope of international protection has come
through State practice, jurisprudence and regional refugee instruments. Yet,
alongside this widening scope, safety for refugees has also been withheld. Even
when it has been provided, other rights are often denied. International burdens
and responsibilities have not been equitably shared. How this has happened is
set out in the following discussion.
Regional Refugee Frameworks
OAU Convention 1969

Africa was experiencing a steady and significant increase in forced displace-
ment before the 1951 Convention extended beyond Europe and the events
of WWII. This eventually led to a specific regional framework: the 1969
Organisation of African Unity Convention Governing Specific Aspects of
Refugee Problems in Africa (OAU Convention).
The main causes of forced displacement in Africa in the 1950s were inde-
pendence struggles and post-independence internal conflicts. The Algerian
War of Independence was among the first. Beginning in 1954, this eight-year,
bitter and violent struggle claimed over 300,000 Algerian lives. It prompted 1
million European settlers to leave and caused the mass encampment of over
1 million Algerian civilians and the flight of over 200,000 refugees to Tunisia
and Morocco.8
Other independence struggles were to follow. Within a decade, the politi-
cal map of Africa changed considerably, as the number of newly independent
countries rose from a few to include most countries on the continent.9 Many
of these transitions were achieved peacefully. For others, independence was
only won after years of armed conflict, many deaths and significant forced
displacement.
The decolonization struggles of Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique
were brutal.10 Among the colonial powers, Portugal was particularly reluc-
tant to “end colonization in all its forms and manifestations”, as provided in
the 1960 General Assembly Decolonization Resolution11 and as intended by
Articles in the United Nations Charter.12 Aspirations for self-determination
were growing. Portugal’s continued denial of economic, social and political
opportunities to African populations led to armed insurrection.13
The Portuguese Colonial War began in Angola in 1961, reaching
Guinea-Bissau in 1963 and Mozambique the next year. Independence
movements were met with fierce counter-insurgency measures. The conflicts
continued for over a decade, marked by human rights violations and tens of
thousands of deaths.14 Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled to neighbouring
countries, including Senegal, Tanzania, Zaire and Zambia.15
Post-independence power struggles also led to substantial forced displace-
ment. Several thousand fled Burundi in 1965 as the Tutsi-led Government
quashed a Hutu-led insurgency.16 In neighbouring Rwanda, Tutsis fled increas-
ingly repressive policies of the Hutu-dominated government with close to
160,000 seeking refuge principally in Burundi, DRC, Uganda.17 Cyclical

violence persisted in both countries, and refugees remained in protracted
displacement. Enmities deepened and would erupt with searing violence in
the 1990s engulfing Africa’s Great Lakes region.18
Sudan was also a source of significant forced displacement in the 1960s
and for reasons that would persist through many decades. Sudan gained self-
government relatively early, in 1953, yet from the outset was beset with inter-
nal problems. These included difficulties in transitioning from a British- to a
Algerian refugees
gather at a Red
Crescent food
distribution point
at Oued R’man in
Sudanese-dominated civil service, rising disaffection of southern Sudanese Tunisia, in 1959.
who felt left out of the political process, and a parliament that was divided © UNHCR/
Stanley Wright
along sectarian lines.19
Unrest in Sudan sparked a civil conflict that would continue through 1972.
Violence and repression following a military coup in 195820 and another in
1969 resulted in significant forced displacement. By the early 1970s, up to
800,000 persons were displaced internally and some 170,000 had fled the coun-
try,21 most to Uganda and Zaire. As with other conflicts on the continent, vari-
ous exiled groups conducted insurgency efforts from neighbouring countries.22
Cumulatively, these independence and post-independence conflicts
accounted for much of the increase in forced displacement of the period.
Data collection also improved and the extent of forced displacement became
increasingly visible. In 1964, half a million people were known to be refugees

in Africa and, by the end of the decade, this number had almost doubled.23
The OAU Convention came from these circumstances and the need for a
shared response across the region.24 It is a relatively short document but an
important one in the story of forced displacement. It explicitly recognizes the
1951 Convention as the “universal” refugee protection instrument.25 States
committed not to reject or return a refugee to a territory where life, liberty or
integrity of the person is threatened, to act in solidarity to “lighten the burden”
of other States, and to advance solutions by exerting “best endeavours” to secure
the settlement of refugees and support voluntary, safe and sustainable return.26
The OAU Convention also broke new ground. Its broader definition of a
refugee is among its enduring legacies. It explicitly included those who have
fled due “to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events
seriously disturbing public order” in either part or the whole of the country.27
This provision was very much a product of the time, reflecting solidarity among
States to support liberation movements that were still underway. It left no
doubt that those fleeing under these circumstances counted as refugees.
The OAU Convention also had wider relevance. It enabled States to apply
refugee status without having to decide whether the person would likely face
“persecution” in the country of origin, taking the political sensitivity out of
such findings.28 In explicitly recognizing that a refugee could be fleeing from
generalized violence rather than individual persecution, it allows quick applica-
tions to situations of mass forced displacement.29 While the 1951 Convention
definition can also be applied in these contexts, not all States have done so.
The OAU Convention’s definition may also have significant importance
in the context of climate change and natural disasters. Scholars have noted
that it could cover flight from areas affected, if such events were to “seriously
disturb public order”.30 And, in 2019, member States of the African Union
(AU), the successor organization of the OAU, called upon the AU Commission
and UNHCR to publish interpretive guidance to clarify the application of the
OAU Convention refugee definition to “new causes of forced displacement,
such as climate change and disasters”.31
As one of the most widely ratified regional treaties, the OAU Convention
has inspired progressive laws and policies in many African countries. It has
been ratified by 48 of the 55 member States.32 And 47 countries have national
refugee legislation that is broadly in line with it.33 Other regional instruments
have drawn from its provisions, including the Cartagena Declaration in Latin
America,34 the Bangkok Principles on Status and Treatment of Refugees,35 and
OAU Convention as of 07 October 2021
States parties to the 1969 OAU Convention

Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa
TUNISIA
MOROCCO
ALGERIA
LIBYA
Western EGYPT
Sahara
MAURITANIA
CABO VERDE
MALI NIGER
SUDAN ERITREA
CHAD DJIBOUTI
SENEGAL
BURKINA
FASO
GUINEA
NIGERIA
CÔTE ETHIOPIA
CENTRAL SOUTH
D’IVOIRE
AFRICAN REPUBLIC SUDAN
GAMBIA
GUINEA-BISSAU
SIERRA LEONE
SOMALIA
LIBERIA GHANA
KENYA
TOGO
DEMOCRATIC UGANDA
BENIN
REPUBLIC RWANDA
CAMEROON OF THE CONGO
BURUNDI
SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE
UNITED MALAWI
EQUATORIAL GUINEA REPUBLIC OF
TANZANIA SEYCHELLES
GABON
COMOROS
MADAGASCAR
ANGOLA
ZAMBIA
ZIMBABWE
NAMIBIA
BOTSWANA
MAURITIUS
States that have signed MOZAMBIQUE

the OAU Convention ESWATINI
LESOTHO
States that have ratified SOUTH AFRICA
the OAU Convention
International boundary Undetermined Abyei region Administrative line 500 km

The boundaries and names shown and the designations used on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations.
Final boundary between the Republic of Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan has not yet been determined. Final status of the Abyei area is not yet determined. Sources: UNCS, UNHCR
the 2009 AU Kampala Convention for the protection of internally displaced

persons in Africa.36
The OAU Convention reaffirmed the obligations of States to provide
safety to refugees and made it clear that this included people fleeing individual
persecution as well as serious disturbances of public order. It noted the need
to find ways to alleviate suffering and provide refugees with “a better life and
future”.37 It underscores the critically important non-refoulement principle,
the commitment of States to settle refugees, and the imperative that returns
be voluntary, safe and under conditions that are sustainable.
Since it came into force, millions of refugees have received protection in host
countries throughout the continent, many for decades. Refugees arriving in
large numbers have been recognized on a prima facie basis and without having
to establish individual persecution.38 African States have regularly marked
successive anniversaries of the OAU Convention: recognizing its significance.39
Deficiencies in application have been noted and areas for reform agreed.40
Nonetheless, the non-refoulement provision of both refugee Conventions
has not been consistently observed.41 And, while the expanded definition has
led to the recognition of refugees in mass influx situations, many States also
began to rely more on individual determinations rather than granting refu-
gee status to groups on a prima facie basis. Case law on the application of the
OAU Convention definition is thin, tends not to rely on the expansive grounds,
and overall lacks consistency, predictability and common standards across the
continent.42
And the OAU Convention’s commitment to use best efforts to secure the
settlement of refugees who are unable or unwilling to return has fallen short.
As displacement numbers grew from the 1980s onwards, there was also deep-
ening reluctance to facilitate the settlement of refugees or allow their socio-
economic integration. With a few notable exceptions,43 refugees were increas-
ingly confined to closed camps or otherwise prohibited from moving freely,
accessing services, working and engaging in income-generating activities.44
Many African States have made reservations on 1951 Convention provisions
related to rights to move freely, to work, and to access national schools.45
These are among the challenges addressed in the 2018 Global Compact
on Refugees. Its objectives include improving refugee self-reliance as well as
providing more support to States hosting large numbers of refugees.46 Recently,
some African States have shown an openness to move in this direction in line
with more inclusive development approaches generally. A number have initi-
ated policies to provide greater refugee access to national education, health
services and the labour market in a manner that can improve their lives and
those of the communities in which they live. These efforts are discussed more in
Part IV and are encouraging. Transforming intentions into reality will depend
on ongoing political will and sustained international financial and technical
support to improve the lives of refugees and those who host them.
Bangkok Principles 1966

As African States were working on the OAU Convention, a related process
was underway in Asia. In 1964, Egypt requested the Asian-African Legal
Consultative Committee (AALCC), today known as the Asian-African Legal
Consultative Organization (AALCO), to develop standards of treatment for
refugees. As host to thousands of Palestine refugees since the 1948 Arab-
Israeli War, Egypt also thought the issue was of broader interest given rising
refugee displacement across Africa and Asia.47
The AALCO is a legal advisory body to its member States, today num-
bering 47 from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.48 Several rank among the
top refugee-hosting countries in the world. More than half are not parties to
the 1951 Convention or the 1967 Protocol.49
The deliberations of the AALCC led to the adoption of the Bangkok Prin-
ciples in 1966. They are non-binding so, while reflecting agreement between
members, each State is able to decide how to apply them in practice.50 They
were amended over the years and a revised set of Principles was adopted in
2001. The refugee definition encompassed in the Principles, is fully aligned with
the 1951 Convention and includes a specific reference to flight on account of
ethnic origin and gender persecution, external aggression, occupation, foreign
domination, or events seriously disturbing public order.51
The Principles include the right of non-refoulement with a requirement
that any breach for reasons of national security must be effected in accordance
with “due process of law”.52 The right of voluntary return includes the need for
the country of origin to facilitate it by providing necessary documents, granting
full rights and privileges of nationals and not penalizing returnees for having
left the country. The Principles call for international responsibility and
burden-sharing to support States hosting refugees, improved standards of
treatment of refugees, and the provision of solutions within and outside the
region.53
Most commentators speak favourably of the work of the AALCO, while
lamenting the fact that the Principles have generally not been taken up in
national laws. States do not consider themselves legally bound to them and
their central tenets – burden-sharing, voluntary return and protection from

refoulement – have not been systematically respected. Further, solutions to
displacement have not been readily realized.54 A number of the participa-
ting States have been among the world’s largest hosting countries for decades,
offering safety to hundreds of thousands of refugees. However, most restrict
refugee rights and do not encourage local settlement.
Nevertheless, advocates note that the Principles are of value as a frame-
work and that they are ready for States to apply, when there is the political
will. In the meantime, they remain an important benchmark for assessing
State responses.55
Cartagena Declaration on Refugees 1984

In Africa, mounting refugee numbers provided the main motivation for the
OAU Convention. Likewise, 15 years later, escalating refugee crises in Latin
America would have a similar effect.
Latin America had the first multilateral asylum provisions in the world, as
noted in Part I. The 1899 International Treaty on Penal Law recognized the
right to political asylum. State signatories agreed not to extradite foreigners for
political crimes and to afford political refugees “inviolable asylum”. They also
committed to prevent refugees from committing acts within their territories
that “may endanger the public peace” of the country of origin.56 The right to
claim asylum for political reasons – and not to be refouled for political crimes
– was reinforced in regional Conventions over the next 80 years, leading to the
so called “Latin American asylum tradition”.57
The refugee movements of the 1970s and 1980s, however, went
beyond the circumstances covered by this tradition. Conflict in Central
America, for example, displaced an estimated 2 million people from El Salvador,
Guatemala and Nicaragua during the 1970s and 1980s.58 People fled from
political persecution as well as from indiscriminate violence by armed insurgent
and counterinsurgency forces. Many of the receiving countries in the region
either were not party to the 1951 Convention or did not consider the majority
of refugees at the time as falling within its provisions.59
The pace of displacement quickened in the late 1970s. By this time, the
largely agrarian-based economies of Central America had been hard hit by a
decline in foreign trade, and rising oil prices. Earthquakes in Nicaragua in 1972
and Guatemala in 1976 further aggravated matters. Economic hardship added
to the list of grievances against the governing elite whose policies favoured
minority landholding and international commercial interests.60
Nicaragua descended into civil war in 1972. In 1979, the Government of

Nicaragua fell. The new Government formed by the former revolutionary
Sandinista National Liberation Front was soon fighting another war against
the counter-revolutionaries (the “Contras”) who were backed by the United
States.61 The Contras operated out of camps in the neighbouring countries
of Costa Rica and Honduras and, from there, launched attacks on rural areas
within Nicaragua. Tens of thousands of civilians were forcibly displaced from
their homes both internally and externally. By the mid-1980s, there were over
50,000 Nicaraguan refugees. This number would almost double by the end of
the decade when the peace agreement was signed.62
In El Salvador, reform movements championed by the middle class as well
as the rural and urban poor grew in the 1960s and 1970s. They were met with
fierce repression from the security forces. The intensity of violence increased. In
the late 1970s and early 1980s, over 30,000 persons were killed by State security
forces, generating further support for revolutionary movements.63 Some have
estimated that the 12-year civil war led to the forced displacement of 20 per
cent of the population. Close to half a million people were forcibly displaced
internally and 1 million left the country until peace was negotiated in 1992.64
Adding to the instability of the region was ever-increasing repression within
Guatemala in response to decades-old struggles against authoritarian regimes
that were accused of severely disadvantaging the majority indigenous popula-
tion. Armed resistance intensified in the 1970s.65 To suppress the insurgency,
Government forces decimated villages leaving 1 million people internally
displaced, and over 200,000 forced to flee the country by the 1980s.66 Most of
the refugees resided in camps in inhospitable jungle areas of Mexico.67 At the
end of the decade, 90 per cent of the country lived in poverty.68 The conflict
would drag on until 1996, its 30-year trajectory constituting the longest civil
war in the region.
Reception of refugees in the region was uneven, often influenced by political
considerations and generally not informed by international refugee protection
principles. Salvadoran refugees in border areas of Honduras became victims of
attacks, disappearances and kidnappings by Salvadoran forces for which the
Honduran Government had an affinity. On occasion, Honduras and Mexico
forcibly pushed back Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees respectively.69 Very
few of those who fled their countries were formally recognized as refugees by
host countries.70
The displacement crisis in the region and the need for a unified protection-
sensitive response led to the 1984 Colloquium on the International Protection
of Refugees in Central America. It concluded with the Cartagena Declaration

endorsed by 10 participating States.71
Like the OAU Convention, it affirms the principles of the 1951 Refugee
Convention. It reiterates the importance of the non-refoulement principle
and stresses that decisions to repatriate must be made on an individual, volun-
tary basis and in conditions where safety is ensured.72 Similar to the OAU
Convention and reflecting regional experience, the Cartagena Declaration calls
for refugees to be located at a “reasonable distance” from the frontier. Signif-
icantly, it also endorses States’ previously agreed commitments to reinforce
programmes in the areas of health, education, labour and safety and with a
view to ensure the “self-sufficiency of refugees”.73 It acknowledges the possi-
bility of integrating refugees with support from the international community.74
The Cartagena Declaration also includes an expansive regional refugee defi-
nition. It too incorporates the 1951 Convention definition as well as specifies
that refugees also include those who have fled because “their lives, security or
freedom have been threatened by generalized violence, foreign aggression,
internal conflicts, massive violation of human rights or other circumstances
which have seriously disturbed public order”.75 This wording gives the Carta-
gena Declaration far-reaching potential scope.
Although the Cartagena Declaration is not a legally binding document,
most countries in Latin America have incorporated its definition into their
national laws, either in its entirety or with some modifications.76 High Courts
in four countries have also confirmed that compliance with the definition is
mandatory in asylum proceedings.77 In parallel, the Inter-American Court on
Human Rights has affirmed the right of refugees to seek asylum, as well as the
obligation of States to receive and properly assess asylum requests and not to
prevent refugees from making asylum applications.78
The Cartagena Declaration’s ten-yearly anniversaries have been celebrated
with regional meetings where its provisions are reaffirmed.79 These occasions
have also launched new regional initiatives, including in regard to reception,
solutions, statelessness, labour mobility and the prevention of smuggling and
trafficking.80
This spirit of regional collaboration is an achievement of the Cartagena
Declaration. But, in practice, its definition has not been consistently applied.
Most asylum systems afford maximum discretion to decision makers, with
limited oversight, and few guarantees for due process. This contributes to
uneven decision-making and a lack of coherent jurisprudence within national
systems and more broadly in the region.81
Over recent years, the response to the unprecedented displacement of

millions of Venezuelans has further amplified the gap between aspiration and
practice. Beginning around 2014, Venezuela was gripped by unrest over hyper-
inflation, chronic shortages of basic goods and services, corruption, crimina-
lity and political violence. Reports of arbitrary detentions and disappearances
increased. Within six years, over 5.4 million Venezuelans had left their coun-
try: the largest exodus in the history of Latin America and the Caribbean.82
Most States in the region have been reluctant to recognize the majority of
Venezuelans as refugees, despite UNHCR’s 2019 Guidance Note indicating
that many are in need of international protection under the criteria contained
in the Cartagena Declaration.83 Only six States in the region have applied the
expansive provisions of the Cartagena refugee definition to those who have
fled Venezuela.84 As of the end of 2020, most asylum claims remained pend-
ing and the vast majority of claims adjudicated did not recognize the appli-
cants as refugees.85 Brazil is the only State that has recognized Venezuelans
as refugees on a prima facie basis, without the need for a detailed individual
status determination.86
States’ reluctance to accord formal refugee status to Venezuelans is primar-
ily due to the massive scale of displacement, and concerns of more to come.
As some authors observe, refugee status comes with attendant rights to social
services, entailing high fiscal costs.87 Efforts by international financial insti-
tutions to support States in providing these services is discussed further in
Part IV.
While the application of the Cartagena Declaration definition has not
been widely in use, many countries have provided temporary forms of stay. This
has benefited some 2.7 million Venezuelans: over half of the total 4.6 million
Venezuelans that are displaced on the subcontinent.88
Most notable in this regard is Colombia. By the end of 2020, there were
some 1.7 million Venezuelans estimated in the country. About 720,000
persons had been issued Special Stay Permits.89 The remainder did not have
recognized legal status. To address this issue, in February 2021, the Govern-
ment announced it would extend Temporary Protection Status (TPS) to
all Venezuelans residing in the country who register with the Government
within a certain period, as well as to prospective regular arrivals over the
next two years. The TPS will be valid for 10 years during which time permit
holders will be able to work, go to school and access health services. Within
the 10-year period, they will be able to apply for permanent residency.90
In announcing the policy, President Duque said it was aimed at normalizing
lives and to enable Venezuelans to contribute productively to Colombia. He

hoped that other countries would do the same.91 Several months later, Ecuador,
host to an estimated 450,000 Venezuelans, announced a new regularization
policy for Venezuelans, complemented by economic integration and labour
market access.92 These policy developments in Colombia and Ecuador are very
much in keeping with the spirit of the Cartagena Declaration, and the most
significant expression of its ambition in its nearly 40-year history.
In parallel, efforts to improve refugee protection systems in Central America
have increased in recent years, also in line with the Cartagena Declaration and
Venezuelans
cross the Tachira
River to seek help
in Colombia in
2019.
© UNHCR/ commitments made in its ten-yearly anniversaries. This includes the countries
Vincent Tremea of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras – countries whose conflicts inspired
it. For the past decade, these countries have experienced exceptionally high
levels of violence against civilians by criminal gangs, drug cartels and other
illegal armed groups. Extortion, kidnapping, forced recruitment and extremely
high rates of homicide have contributed to extensive displacement. At the end
of 2020, over 850,000 persons from these countries were forcibly displaced,
nearly two thirds of whom had fled across international borders.93
In 2017, countries of origin and receiving States adopted a comprehen-
sive response to displacement in the region.94 The Regional Comprehensive
Protection and Solutions Framework (MIRPS) involves Belize, Costa Rica,
El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Panama. Working

with humanitarian partners, the aim is to strengthen reception systems, regis-
tration, refugee status determination procedures, solutions and assistance to
the most vulnerable. The challenges are considerable. Although close to 68,000
persons from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua have been
granted refugee status since 2017, at the end of 2020, pending asylum claims
numbered over 500,000.95
Cleary the Cartagena Declaration did not transform practices through-
out Latin America as quickly as may have been hoped in 1984. The path to
greater consistency in practice has been slow. Although it is not a legally
binding document, its refugee definition has the force of law in the 15 States
that have incorporated it in their national legislation.96 It also reflects the
desire to work collectively in response to situations of displacement. This has
been evident in comprehensive approaches to resolving Central American
displacements in the 1990s97 and efforts now underway in several countries to
improve protection responses. It is also reflected in the responses of a number
of States to the Venezuelan influx, as well as in the approach several States
have taken in response to displacement in the context of climate change and
disasters.98
Responsibility- and Burden-Sharing/Shifting
International and regional refugee protection arrangements are built on a

commitment of cooperation. The foundational 1951 Convention begins with
recognizing that receiving large numbers of refugees can place great burdens
on States, and that responding to and resolving refugee displacement relies on
“international cooperation”.99
Over the decades, States have reiterated their commitment to more equi-
table burden- and responsibility-sharing in UNHCR’s annual Executive
Committee Conclusions and specified what it entails. It includes the provision
of “emergency, financial, and technical assistance” to countries receiving large
numbers of refugees.100 It also means more than lending a hand. Each State is
also required to do its part in upholding refugee protection.101 Yet, despite the
regular statements of intent, international responsibility and burden-sharing
has generally fallen short.
Many high-income countries have financially supported refugee responses
from afar, accepted refugees through overseas resettlement processes, esta-
blished asylum systems for determining refugee claims of those that arrive at
their borders, and provided integration opportunities for those that are recog-
nized as refugees. Without their regular engagement and financial contribu-
tions, United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations and other
civil society actors working to protect and assist forcibly displaced persons
would not be able to function.
And yet, these contributions continue to fall short of robust and equitable
responsibility- and burden-sharing. Eighty-six per cent of the world’s refugees
find protection in low- and middle-income countries.102 Resettlement from
these countries to high-income countries has rarely represented more than
one per cent of that.103 The reception of large numbers of forcibly displaced
persons is a humanitarian and development challenge for most host countries,
and support to them has generally been unpredictable and incommensurate
with need.
Humanitarian funding is generally provided on an annual basis, often
tightly earmarked to specific donor priorities and falls far short of global
appeals.104 Development funding is also needed to address the fiscal impact
and pressures on social services, infrastructure and the environment and to
help reduce poverty overall. Using development financing in this way has only
relatively recently come on stream.105
The absence of adequate humanitarian and development support has been
a constant source of frustration for many host countries and a visible failure
of international burden- and responsibility-sharing. And, while many high-
income countries are consistent donors and vocal proponents of the inter-
national system to protect refugees, many of them have also instituted and
expanded measures to limit the number of refugees that they accept: blocking
entry to their territories; restricting admissions to their asylum processes; limit-
ing the rights of asylum-seekers and/or interpreting the refugee definition in
a restrictive manner. So, while remaining engaged in the international refugee
protection regime, they also do what they can to limit their direct responsi-
bilities towards refugees.106
This challenge to international cooperation is a recurring theme in inter-
national events to mark the ten-yearly anniversaries of the 1951 Convention.
On its 50th anniversary,107 more than 100 States recommitted to provide
better refugee protection within the framework of international solidarity and
burden-sharing.108 This was followed by an Agenda for Protection, including
steps to ensure that immigration control measures contain safeguards that allow
access to international protection for those who need it.109 Similar affirmations
were made a decade later on the 60th anniversary of the 1951 Convention.110
Within five years, this resolve was visibly tested amidst the growing flight of
Syrian refugees towards Europe.111 They moved together with other refugees
and also migrants along dangerous routes. One of the youngest people seeking
safety became emblematic of the peril they faced. Three-year-old Alan Kurdi
drowned on the way to Europe, and photos of him on a Turkish beach caught
global attention.
His death threw new light on the lack of adequate support to host coun-
tries and the absence of cooperation within Europe, as individual States tried
An infant is
carried out of
a boat full of
refugees and
migrants arriving
to block arrivals. It reflected larger systemic failures in international burden- in Lesbos after
sharing in the face of rising forced displacement, exposing risks that a lack crossing the
Aegean from
of cooperation poses to human life and safety. To address these challenges, Turkey in 2015.
the United Nations Secretary-General called a meeting of the leaders of all © UNHCR/
Achilleas Zavallis
member States to develop a more predictable and equitable way of responding
to large movements of refugees and migrants.112
This resulted in the 2016 New York Declaration, where all 193 United
Nations member States committed to do better.113 They also agreed to the
development of two Global Compacts to establish the way forward: a Global
Compact on Refugees and a Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular
Migration. Each was affirmed by nearly all members of the United Nations
in 2018.114
Among the many provisions in the Compacts are commitments for the
safe reception of refugees and migrants and the fair adjudication of protec-
tion needs that adhere to international and regional obligations.115 They also
acknowledge the importance of strengthening efforts to prevent and combat
the smuggling of persons by land, sea and air and the trafficking of persons,
especially women and children. The Compacts include commitments to
open additional legal pathways for refugees and other migrants to use from
abroad.116
Well before the Global Compacts, the Agenda for Protection agreed by
States in 2000, focused attention on people in need of protection in mixed
movements. Subsequently, UNHCR developed advice for States for imple-
menting protection-sensitive entry procedures: the 10-Point Plan in Action. It
contains detailed guidance for ensuring entry systems respect rights and inter-
national obligations, whether at a physical border, at sea or on the territory of
another State. The 10-Point Plan in Action is periodically updated, focusing
on positive practice.117
As the following examples illustrate, however, some practices with long
histories are difficult to dislodge. Newer and expanded means of access controls
continue to be developed that do not have the protection safeguards envisaged
in either the Global Compact on Refugees or the Global Compact for Safe,
Orderly and Regular Migration. Together with other policies aimed to limit
international obligations, they weaken the solidarity upon which the interna-
tional protection regime is based.
Border controls
Managing borders has long been regarded as essential in the exercise of State
sovereignty. After the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, it also became
a pressing national security imperative. Long-established measures, like visas,
carrier sanctions and interdictions, have been complemented by other means
to intercept those who could pose a threat as well as those attempting to arrive
without prior authorization.
States have the right to decide who to admit to their countries. They have
a legitimate interest in seeking to prevent unauthorized entry and to combat
the smuggling and trafficking of persons. The latter is even an obligation
under international law.118 However, they also have other international legal
obligations, notably not to return someone to a territory where the person
faces risks to life, freedom or physical integrity.119 And, this is where many
entry controls fall short. They are often applied in a manner, whether targeted
or indiscriminate, that prevent refugees from claiming asylum. This exposes

them to greater vulnerability and increased risks of grievous harm.
Visas and carrier sanctions

A visa authorizes the bearer to enter a country for a specific purpose and
period of time. Visas are a flexible means of controlling admissions, since they
generally are implemented by executive orders and do not require legislative
approval or oversight.120 Visas predate the 1951 Convention, emerging in the
19th century and have been in widespread use around the world for over 40
years,121 as noted in Part I.
Visas can be negotiated in the context of regional or bilateral agreements
between States, with visa-free travel featuring in broader geopolitical allian-
ces.122 Visas have been imposed in response to increased asylum claims, as a
means of limiting claims from particular countries, including refugee produ-
cing ones.123
In law, the absence of a visa should not be used to prevent a person from
seeking asylum. Under the 1951 Convention, States may not penalize refugees
for unlawful arrival or presence and may not return a refugee to a place where
life or freedom would be threatened.124 To meet these obligations, a State must
admit an asylum-seeker at its border or otherwise on its territory until such a
determination is made.125 However, refugees often do not reach their destina-
tion. If they do not have a visa, they can be prohibited from boarding a land, air
or sea transit carrier. This pushes them to embark on perilous journeys, often
facilitated by smugglers and exposing them to serious risks.
The enforcement of visa restrictions is helped by the imposition of penal-
ties on the carriers who take people without the papers required by law. The
use of carrier sanctions dates back to early American, Australian, British and
Canadian immigration laws.126 It grew during the 1980s, as increased availa-
bility of less costly travel facilitated human mobility.127 It remains a means to
stem refugee movements alongside preventing unauthorized migration.
Countries have posted their immigration officials in foreign embarkation
sites to assist carriers to detect those unauthorized to enter the destination
country.128 These procedures limit the arrival of refugees and do not allow for
the equitable sharing of burdens and responsibilities.
Physical barriers
Walls and other forms of physical barriers have long been used by States as
a defense against enemy incursions, weapons smuggling and other forms of
transnational crime. They also have been constructed and reinforced specifi-
cally to keep out refugees and asylum-seekers, and generally as part of a larger
effort to restrict asylum claims from specific countries.
Between 2010 and 2012, Israel fortified its border with Egypt to restrict the
arrival of refugees and migrants.129 At the time, there were more than 50,000
refugees and asylum-seekers in Israel, most coming from Eritrea and Sudan.130
Despite the extremely poor human rights records in places of origin, very few
refugee claims were granted.131 Eritreans were not returned to Eritrea on the
basis of the non-refoulement principle. Sudanese were not returned to Sudan
largely due to the absence of diplomatic relations between Sudan and Israel
and the lack of agreement of Sudan to accept returnees.132
Border fortifications to keep out more arrivals were accompanied by other
deterrence and removal policies. Beginning in 2012, mandatory detention
policies for those arriving through unofficial border crossings were imposed
and stiffened. By 2013, indefinite detention was imposed on those who crossed
unofficially but could not be deported. Their release depended on them agree-
ing to leave the country.133 The Israeli High Court of Justice held that the
detention policies violated Israel’s Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty.134
While detention periods were subsequently reduced, in 2015, Israel
announced a plan to relocate Eritrean and Sudanese nationals to third coun-
tries. Those who refused would be detained, while those who agreed to leave
voluntarily would be given $3,500. Following a series of legal cases and public
protests against the relocation scheme and related detention measures, the
programme was suspended in 2018.135 By this time, around one third of
Eritreans and Sudanese who were present in Israel in 2012 had left the country.136
The measures reduced the number of arrivals to Israel via Egypt while, at
the same time, leading desperate people to try more perilous routes by sea.
Others have died in attempting to scale the fence, including by shots fired by
guards on both sides of the border.137 Meanwhile, within Israel, recognition
rates for asylum-seekers from Eritrea and Sudan remained low: under 2 per
cent as compared to protection recognition rates of around 80–90 per cent for
Eritreans and 50–60 per cent for Sudanese in the European Union.138
Hungary has also reinforced border barriers and enacted extremely restric-
tive policies to keep out foreigners in recent years with little or no distinction to
accommodate people with specific protection needs. At the height of the 2015
arrivals in Europe, with hundreds of people amassing at its border, Hungary
limited entry to a handful of people each day. Asylum applicants were confined
to transit centres and claims and appeal procedures were terminated if people
left for any reason, including for provisions such as food or other necessities.139
The centres were closed following a decision by the European Court of
Justice that mass incarceration is unlawful and detention only permissible as
a last resort, under specific circumstances following “a case-by-case” deter-
mination.140 The Court also held that Hungary acted unlawfully in forcing
people back to Serbia without observing protection principles and safeguards
demanded by European law, including the right of non-refoulement.141
Despite the ruling, Hungary’s border restrictions remain.142 It has since
enacted a law according to which asylum-seekers arriving at the border or
apprehended in-country are no longer granted access to asylum procedures
in Hungary. Instead, they have to express their intention to seek asylum in
Hungarian embassies in Ukraine or Serbia.143 UNHCR has noted that the
failure to recognize the right to seek asylum within Hungary and to a fair
determination there is in contravention of international law.144
And in September 2021, UNHCR and the International Organization for
Migration (IOM) expressed their concern at the growing number of pushbacks
of asylum-seekers and migrants along the borders of Lithuania, Latvia and
Poland with Belarus. Groups of people had become stranded for weeks with-
out assistance, exposed to the elements, and several died from hypothermia.145
The United States has also fortified its borders to prevent unauthorized
arrivals of migrants and asylum-seekers. The completion of a wall between
the United States and Mexico was a campaign promise of President Trump in
the 2016 elections. During his tenure, the existing 650 miles of barriers were
reinforced along the 2,000-mile southern border and an additional 80 miles
of new barrier built.146 The construction accompanied a much broader set of
measures to deter refugees and migrants.
Arrivals across the southern border began to increase appreciably in 2014,
corresponding to deteriorating conditions across El Salvador, Guatemala,
Honduras and Venezuela. As reported by UNHCR, reasons ranged from
extreme economic deprivation to persecution, with many fleeing “horrific
violence by brutal gangs and in need of international protection.”147 In addi-
tion to physical barriers, the United States Department of Homeland Secu-
rity issued the 2019 Migration Protection Protocols,148 which required people
seeking to enter the United States from Mexico without documents or prior
authorization to remain in Mexico while they await their hearings in United
States immigration courts.149 Admissions through resettlement were also
reduced by nearly 80 per cent within two years.150
In parallel, Mexico agreed to scale up border enforcement and take other
measures to prevent asylum-seekers and migrants from reaching the United

States.151 Enforcement measures on the United States side also intensified,152
the use of expedited processing increased,153 detention policies broadened,154
and criminal charges imposed on those who entered the country through un-
official border crossings.155
Some of these policies were discontinued in February 2021 under Pres-
ident Joe Biden, including the Migration Protection Protocols, but this was
subject to litigation which has kept the Protocols in place.156 Additionally, the
Border fence
along the
international
border between
the United States
and Mexico at COVID-19-related entry restrictions continued as of September. These are
Lukeville, Arizona.
being enforced under public health legislation that permits the Government
6 February 2019.
© Terry Thomas/ to prevent the admission of individuals during public health emergencies.
Alamy
Under a public health order, known as Title 42, unauthorized arrivals through
Canada and Mexico are denied access to United States asylum procedures.157
Asylum-seekers at the Mexico-United States border have been trans-
ferred by aircraft to southern Mexico. Haitians fleeing political violence and
the effects of a devastating earthquake in August 2021 have been violently
pushed back from the United States border and several thousands sent back
to Mexico and Haiti without their protection needs assessed. UNHCR and
other advocates have appealed that these restrictions be lifted and access to
asylum procedures be restored.158
Offshore processing
Some States have taken measures to determine asylum applications in centres
outside their countries, usually enforced through interdiction measures.
Australia
For several decades Australia has taken measures to restrict the right of re-
fugees to claim asylum at its borders.159 In the 1990s, it imposed a mandatory
detention policy of all non-citizens arriving in the country without a valid
visa, including asylum-seekers.160 In 2001, faced with increased arrivals by sea,
Australia introduced the “Pacific Solution” of off-shore processing.161
It removed those seeking to enter Australia without a visa to processing
facilities located in the island nation of Nauru and on Manus Island in Papua
New Guinea. Between 2001 and 2008, over 1,600 people were detained in the
Nauru and Manus Island offshore processing facilities under this policy. Close
to 70 per cent were found to be in need of protection and ultimately relocated
to Australia or resettled in other countries.162
The Pacific Solution was suspended in 2007; it resumed again in 2012 when
Australia received a considerable increase in asylum-seekers by boat, reaching
over 20,000 in 2013.163 Although a modest figure by international standards,
the arrivals were a lightning rod of controversy, with most public opinion
lining up behind politicians calling for a strict response, citing the many deaths
at sea as further reason to clamp down.164 The fact that the majority were from
refugee-producing countries did not soften the position.165 The new policy saw
the transfer of 3,000 persons to Nauru and Papua New Guinea since 2013.166
Those transferred offshore who were found to be in need of international
protection were not permitted to enter Australia and durable solutions for
them had to be found elsewhere.167
In addition to restarting offshore processing, the Government announced its
“military-led border security programme” – “Operation Sovereign Borders”.168
It provides for the interdiction of persons trying to enter Australia without a
visa, including refugees and asylum-seekers. They are returned to their coun-
tries of origin or places of departure. The policy has been criticized by human
rights institutions, and UNHCR because it places those in need of inter-
national protection at risk of refoulement in contravention of the 1951 Conven-
tion and customary international law.169
In 2017, the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants,
François Crépeau, also found Australia in breach of its international obliga-
tions. Specifically, he considered Australia responsible for the harsh conditions
on Manus Island and Nauru since Australia funded the processing centres and
chose the private contractors that ran them. He found high incidence of mental
stress and physical suffering caused by the poor living conditions and prolonged
uncertainty, and noted disturbing accounts of rape and sexual abuse of female
refugees and asylum-seekers that occurred with impunity.170
The Special Rapporteur concluded that the offshore confinement of
refugees and asylum-seekers on the islands constituted cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment or punishment contrary to international human rights
law. He recommended that offshore processing be terminated, all regional
processing centres in Nauru and Papua New Guinea be closed, and refugees
and asylum-seekers be returned to Australia.171
Meanwhile the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea found in 2016 that
the detention of asylum-seekers was in breach of human rights and unconsti-
tutional.172 As a consequence, the Manus Island detention facility was closed
and those detained there were transferred to Port Moresby.
By March 2019, all asylum-seekers and refugees had left the Nauru deten-
tion facility and were moved to the Nauruan community.173 By the end of the
following year, 900 refugees had been resettled from the islands, most to the
United States.174 As of April 2021, over 1,000 persons had been transferred
to Australia.175
At the beginning of 2021, more than 200 of these transferred persons
remained in immigration detention facilities in Australia, while others with
specific vulnerabilities were permitted to reside in community detention subject
to curfews and other restrictions. Others have been given temporary proces-
sing visas called bridging visas.176 The Government maintains the position that
they will not be permanently settled in Australia.
Refugees who arrived by boat who were not subject to offshore transfer
arrangements were granted temporary protection visas of three- or five-year
duration. While permitted to work, they are not entitled to family reunification
and must periodically re-apply for the visa to remain in Australia.177
Extremely limited possibilities of a durable solution in Australia, thus,
remain for any refugee arriving without prior authorization.
United States
Interdiction and offshore processing measures have also been used by the
United States in the Caribbean. Beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s,
the number of Haitians arriving in the United States rose significantly. Grow-
ing poverty and human rights violations under the regime of Jean Claude
“Baby Doc” Duvalier contributed to the exodus.178 American efforts to deter

further arrivals, through detention and summary removals were successfully
challenged in the Courts. In 1981, the Government turned to interdiction.179
Ships suspected of carrying unauthorized migrants or asylum-seekers to the
United States were stopped by the United States Coast Guard. The provision
for summary protection screening, the “manifestation of fear” test, depended on
the country of origin. Cubans were asked if they had a credible fear, Haitians
and other nationalities were not.180 Eventually, United States asylum deter-
minations were conducted at the naval base in Guantanamo Bay or sent for
processing to countries in the region who had an agreement with the United
States and the interception occurred in their territorial waters. While these
agreements may have provisions for protection from refoulement, UNHCR
and others have expressed concern about the absence of monitoring to ensure
compliance.181
The Guantanamo facility continues to be in use. Those found in need of
international protection are eligible for resettlement but not within the United
States.182 The asylum procedure there has been criticized for failing to provide
access to legal counsel and the right to appeal a negative decision, having high
rejection rates, and not providing residence in the United States for those
found to be refugees.183
The Supreme Court of the United States has found the return practices at
sea to be lawful. In the 1993 case of Sale, the Court held that non-refoulement
obligations only apply to those within the territory of the United States and
not to those on the high seas, even if under the control of the United States.184
This reasoning has since been rejected in other jurisdictions, including by the
Inter American Commission on Human Rights, the Court of Appeal (England
and Wales) and the European Court of Human Rights.185 The decisions of
these Courts stand for the principle that there is an “overarching duty to meet
standards of fairness wherever there is an exercise of state power”.186
Europe
The 2012 decision of the European Court of Human Rights involved a case
brought against Italy by several applicants from Eritrea and Somalia. They
were on boats trying to reach Italy when interdicted by Italian authorities
and returned to Libya.187 The applicants claimed that they were returned to
a country where they were at risk of serious harm, in contravention of the
European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which protects against
being subjected to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment.188
The Court found that the applicants were within the control of Italy, and
therefore under its jurisdiction. It also ruled that they were at serious risk of
harm in Libya due to the treatment meted out to migrants there and the lack
of protection from refoulement. The Court concluded that Italy was in breach
of the ECHR.189
The decision was important. It effectively prohibited European countries
from interdicting ships and returning persons to countries where they would be
at risk of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.190
However, it only applied to situations where States are directly exercising their
control. States have sought to overcome this legal restriction by supporting
other States to prevent the onward movement of asylum-seekers and un-
authorized migrants. They externalize their responsibilities to others.
Externalization
Externalization policies generally involve wealthy countries providing finan-
cial incentives and support to other countries to improve border controls,
increase interdictions, and otherwise prevent migrants and asylum-seekers
from moving onward. This leaves many asylum-seekers in remote or dan-
gerous places, exposed to grave human rights abuses and without an opportu-
nity to have their claims appropriately assessed.191
The United States has long undertaken joint exercises with the Mexican
authorities to stem the flow of migrants and asylum-seekers to the United
States. It has provided billions of dollars to combat the smuggling and
trafficking of people and drugs and to address root causes through improving
security, good governance and economic growth across Central America and
Mexico.192 For over a decade, Australia has provided resources and trained
personnel to work with Sri Lanka to prevent migrants or asylum-seekers from
travelling to Australia.193
The European maritime States and the European Union (EU) have invested
heavily in border controls in Greece194 as well as in North Africa.195 In 2003,
Spain provided close to $400 million in aid and debt relief to Morocco in
return for improved border control efforts,196 and a further $37 million in
2021.197 Since 2007, Morocco is reported to have received some €13 billion in
development funds from the European Union also connected to tighter border
controls.198 In 2010, Italy committed $5 billion over 20 years to help Libya
secure borders against the onward movement of refugees and migrants.199
Such efforts have picked up pace in the last decade. In 2016, the EU struck a
deal with Turkey to stem arrivals of refugees and migrants travelling irregularly
through and from Turkey to Greece. The European Union agreed to provide
€6 billion managed by the EU Facility for Refugees in Turkey,200 relax visa
requirements for Turkish citizens, upgrade the customs union, and accele-
rate negotiations over Turkey’s admission into the EU. The European Union
also agreed to increase resettlement to the EU of Syrians residing in Turkey.
In exchange, Turkey would deter asylum-seekers from entering Europe and
would receive back from Greece asylum-seekers who had crossed irregularly
by sea to the Greek islands from Turkey.201
UNHCR expressed concern regarding the apparent lack of protection
safeguards. It noted that an asylum-seeker should only be returned to a third
State if the country assumes responsibility for determining the claim in accor-
dance with international standards, including respect for non-refoulement and
affords those recognized full and effective access to education, work, health care
and, as necessary, social assistance.202 Turkey has not lifted the geographical
restrictions of the 1951 Refugee Convention, and so does not recognize non-
Europeans as qualifying for refugee status.203 Thus, one of the consequences
of the EU/Turkey agreement is that people who could be recognized as
refugees under the 1951 Refugee Convention within the EU could be returned
to a country where that status would not apply.
Within three years of the EU-Turkey arrangement, €3 billion were com-
mitted to projects within Turkey, and numbers of arrivals through Turkey to
Europe decreased by 88 per cent.204 The number of asylum-seekers sent back to
Turkey, however, were relatively small as were the number of Syrians resettled
from Turkey to the European Union.205 Meanwhile there was little progress on
the EU’s other commitments towards Turkey and differences arose concern-
ing the speed and manner of the payments.206 Nonetheless, by and large, the
agreement has had the desired effect for the EU, measured in the decrease
in the arrival of asylum-seekers and migrants travelling unauthorized to the
European Union across the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.207
Efforts have also been taken to deter the number of arrivals to the EU
through the Central and Western Mediterranean routes.208 These include
support to the main countries of embarkation in North Africa including
Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia.209
Libya has long been a destination country for migrant workers.210 During
the regime of Muammar Ghaddafi, the use of Libya as a transit country to
Europe was largely curtailed, including with support of the Italian Govern-
ment.211 The dynamic changed with the fall of Ghaddafi, and the fragmen-
tation of the country into areas controlled by the Tripoli-based Government
of National Unity (GNU) and those under various militia groups. Human
smuggling, trafficking and extortion became revenue sources for rival militias
and other groups. The irregular movement of people crossing from Libya to
Europe increased.212
The number of arrivals in Europe along Central and Western Mediterra-
nean routes grew from some 65,000 persons in 2011 to nearly 189,600 in 2016,
with most landing in Italy.213 Between 2014 and 2016, Italy received close
to half a million persons arriving by sea, straining its reception capacity and
generating significant public concern.214 An initial plan to relocate 160,000
asylum-seekers from Greece and Italy to European Union member States
fell far short of its target. Only about 35,000 asylum-seekers were relocated
over two years. Several countries refused to participate and both France and
Switzerland closed their borders with Italy to prevent onward movement.215
To stem the flow to Europe, the EU and some if its member States took
several initiatives. One aimed at discouraging sea arrivals through laws and
policies that criminalized and reduced the search and rescue capacity of private
vessels.216 As a result, there has been a significant decline in rescues by private
as well as commercial vessels since 2018, given concerns of criminal prosecu-
tion should shipmasters rescue and disembark migrants in a place of safety.217
Their concerns seem to be borne out, as some 50 administrative and criminal
proceedings were initiated between 2018 and 2020 against crew or boats and
vessels have been seized.218 These measures have been taken over the objec-
tions of UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM),
given the crucial role that ships and commercial vessels have played in saving
lives at sea.219
In parallel, some European Union member States have progressively
reduced their search and rescue operations and invested over €50 million in
strengthening Libya’s capacities to stop unauthorized departures,220 interdict
ships in its search and rescue region221 and return refugees and migrants to
Libya.222 Turkey too has included support to the Libyan Coast Guard as part of
its broader engagement and support to training the military forces in Libya.223
The return to Libya is of particular concern because of the grave and wide-
spread human rights violations that refugees and migrants experience there:
arbitrary detention for undefined periods of time; torture and physical abuse;
rape and other forms of sexual violence; forced labour; forced recruitment;
extortion; and trafficking.224 Refugees and migrants who are interdicted at sea
and returned to Libya are transferred to Government-run detention centres
which, at the end of July 2021, held around 5,400 persons.225 Overcrowding is
endemic, with torture, rape, malnutrition and the spread of infectious diseases
widely reported.226
United Nations institutions and human rights organizations have repeat-
edly called for refugees and migrants not to be returned to Libya.227 The United
Nations has called for the immediate release of all refugees and migrants arbi-
trarily detained and for Libya to only detain persons in exceptional circum-
stances and subject to due process guarantees.228
The elaborate measures to stop unauthorized migration have been of limited
effect. They have temporarily reduced arrivals at certain ports while also lead-
ing smugglers and traffickers to find alternative and often more dangerous
routes.229 So, while the number of arrivals across the Central Mediterranean
to Italy and Malta declined from over 181,000 in 2016 to about 11,500 in
2019, they increased again to some 34,200 arrivals in 2020 with 955 persons
reported lost at sea.230
As interdictions were increasing along the Central Mediterranean route,
arrivals in Spain along the Western Mediterranean and the Western African
routes increased from close to 8,200 persons in 2016, to some 58,600 persons
in 2018.231 To curb these flows, the EU and the Spanish Government provided
additional support to Morocco to reinforce its border controls. This helped
reduce the flow by almost 50 per cent in 2019 but was followed by an over
eight-fold increase in arrivals to Spain’s Canary Islands in 2020.232 In 2020,
23,000 refugees and migrants landed there, departing on boats from north-
west Africa and transported across the more dangerous Atlantic Ocean route.
At least 480 individuals are reported to have died or gone missing in 2020 in
their attempt to reach Europe through this route.233
Among the reasons for the relatively high volume of sea crossings are the
deteriorating security situations in the Sahel, the Lake Chad Basin, the Tigray
region in Ethiopia, and parts of Sudan. Many of the countries in these regions
and their neighbours host millions of refugees and internally displaced persons.
Yet, the burdens they bear in responding to forced displacement, and the dire
circumstances that many of their populations and forcibly displaced persons
face, are not as prominent in the public eye. It is the relatively small number
who seek to move to Europe that capture most media and political attention.
The dangers experienced by refugees and migrants in their journeys to
Europe are not confined to the last leg by sea. Well before that, all along the
land routes from Sub-Saharan Africa to and through North Africa, many are
subject to gross human rights violations, and transported without adequate
food and water, at the cost of many lives.234
A more comprehensive approach is needed. This is recognized in both the

Global Compact on Refugees and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and
Regular Migration. Alternative legal pathways for migration are needed.235
Greater efforts should be made to identify and prosecute the human traffickers
that inflict so much misery on desperate people and to end impunity of colla-
borating State officials.236 This must be complemented by concerted efforts to
address the root causes of those who are forced to flee. It is a task far beyond the
capacities of humanitarian organizations working along these routes to identify
those with international protection needs, reunite families, ensure assistance to
survivors of abuse, and advocate for more legal migration pathways.
Nothing short of State-led long-term efforts that reach far beyond inter-
diction are required.
Other deterrence measures

Many States go beyond limiting access to their asylum systems, including
built-in deterrents in their design. The mandatory detention of asylum-seekers
has been more widely used in the last 20 years.237 Rights may also be limited
to levels below the standards of the 1951 Convention.
Restrictive interpretations of the 1951 Refugee Convention also consti-
tute obstacles for those in need of international protection. In Japan and the
Republic of Korea, for example, recognition rates are the lowest of the 38 coun-
tries within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.238
In Japan, they average less than 1 per cent and, in South Korea, they are around
2 per cent,239 compared to global averages of around 30 per cent.240 Both coun-
tries have other measures for permission to remain applicable to asylum-seekers
from certain countries. But these are temporary, can be easily withdrawn and
are without attendant 1951 Refugee Convention rights.241
Recognition rates in Europe are also inconsistent, despite efforts to achieve
a high-level of harmonization and compliance with international standards.242
In 2020, for example, the percentage of Afghan asylum-seekers that were
determined in need of protection ranged from 0 per cent in Bulgaria to 56 per
cent in Sweden and 87 per cent in Germany. For Turkish nationals, the range
was similarly stark – from 1 per cent in Bulgaria to 32 per cent in Germany
and 52 per cent in Austria.243 A report by the European Council on Refugees
and Exiles (ECRE) concluded that addressing inconsistent decision-making
across the EU should be a pressing priority.244
In March 2021, the United Kingdom put forward a legislative proposal
which embodies many of the deterrence measures noted above. It was
introduced to Parliament in July 2021 as the Nationality and Border Bill.245

It aims not only to restrict access to asylum procedures, but also limit the ability
of refugees to establish a claim and withholds some 1951 Convention rights
from those found to be in need of international protection.
The Bill would enable the United Kingdom Border Force to stop and
direct vessels out of territorial waters, including those carrying refugees and
asylum-seekers. It would raise the threshold for establishing a well-founded
fear of persecution, enable the removal of asylum-seekers pending the deter-
mination of their claims, and seek to establish offshore processing centres. It
also proposes to penalize asylum-seekers who arrived without a visa, by only
providing them with temporary status should their refugee claim be esta-
blished. They would be denied the rights accorded under the 1951 Convention
and be in constant risk of expulsion.246
UNHCR has provided extensive comments on the proposal, illustra-
ting how its key provisions would be in violation of international law. While
acknowledging the United Kingdom’s contribution as a humanitarian donor,
it has pointed out that this must be matched with a commensurate domestic
asylum policy that abides by the letter and spirit of the 1951 Convention.247
Denmark has repeatedly indicated its wishes to emulate parts of the
Australian model, the United States model and the EU-Turkey arrange-
ment.248 Although it has experienced historically low asylum applications, with
some 1,400 made in 2020,249 the Danish Government passed legislation in
June 2021 which provides for the transfer of asylum-seekers to other countries
outside the EU, leaving them to determine asylum claims and provide inter-
national protection to those in need.250 In announcing the appointment of a
Special Envoy for Migration to implement these reforms, the Acting Minister
of Immigration, Kaare Dybvad Bek, said that Denmark wants “as few spon-
taneous asylum seekers as possible” in favour of helping refugees “faster and
better in the surrounding areas”.251
UNHCR has noted the various ways the plan does not comply with interna-
tional law and is inconsistent with global solidarity and responsibility-sharing.252
Given that it would shift responsibilities to other States, several potential receiv-
ing States in North Africa and the Middle East have reportedly rejected it.253
The Danish law and United Kingdom proposal are discouraging develop-
ments and bode ill for improved international cooperation in meeting current
and future displacement challenges. These, and restrictive policies in high-
income States more generally, send a powerful message to countries of far
less means shouldering far more responsibilities. The international protection
regime is severely weakened when countries that receive a small fraction of the
world’s forcibly displaced people do not take responsibility for those who arrive
on their shores and, instead, take measures to shift responsibilities to others.
Measures to block the arrival of refugees and asylum-seekers are also expen-
sive and neither address the root causes of forced displacement nor the short-
comings in national asylum systems.254 More attention on the latter would help
States manage mixed movements of refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants
in ways that do not compromise protection or cooperation upon which the
international protection system rests. This would also be in keeping with the
provisions of the Global Compact on Refugees and the Global Compact for
Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration which they have affirmed.
It is also the case that the larger the obstacles that States erect to prevent or
deflect refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants, the greater the efforts of smug-
glers and traffickers to circumvent them and the higher the fees they charge to
shepherd desperate people along ever more dangerous routes.
A combination of growing forced flight and increased barriers to stop it
has transformed the human smuggling and trafficking model. As documented
in the detailed account by Tinti and Reitano, what was once a “loose network
of freelancers and ad hoc facilitators” is now overshadowed by professional
transnational criminal networks with a great propensity to transform and in-
novate.255 The higher the obstacles, the more work, contacts and money needed
to overcome them – all resources that are beyond independent smugglers but
well within the purview of organized criminal syndicates. The price is paid by
refugees and migrants who depend on these criminal networks – and, in the
worst cases, they pay with their lives.256
Other Forcibly Displaced People

Forced displacement is never limited to those who cross borders. Whatever
the cause of flight, from conflict to the adverse effects of climate change257 and
disasters,258 generally more people flee within their own country than out of it.259
This was very much the case during WWII, when resolving the situations
of many millions of internally displaced persons and refugees was part of the
work of international agencies established at that time. Yet, the 1951 Conven-
tion applied only to refugees.
Phil Orchard and others have noted, in some respects, this was a depar-
ture from previous international arrangements and practices in the inter-war
period set up to respond to specific displacement situations.260 As discussed

in Part I, these efforts focused on assisting specific groups of forcibly displaced
persons who lacked the protection of their country. They did not necessarily
specify whether they were displaced within their own countries or outside of
them.261 The prospective scope of State obligations was a matter of debate
in the meetings leading up to the adoption of the 1951 Convention. Some
States supported a more expansive vision, extending protection and assistance
to persons displaced within and outside their countries. The prevailing view,
however, was that the Convention should be designed for those who did not
have a State to protect them. The focus was on the need for international legal
protection rather than assistance and for persons forcibly displaced outside their
countries.262
The United States argued strongly for this more limited focus. Having
been the principal donor of previous refugee relief operations, it was unwill-
ing to assume disproportionate and expanding obligations. Eleanor Roosevelt,
a member of the United States delegation, cautioned against “an increasing
tendency to drive the UN into the field of international relief and to use its
organs as the source and center of expanding appeals for relief funds”.263
Internally displaced persons were neither included as part of the 1951
Convention nor specifically mentioned in UNHCR’s Statute. Yet provisions in
the Statute enable the Office to engage in “additional activities” authorized by the
General Assembly and “within the limits” of available resources.264 On this basis,
UNHCR engaged in work on behalf of internally displaced persons, initially
through specific requests made by the General Assembly and in later years
through the annual General Assembly resolutions on the work of the Office.265
However, this operational mechanism was no substitute for more predic-
table and resourced engagement. The limits of UNHCR’s abilities were more
evident as the global number of forcibly displaced grew from the 1980s.
UNHCR struggled to meet the needs of refugees, as part of its core mandate,
and was not sufficiently resourced to extend substantial additional efforts on
behalf of internally displaced persons.266
In 1981, the General Assembly called for a thorough review of the interna-
tional community’s ability to respond effectively to humanitarian crises.267 In
the same year, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, Special Rapporteur of the United
Nations Human Rights Commission, issued a report on human rights and mass
exoduses. In it he highlighted the growing scale of forced displacement including
“movements within countries” and the need for a more systematic response.268
Two years later, in 1983, he helped establish an Independent Commission
on International Humanitarian Issues to review and propose solutions to press-

ing humanitarian challenges. The findings of the Commission were published
in 1988.269
In regard to forced displacement, it noted that, while the number of
refugees in the world exceeded 13 million people, there were “tens of millions
of other uprooted people” who were not sufficiently represented or assisted.
This included those who were forced to flee within their own countries due
to government repression, forced relocation, communal violence or environ-
mental disasters.
The Commission observed that governments fail to protect and assist their
own displaced populations either because they are complicit in the displace-
ments or because they lack the capacity to prevent and respond. It recommended
that international standards of treatment be established for “those groups of
uprooted persons who do not clearly fall within the category of refugees” and
a more predictable means be established for ensuring assistance to them.270
It would take another decade before such standards were developed.271 It
was, in part, spurred by efforts to improve the United Nation’s responses to
humanitarian crises more generally. In 1990, the Economic and Social Council
(ECOSOC) asked the Secretary-General to conduct a system-wide review
and assess the experience and capacity of organizations assisting refugees,
internally displaced persons and returnees.272 Several developments came
from that review.
One was the creation of the Department of Humanitarian Affairs, which
would later become the present-day Office for the Coordination of Human-
itarian Affairs (OCHA). It is headed by an Emergency Relief Coordina-
tor (ERC) reporting to the Secretary-General. The ERC also chairs the
Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), which was created by the UN
General Assembly in 1991 as a high-level humanitarian coordination forum of
United Nations and non-United Nations organizations. In internal displace-
ment situations, the ERC, with support from OCHA and the IASC, coordi-
nates the inter-agency efforts.273
Another outcome from the system-wide review was the appointment
of the first Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on the
Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons.274 Francis Deng initially held
the position and one of his first tasks was to conduct a comprehensive and
consultative assessment of the scope of the problem, international and insti-
tutional responses, and the international law standards applicable to internal
displacement situations.
Regarding legal standards, he concluded that a universally applicable body

of principles was required to address the specific needs of internally displaced
persons that drew from existing human rights and humanitarian law.275 This
was endorsed by the Human Rights Commission and the United Nations
General Assembly, and development of The Guiding Principles on Internal
Displacement followed.276
Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement
The Guiding Principles apply to the different phases of displacement: “provid-

ing protection against arbitrary displacement, access to protection and assis-
Deng Awuol
(centre), has been
forced to flee
three times in
South Sudan and
tance during displacement and guarantees during return or alternative is pictured here
settlement and reintegration”.277 They concern all who are forcibly displaced, in Mingkaman,
South Sudan in
whether due to “armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations 2014 with wife
of human rights or natural or human-made disasters”.278 A person can be Nycot (centre
right) and his
considered an internally displaced person without having to show persecution children and
on an individual basis. grandchildren.
© UNHCR/
The Guiding Principles begin with acknowledging that internally displaced Andrew
persons are entitled to enjoy the same rights as others in the country and to McConnell
equal protection of the law. This includes the right to life, dignity, liberty and
security of the person, and the right not to be arbitrarily arrested or detained.
The Principles stipulate that internally displaced persons should not be confined
to camps, unless absolutely necessary, and should be able to move freely and
choose their place of residence.279
They also recognize the right of all people not to be arbitrarily displaced.280
In situations where displacement may be necessary, the Principles provide that
the authorities must first consider other alternatives. Where no other alter-
native exists, adverse effects must be minimized, and relocation conducted in
safety. Except in emergency circumstances, free and informed consent must
be sought and access to effective remedies provided.281 The right to family
unity is also part of the Guiding Principles as is an adequate standard of living.
Authorities are to provide – at a minimum and without discrimination – food,
accommodation, medical services and access to education and documentation
necessary for the exercise of legal rights.282
The Guiding Principles were not adopted through an international treaty
and so are not considered binding law. However, the drafters explained that
they reflected the application of existing international humanitarian and
human rights law to the particular circumstances of internal displacement. In
effect, they were progressively developing the law in this context.283
Over time, the Guiding Principles achieved considerable legal effect. They
form the basis for two treaties in Africa. One was adopted in 2006 in the
Great Lakes Region, obliging its members to implement the Guiding Prin-
ciples.284 The other – the African Union Convention for the Protection and
Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (Kampala Convention)
– was adopted in 2009.285
The Guiding Principles were affirmed by States in the 2005 World Summit,
which set future directions to improve international, humanitarian and secu-
rity efforts.286 The Security Council, General Assembly and Human Rights
Council have also recognized their legal relevance.287 Similar affirmations
have been made in regional bodies, such as the Council of Europe and the
Organization of American States.288
When they initially were adopted, the Guiding Principles were seen as
applying existing norms in international law to the particular circumstances of
internally displaced persons. Some have since suggested that, over time, they
have also helped to further advance international law. For example, prior to
the Guiding Principles, there was no recognized legal obligation of States to
establish conditions which allow internally displaced persons to return volun-
tarily and safely to their former place of residence. Yet as one legal scholar has
Kampala Convention as of 28 September 2021
States parties to the 2009 AU Convention for the Protection

and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa
and / or the 2006 International Conference on the Great Lakes Region Protocol
on the Protection and Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons
TUNISIA
MOROCCO
ALGERIA
LIBYA
Western EGYPT
Sahara
MAURITANIA
MALI NIGER
SUDAN ERITREA
CABO VERDE
CHAD DJIBOUTI
SENEGAL
BURKINA
FASO
GUINEA
NIGERIA
CÔTE ETHIOPIA
CENTRAL SOUTH
D’IVOIRE
AFRICAN REPUBLIC SUDAN
GAMBIA
GUINEA-BISSAU
SIERRA LEONE
SOMALIA
LIBERIA GHANA
KENYA
TOGO
DEMOCRATIC UGANDA
BENIN
REPUBLIC RWANDA
CAMEROON OF THE CONGO
BURUNDI
SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE
UNITED MALAWI
EQUATORIAL GUINEA REPUBLIC OF
TANZANIA SEYCHELLES
GABON
COMOROS
MADAGASCAR
ANGOLA
ZAMBIA
ZIMBABWE
NAMIBIA MAURITIUS
States that have signed BOTSWANA
the Kampala Convention
States that have ratified

MOZAMBIQUE
the Kampala Convention
ESWATINI
LESOTHO
Member States of the International
Conference on the Great Lakes Region SOUTH AFRICA
(ICGLR)
International boundary Undetermined Abyei region Administrative line 500 km

The boundaries and names shown and the designations used on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations.
Final boundary between the Republic of Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan has not yet been determined. Final status of the Abyei area is not yet determined. Sources: UNCS, UNHCR
observed, this responsibility, set out in Principle 28, has since been invoked by
leading human rights treaty bodies in interpreting the scope of State obliga-
tions under the treaties they review. This suggests that the soft law provision is
becoming hardened as the law on internal displacement develops.289
It has also been suggested that the Guiding Principles introduced the notion
of “sovereignty as responsibility”, for they recognize the primary duty and respon-
sibility of national authorities for protecting internally displaced persons and the
obligation to facilitate, and not arbitrarily inhibit, humanitarian assistance to
them.290 This responsibility is reflected in the Responsibility to Protect (R2P)
principle, which is a global commitment to prevent civilian populations from
genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. It recog-
nizes the right of the Security Council to permit the international community
to take collective action when peaceful means have not proved effective in lead-
ing national authorities to protect their populations. It emerged following the
failure of the international community to adequately respond to mass atrocities
committed in Rwanda and in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s. R2P
was affirmed by all States at the United Nations World Summit in 2005.291
National practice
Like the refugee protection frameworks, implementation of the Guiding
Principles on Internal Displacement is uneven. States that have laws and/or
policies addressing internal displacement have varied records in their applica-
tion. In some countries, the laws or policies themselves can be a limiting factor,
including in circumstances where internally displaced persons are defined
narrowly,292 or where return is promoted as the preferred solution even in
contexts where other solutions may be more desirable and attainable.293
Sometimes, the law meets international standards294 but the commitment
to implement it is weak. Commitments made during peace processes, for
example, are not consistently met.295 When displaced communities return to
areas where their rights are not protected, this can lead to further instability
and displacement.296
Other challenges in implementation include a lack of institutional capa-
city, including insufficient human and financial resources. The continuation or
resumption of conflict can further exacerbate these challenges, as can situations
where internally displaced persons are located in hard-to-reach places.297 This
makes efforts to implement strong policies in conflict-ridden and fragile States
challenging and not necessarily due to a lack of government commitment.
And, while implementation is often challenging, strong policies can provide
an important foundation for humanitarian and development work, including

strengthening State capacity over the longer-term.
Where there is political will and capacity, internal displacement situations
have an improved chance of resolution. Political commitment and international
support helped to ensure the sustainability of returns in Liberia and Sierra
Leone when peace was achieved in the early 2000s.298 Courts have played an
important role in holding Governments to account for the internal displace-
ment laws and policies they pass, many informed by the Guiding Principles.299
Similarly, national human rights institutions also exert influence. These
are State-mandated institutions, independent of the government, with broad
mandates for the protection of human rights. As documented in 2019 by the
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Internally Displaced
Persons, such institutions have advanced the rights of internally displaced
persons consistent with the Guiding Principles in several ways. This includes
contributing to the drafting of relevant legislation and policy, monitoring and
investigating the situation of internally displaced persons, providing legal assis-
tance, issuing legal advisories and conducting trainings and awareness-raising
activities.300
For national policies to be effective, local support is needed. Afghanistan
is a case in point. In 2013, it adopted a well-articulated national policy for the
return, local integration and settlement elsewhere in the country of internally
displaced persons.301 But, local opposition on issues of land rights prevented
it from succeeding.302 Niger, in contrast, adopted a national internal displace-
ment law in 2018, developed through broad consultation involving national and
local authorities, internally displaced persons and national and international
experts. The passage of the law was swiftly followed by Government directives
and targeted trainings to ensure implementation.303
These examples illustrate that, while national laws and frameworks are
important steps, successful implementation depends on many factors. Govern-
ment resistance to full implementation can be an insurmountable obsta-
cle. But even when the national government is committed to respond well
to internally displaced persons and to resolve situations of internal displa-
cement, local and international support is often needed to help overcome chal-
lenges in implementation.
International coordination
There is no single United Nations agency with responsibilities and accoun-
tabilities towards internally displaced persons. Whether there should be
is an issue that has been discussed many times over the years and as part of the
1990 system-wide review discussed earlier. The recommendation was that there
not be a single body whose mandate would be extended to provide protection
and/or assistance to internally displaced persons but that each relevant United
Nations entity be responsible for the “part for which it has the best expertise”
under the overall coordination of what became the Emergency Relief Coor-
dinator (ERC).304
Despite the creation of the ERC and IASC, improving responses for inter-
nally displaced persons continued to be a concern the next decade. In 2005, the
IASC designed the Cluster Approach to improve humanitarian coordination
and delivery in internal displacement and other non-refugee humanitarian
contexts. This approach has designated United Nations agencies responsible
for coordinating responses in areas of their specific expertise, such as protec-
tion, food, shelter, logistics, water and sanitation in a more predictable manner.
Since then, various evaluations on both the Cluster Approach and internal
displacement responses point to some improvements as well as some ongoing
weaknesses.305
On the positive side, inter-agency efforts have reduced duplication, clarified
roles and responsibilities, and brought greater consistency to funding appeals.
However, there are ongoing problems of leadership. There are also difficulties
with strengthening national capacity, coordination, coverage and funding,
while visibility of the needs of internally displaced persons and advocacy on
their behalf is also insufficient.306
Overall, United Nations agencies have not systematically and predictably
included internally displaced persons in their country operations or been
adequately resourced to do so. Studies have also pointed to insufficient inter-
national efforts (development and humanitarian) to strengthen national capa-
cities to prevent displacement, respond fully to the needs of internally displaced
persons and provide solutions.307
In 2019, at the request of member States, the United Nations Secretary-
General appointed a High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, to focus
primarily on addressing protracted situations and achieving durable solutions
for internally displaced persons. The Panel issued its recommendations in
September 2021. It called for greater State accountability to adopt and imple-
ment laws and policies on internal displacement, to prioritize support to their
displaced citizens and to integrate internal displacement into national and
local development plans.308
The Panel stressed the importance of engaging all relevant stakeholders
including States, internally displaced persons, local communities, civil society,

media, academia, private sector, international agencies, and financial institu-
tions. It called for more regional mechanisms to improve responses to internal
displacement. The Panel also made specific recommendations to encourage and
support greater private sector contributions and for increased international
financing to address internal displacement accompanied by greater invest-
ments in data and evidence. And to raise the level of commitment within the
United Nations, the Panel recommended that work for internally displaced
persons be mainstreamed throughout United Nations agencies and the United
Nations Resident Coordinator at the country level. The panel also called upon
the United Nations Secretary-General to appoint a Special Representative on
Solutions to Internal Displacement and to report annually on positive devel-
opments and areas in need of improvement.309
Climate and Disaster Displacement Frameworks
Climate change and disasters have influenced human mobility throughout

history.310 Ice ages, as well as periods of warming climate and rising seas, have
pushed people to move dating back tens of thousands of years.311 Climate
change has also been a pull factor – drawing people to places with favourable
conditions, greater access to water, forests, grazing areas and/or more arable
land.312 These migrations may be permanent or temporary seasonal movements.
Some events, such as drought, desertification and rising sea levels, develop
slowly. Others strike suddenly, including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or
flash floods. These events are classed as disasters when they seriously disrupt
the functioning of a community, overwhelming its ability to respond and to
prevent loss of life or material, economic and environmental harm.313
Not all disasters are caused by climate change but warming temperatures
are increasing the frequency and intensity of heat waves, droughts and asso-
ciated wildfires, heavy rain, tropical cyclones and coastal flooding.314 In 2020,
internal displacement figures indicate that 30 million people were forced from
their homes due to weather-related hazards, such as storms and floods and
close to 0.7 million were displaced by geophysical hazards, such as volcanoes
and earthquakes.315 There were 11.2 million people newly displaced by conflict,
that year, internally and externally.316
Scholars have examined the influence of climate on human mobility since
the early 19th century. This focus was largely abandoned during most of
the 20th century in favour of an emphasis on economic, political and social
determinants.317 As the effects of global warming became more of a concern

in the 1980s, its impact on human mobility came to the fore.318
In 1992, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) made some sobering projections. It anticipated that millions of people
would be “displaced by shoreline erosion, coastal flooding and severe drought”.
Many would flee to areas unable to meet their needs, leading to “social instabi-
lity in some areas”. Health systems could be overwhelmed and epidemics could
Flood-affected
people moving
in Badin District,
Sindh, Pakistan in
September 2011.
© UNHCR/ “sweep through refugee camps and settlements, spilling over into surrounding
Sam Phelps
communities”.319
A few years later, Norman Myers, an Oxford environmental scientist,
predicted that approximately 150 million “environmental refugees” would “rank
as one of the foremost human crises of our times”.320 Other scholars, non-
governmental organizations and advocacy groups, also predicted dire conse-
quences of climate change on displacement.321 Then, as now, water metaphors
became common, with forecasts of “waves”, “streams”, “tides” and “floods” of
migrants fleeing the adverse effects of climate change and disasters.322
They were not the only voices. Other academics questioned the founda-
tions for these projections and analyses. They pointed to various factors that
contribute to the decision to move. They raised the need to consider both the
positive “pull” factors associated with climate change that lead people to settle
in new locations as well as the “push” factors that compel displacement.323

In the past decade, this field of research has grown considerably and, with
that, a more nuanced view of how climate change and disasters affect displace-
ment. There is general agreement that people who move in the context of
climate change and disasters often do so for a mix of reasons. As in conflict
displacement, climate- and disaster-related displacement can be induced not
just by the harm feared but by the absence of protection from it. Economic,
family, social and political considerations can also determine when and where
people move. Poor resource management, the absence of adaptation strategies,
weak governance, violence and war can also contribute.324
Climate, displacement and development

Changes in climate affect mobility in various ways. Rising temperatures can
lead to parched agricultural land, increased ocean acidity and receding freshwa-
ter lakes. Combined with other factors, such as overpopulation, poor resource
management and conflict, they affect livelihoods and food security as agricul-
tural yields fall, grazing fields diminish, and fish stocks decline. This hits poor
and vulnerable populations particularly hard. Their livelihoods often depend
on the threatened ecosystem and they tend to have few opportunities to adapt
locally or move away from the risk.325
For example, Lake Chad has long been a source of water, food and income
for the countries that border it: Cameroon; Chad; Niger; and Nigeria. As a
result of climate change (drought and decreasing levels of water inflow from
rivers and rainfall) and water mismanagement (increased extraction of water for
irrigation), Lake Chad shrank by 90 per cent during the 1970s and 1980s. The
region continues to be heavily affected by extreme and unpredictable climate
events. The effects have been dire: loss of food sources and income-generating
opportunities through fishing, agriculture and livestock farming on surroun-
ding pastures. The dramatic decline in these resources amidst growing popula-
tion pressures has contributed to instability, conflicts, and displacement, often
to urban centres in the region.326
Climate warming – which is causing glacial melt and rising seas –
threatens coastal cities and especially small island developing states (SIDS).327
These effects will continue to worsen and be among the drivers of displace-
ment without accelerated action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and robust
development planning at the national level.328
That is a central finding of the World Bank’s updated Groundswell report,
that examines the potential scale of internal climate migration patterns and
movements to help countries plan and prepare. It builds on a previous Ground-

swell report published in 2018.329 Using the same modelling process, the
report looks at likely shifts in population within countries across six regions –
East Asia and the Pacific; Eastern Europe and Central Asia; Latin
America; Middle East and North Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; and South
Asia – using demographic, socioeconomic and climate impact data.
The combined findings are that by 2050, as many as 216 million people –
or around 3 per cent of the projected population of these regions – could be
Nigerian refugee,
Hawali Oumar,
fishes Lake Chad
in 2016. He fled
to Chad with his
family after his forced to move within their own countries due to the slow-onset impacts of
father was killed climate change.330 Importantly, this number could be as much as 60–80 per
by Boko Haram.
© UNHCR/ cent lower if greenhouse gas emissions are reduced over the next two decades
Oualid Khelif and countries immediately adopt adaptation strategies as part of their green,
inclusive development planning.331
The link between climate change and development is clear. Most of the
adverse impacts of climate change will be on poor and vulnerable popula-
tions, including those whose livelihoods depend on “rain-fed agricultural,
pastoral, forest, and coastal resources” as well as people in SIDS.332 The
fundamental link between climate change and development is recognized in
the Sustainable Development Goals. One of the goals calls for “urgent
action to combat climate change and its impacts”. Related targets include
improving resilience and adaptation strategies and supporting developing

countries and small island states.333
Climate, conflict and sustaining peace

In politics, the press and public debate, it is commonly assumed that climate
change provokes conflict and will be a major driver in increased forced displace-
ment of the future. In a world of diminishing natural resources needed to sustain
life, it is believed that competition for those resources will become increasingly
violent, leading to ever larger numbers of persons to seek safety elsewhere.
Recent evidence on climate as a cause of conflict displacement paints a more
nuanced picture.334 While there are links between the adverse effects of climate
change and conflict, they are not as direct or inevitable as widely assumed. They
very much depend on context. Most research suggests that climate change
aggravates, rather than causes, existing tensions.335
Countries that can mitigate the risks of climate change and support affected
populations to adapt are more likely to avert clashes over diminishing resources.
Unfortunately, the ones that are the least able to respond in this way are among
the countries that are most immediately and severely affected. Many of these
countries are also scenes of prolonged conflict, which further weakens the
foundations needed to adapt: “institutions, essential services, infrastructure
and governance”.336
In Somalia, a 40-year period of conflict has limited the ability of autho-
rities to manage natural resources protectively, invest in adaptation strate-
gies and respond to sudden onset disasters.337 That left parts of the country
more vulnerable to a drought in 2010 and 2011, which affected much of
the Horn of Africa. It led to water shortages, crop failures, harm to live-
stock, a fall in the demand for labour and increased local prices for food.338
Hardships were exacerbated in areas of southern and central Somalia under
Al-Shabaab control.
Rules imposed by Al-Shabaab intensified the hardships brought on by
the drought: maintaining taxes, preventing people from travelling to receive
humanitarian assistance, forcing people to move to areas under their control
and restricting access to international humanitarian aid.339 Over 160,000
Somalis fled to Kenya and over 100,000 to Ethiopia in 2011.340 The drought,
conflict and coercive policies of Al-Shabaab cumulatively contributed to
mass displacement.341
The failure of governments to address the impact that climate change is
having on their communities, or mitigation measures that favour one group
over others, can fuel tensions and lead to escalating violence. Disaffection with
government responses, coupled with loss of livelihoods, and limited opportu-
nities can drive people into membership of militant groups.342 Large areas of
Africa illustrate these conditions. Pastoral livelihoods sustain over 268 million
people across this region and have been under threat for decades. Pastoralists
face government neglect and discrimination, insecure land rights and access
to grazing lands, population pressures and poor natural resource policies.343
Changing weather patterns and more frequent droughts contribute to
multiple knock-on effects such as diminished access to water, land degradation
and rising incidence of diseases among livestock. Declining incomes, increased
competition over natural resources, combined with decades of neglect and
exclusion, has contributed to more frequent violence, crime, growing poverty
and displacement.344
The Security Council has emphasized that sustained peace requires such
root causes of conflict to be addressed, and for security-focused risk manage-
ment strategies to include the adverse effects of climate change.345 From
a forced displacement perspective, this link is an important development
affecting measures for conflict prevention and de-escalation. Advocates also
hope to see climate mitigation and adaptation measures form part of future
peace processes.346
It is also widely understood that mitigating the displacement risks asso-
ciated with climate change and disasters requires a multilayered approach. Risk
mitigation must be part of the response, for example through lowering green-
house gases and improving resource management.
Strengthening adaptation capacities is also essential so people can remain in
their areas where possible and not be compelled to leave. This can be supported
through such measures as investing in human capital to facilitate diversified
livelihoods and ensuring social safety nets for the most vulnerable groups.
Improving infrastructure can also be important especially in urban areas that
are likely to receive increased migration. In situations where local adaptation
is not an option, enacting laws and policies to enable safe and dignified migra-
tion or planned relocation is necessary.347
Further, engaging affected communities, drawing on their adaptation strate-
gies is important. Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, an environmental activist from
a pastoralist community in Chad described how indigenous communities’
traditional knowledge can help. “My people don’t have access to the internet,
the radio, or television,” she said, but they know how to interpret the signs in
nature, “where the size of the fruit, the flowers, or the bird migrations, or our
own cattle can tell us the information we need to find a safe place, to find food,
to migrate from one place to another one”.348
The Government of Fiji has developed planned relocation guidelines in
close consultation with communities that need to move in response to climate
change-related risks as well as environmental degradation, population pres-
sures and poverty.349 A Project Manager for a village relocation described how
valuable the guidelines are, without which he would be lost: “It’s like a map to
help us get to the end of the process”.350
Importantly, as many contend, the costs of mitigation and adaptation stra-
tegies should not rest on the States most affected but on those States that have
been the major source of carbon emissions. This should not be seen as discre-
tionary but rather “a responsibility of States to help prevent, reduce and remedy
the dramatic externalities produced by their actions”.351
Risk mitigation and adaptation frameworks

From 1992 to 1993, 166 States signed the United Nations Framework Conven-
tion on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which came into force in 1994.352 Its
aim is to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions, with the onus on industrialized
countries, their primary source. Industrialized countries also agreed to share
technology and provide additional financial support to developing countries
for their risk mitigation and adaptation strategies.353 In 2017, a dedicated
UNFCCC Task Force on Displacement (TFD) was established to support
States in averting, minimizing and addressing displacement in the context of
climate change.354
The 2015 non-binding Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction
focuses on sudden onset disasters.355 It aims to reduce the risks of disasters
and the associated human and financial losses over 15 years. States agree to
track losses over time and mitigate them through early warning systems and
measures to safeguard productive assets and critical infrastructure as well as
to prevent, minimize and address displacement.
Progress is assessed through national annual voluntary reporting. While
national reporting has improved over the past five years, it is often partial.356
Reporting on the number of lives lost due to disasters is fairly common with
relatively few States reporting on the economic and infrastructure losses
incurred as a result of disasters. There is also no indicator under the Sendai
Framework for reporting on displacement. Improving data capacities and
including indicators for displacement would help improve policy measures.357
The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration notes the
importance of the work of the UNFCCC Task Force on Displacement and

the Sendai Framework. It also includes objectives and actions for mitigating
and responding to forced displacement in the context of sudden and slow
onset events related to climate change and disasters. These include improving
preparedness and adaptation strategies, regional cooperation and admission
and stay arrangements for those displaced externally.358
Cross-border protection
The vast majority of climate-related displacement is internal displacement and
is likely to remain so. Protections for internally displaced persons are discussed
above under the Guiding Principles. For those who are displaced across borders
due to the adverse effects of climate change and/or disasters, several interna-
tional and regional frameworks may be applicable. The 1951 Refugee Conven-
tion and 1967 Protocol may offer international refugee protection in some
circumstances. This largely depends on whether those who have fled face a
prospective risk of persecution based on one of the 1951 Convention grounds
should they be returned.359 For example, Somali refugees who fled areas under
Al-Shabaab control during the 2011 famine could fall within the 1951 Conven-
tion as refugees. They faced serious risks of persecution by Al-Shabaab had they
returned, risks from which the Somali State could not protect them.
Refugees from parts of Somalia were recognized by Kenya and
Ethiopia using the OAU Convention definition on a prima facie basis. These
States recognized multiple serious risks facing the refugees – famine, conflict,
violence, and the disruption of public order – risks against which the Somali
Government was unable to provide protection.360
On face value, the OAU Convention and the Cartagena Declaration should
also apply to situations where individuals flee events caused by the adverse
effects of climate change or disaster “seriously disturbing public order” in either
part or the whole of the country.361 However, States have expressed concerns
about the application in situations not affected by conflict and violence.362
Academics, on the other hand, have argued that events “seriously disturbing
public order” are not limited to human action and may include natural events.363
International human rights law also has provisions that can be a basis for
international protection. These include the right to life, and the right not
to be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment.364 These rights were recently invoked by a citizen of Kiribati in a
complaint filed before the Human Rights Committee concerning the refusal
of New Zealand to grant him refugee status.365
He based his claim on the grounds that he could not return to Kiribati
because the effects of climate change and sea level rise threatened his life. The
Human Rights Committee dismissed his claim on the basis that the risks to
life were not imminent and there was time for mitigation measures to protect
him. However, the Committee agreed that under international human rights
law, a State could have a duty not to return a person in circumstances where
environmental degradation caused an imminent risk to life.366
Regional free movement protocols can also be relevant in responding to forced
displacement caused by climate change and disasters. For example, provisions
within free movement agreements that form part of sub-regional economic
integration schemes within the Americas have been used to facilitate entry
and temporary residence of nationals from disaster-affected countries. In 2017,
Trinidad and Tobago applied the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) free
movement agreements to assist Dominicans affected by Hurricane Maria.
Similar efforts were made by Antigua, Grenada, St. Lucia and St. Vincent
within the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States’ (OECS) free move-
ment regime.367
In February 2020, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development
(IGAD), comprised of eight member States in the Horn of Africa, unani-
mously endorsed the IGAD Free Movement Protocol.368 Under this Protocol,
citizens will be permitted to move to another member State in anticipation of
a disaster, during it, or in its aftermath. They will be able to live and work for
as long as return to their State of origin is not possible or reasonable.369
The Protocol is yet to be adopted by the IGAD Council of Ministers
of Foreign Affairs, signed by IGAD Heads of State and incorporated into
national laws and policies. Should these steps be taken, the Protocol has
the potential to benefit all citizens from IGAD countries, including those
frequently affected by drought, floods and environmental degradation. Other
free movement agreements already exist in the Africa region, but those do not
explicitly confer the right for persons to move to another country prior to a
climate-induced disaster.370
Some have argued that existing international, regional and national
mechanisms are important but insufficient. They are neither uniform in the
degree of rights they afford, nor in the duration of protection they provide.
Some advocates, therefore, have called for a new international agreement to
protect those who have fled their countries due to the adverse effects of climate
change and sudden or slow onset disasters.371
Most States have not embraced this idea.372 Beyond the lack of State
support, there are other reasons why a new protocol may not be practicable.
These include the fact that the adverse effects of climate change and/or disas-
ters are often not a sole driver of displacement and that national and regional
responses may be more effective than international ones.373
Legal scholars have warned against using international treaties in
response.374 A dedicated international agreement may help to acknowledge
a duty to accept those who must cross a border in some circumstances due to
disaster. State reluctance to accept more international commitments makes
an extensive treaty process a distraction, while compliance cannot be guaran-
teed. This argues for focusing on “more immediate, alternative and additional”
migration and adaptation responses.375
These were among the considerations that led to the 2011 Nansen Confer-
ence on Climate Change and Displacement in the 21st Century. It grew into
the Nansen Initiative on Disaster-Induced Cross-Border Displacement, which
for several years worked to forge informed, consistent and effective State
practice. The Initiative was chaired by the Governments of Norway and
Switzerland with participation of government officials, affected populations,
international organizations, academia and civil society groups.376
Its main achievement was the 2015 Agenda for the Protection of Cross-Border
Displaced Persons in the Context of Disasters and Climate Change.377 Endorsed by
109 governments, it sets out policy options for governments to use in respon-
ding to displacement caused by disasters as well as the adverse effects of climate
change. The Agenda focuses on three key objectives: improve data collection
and knowledge; enhance humanitarian and migration measures for cross-bor-
der displacement; and strengthen risk management.378
In regard to addressing cross-border movements, the Agenda
provides examples of promising practices from around the world,
including humanitarian admission and stay programmes. 379 It also
highlights how circular regular migration can provide an import-
ant means for income diversification and longer-term solutions
for those confronting substantial losses of territory or livelihoods
due to the adverse effects of climate change and/or disasters. The Agenda
illustrates effective practices to plan relocation in a sustainable manner.380
The Platform on Disaster Displacement (PDD)381 succeeded the Nansen
Initiative in 2016. It continues the work to advance promising practices in the
Agenda and is regarded as being a highly effective resource for States. Both
the Nansen Initiative and the Platform on Disaster Displacement have been
influential in the Americas. In 2016, Central and North American countries
adopted a guide on protecting people who move externally in the context of

disasters that was drafted by the Nansen Initiative.382 It informed the related
bilateral mechanisms agreed between Costa Rica and Panama to manage risks
and respond to cross-border displacement.383
The South American Conference on Migration was similarly assisted in
2018 by the Platform and adopted its own non-binding “regional guidelines on
protection and assistance of persons displaced across borders and migrants in
countries affected by disasters of natural origin”.384 The Platform is also working
in Asia and the Pacific to strengthen State capacities and share best practices.385
National laws have also been a source of protection for persons unable to
return home in the aftermath of a disaster. As of 2015, at least 50 countries
had received or refrained from returning individuals in the wake of tropical
storms, flooding, drought, tsunamis and earthquakes.386 The United States,
for example, has provisions for affording temporary protection status to those
who are unable to return home due to “an earthquake, flood, drought, epidemic
or other environmental disaster”.387 The disaster must have disrupted living
conditions, the home State must be temporarily unable to adequately handle
the return of individuals and must have asked the United States to allow their
citizens to remain.388
Several countries also have humanitarian and compassionate criteria for
permitting foreigners to enter or remain in circumstances where they do
not meet the formal criteria.389 Canada has used such provisions for those
affected by the “1998 Turkish earthquake, the 2004 Asian tsunami, the 2010
Haiti earthquake and the 2013 Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.”390 Simi-
larly, following the devastation of Hurricane Mitch in 1998, several Central
American States regularized the immigration status of affected migrants.391
The 2018 Global Compact on Migration calls for flexible “pathways for
regular migration”, including for people forced to migrate internationally due
to sudden and slow-onset disasters. It also covers the adverse effects of climate
change and environmental degradation “where adaptation in or return to their
country of origin is not possible”.392 Migration avenues have already been
used in these contexts. In the Pacific, for example, people affected by sudden-
and slow-onset disasters have been helped to adapt through such migration
pathways. Seasonal work programmes helped Pacific Islanders affected by the
adverse effects of climate change to diversify their income and to send money
back home. Australia and New Zealand have also granted work and education
visas to Pacific Islanders, and New Zealand accepts several hundred annually
as permanent residents.393
Trends Analysis
Strategies to mitigate and better respond to internal and external forced
displacement, whether driven by conflict, climate or other disasters, depends
in part on good trends analysis. Yet, tracing the trends in forced displacement
over time is tricky, with difficulties relating to capacity, coordination, quality
and frequency. A few are important to note here, in advance of a deeper review
that follows in Part V.
Data on refugees is compiled biannually by UNHCR, drawing from its
own registration data, information from its sectoral interventions and those
of partners, and from States.The prime responsibility for collecting data on
internal displacements rests with national authorities.394 Yet, very few govern-
ments systematically collect and accurately report on their internally displaced
populations.395 In many cases, this is because they do not have the capacity. In
some cases, it is also because they do not have the political will.396
Statistics provided by governments often only represent a partial dimen-
sion of the displaced population. This happens, for example, when govern-
ments define internally displaced persons narrowly: focusing on a specific
group, within a specific time frame, or in a certain location.397 Political moti-
vations can inflate the number of forcibly displaced people, with the aim to
seek ongoing international attention and assistance. Conversely, governments
have been known to underrepresent their internal displacement statistics to
deflect international attention, especially in circumstances where their actions
are responsible for the displacement.398
Even when governments, international and national partner agencies do
their best to present an accurate picture of forcibly displaced populations,
data collection can be particularly challenging, especially in remote areas or
situations of ongoing conflict. As well, forcibly displaced populations can
be dispersed in rural or urban communities, not easily differentiated from
local populations. Some may wish not to be identified, fearing harassment,
discrimination or persecution.399 They may also move from one displace-
ment location to another, which makes it difficult to keep track.
Longitudinal data, collected from the same respondents over time, is infre-
quent and often not collected at all. This data can be especially important to
identify larger trends and changes in individual circumstances over time.400
UNHCR updates its data on refugees through periodic verification exer-
cises. But, by and large, most data on forcibly displaced persons is concen-
trated in the initial, emergency phase of displacement. The information helps
in planning humanitarian responses and associated funding appeals needed

to ensure the mobilization of urgent life-saving assistance. While this data is
useful for the immediate response, its reliability diminishes over time. It can
only capture the duration of displacement if regularly maintained.
The quality of data collected is also uneven. Data is not collected in a fully
coordinated way nor using consistent methodologies to ensure it is reliable and
comparable.401 It is frequently not disaggregated to reveal specific needs and
vulnerabilities or to enable comparisons with host and other populations.402 As
a result, it is not sufficient to fully inform policy options, decisions on resource
allocation or to measure progress towards durable solutions.403
The research field further suffers from the absence of an agreed methodo-
logy for discerning causation. Surveys of populations forced to move, including
in areas adversely affected by climate change and/or disasters, frequently cite
livelihoods or conflict as the top drivers. Yet, as some researchers note, survey
methodologies do not provide insight into possible multiple causes. Metho-
dologies are needed to rank and better understand the different factors that
influence people’s decisions to move or trigger their displacement.404
In recent years, the United Nations has worked to improve data and ana-
lysis in forced displacement contexts. The United Nations Expert Group on
Refugee and Internally Displaced Persons Statistics (EGRIS)405 has developed
an internationally agreed framework for the production and dissemination of
quality statistics relating to refugees and internally displaced persons compa-
rable between regions and countries.406
The work is ongoing. When complete, it will provide enhanced tools for
the collection of reliable data. But improving technical data collection is not
enough. As national authorities remain accountable for data on their own
populations, advancing the quality of that data depends on political will, policy
choices and sufficient national capacity.
According to the World Bank, “over 110 low- and middle-income countries
have deficient civil registration and vital statistic systems”.407 International and
national partners must support government-led efforts to improve national
statistical systems. Not everything related to improving statistics can be done
at once, and sequencing of strengthened capacity will often be necessary.
In the meantime, other organizations, including humanitarian agencies, will
also need to work more closely together to harmonize data collection accor-
ding to agreed standards. Improved reliability, comparability and quality of
data will help inform policies and provide more effective protection, assistance
and solutions efforts for forcibly displaced persons.
Rohingya
refugees cross Minding the Gaps
from Myanmar
into Bangladesh,
via rice paddies
To this day, the influence of the 1951 Convention on the international refugee
and over the Naf protection regime is definitive. Its sustained resonance transcends the post-war
river border, in
October 2017.
period. Its interpretation has broadened over 70 years, covering people in flight
© UNHCR/ from a wider range of threats. Its ideals have informed and influenced sub-
Roger Arnold
sequent regional refugee protection instruments, reinforcing its core protec-
tions. Together, these frameworks have protected millions of people.
But, alongside this widening scope has been a trend for protection to be with-
held. While expressing support for the international protection regime, countries
have – at the same time – sought to limit access to its provisions. This creates
a gap between the commitment and practice of States’ responses to refugees.
It is in this gap that countries try to prevent refugees from entering to stop
asylum claims. It is where nations seek to intercept refugees in flight, interrupt-
ing journeys to safety to avoid non-refoulement obligations. States have also
confined refugees in ways that leave them reliant on humanitarian assistance
and unable to provide for themselves – the key to a better future. Responsibi-
lity- and burden-sharing for refugees has consistently fallen short, with hosts
in low- and middle-income countries carrying a disproportionate share. The
future of the international refugee protection regime very much depends on
countering these negative trends.
For internally displaced persons, the Guiding Principles on Internal
Displacement were a major achievement, influencing the development of
regional and national prevention and response frameworks for people fleeing
within borders. However, like the refugee protection frameworks, implemen-
tation is uneven and international support for internally displaced persons
falls considerably short of need. As will be discussed in Part III, solutions for
many internally displaced persons as well as refugees have not been realized.
The world needs to learn from these shortcomings, with climate change
likely to cause more forced movements. As this next challenge looms, there has
already been notable progress. Twenty years ago, displacement in the context
of climate change and disasters was discussed largely in alarmist terms. It was
based on projections that were not well substantiated. There was relatively little
emphasis on what could be done to mitigate risks, strengthen resilience and
manage relocation sensitively. Since then, multilateral prevention and response
frameworks have been developed to help.
However, much more work is needed to prepare for the future. Reduc-
ing greenhouse gas emissions is key. The dissemination of good practices has
expanded, especially in the last five years, and in a manner that is helping States
implement more effective policies. Nonetheless, the States that are the most
affected are also the ones least able to mitigate and adapt to these changes.
They are also not the major source of carbon emissions, which imposes an even
greater obligation on wealthier States to acknowledge and remedy the harm
caused on others.
From the rubble of WWII to the emerging threats that lie ahead, all
protection frameworks recognize the importance of support for forcibly
displaced persons to realize their potential. With it, they can strengthen their
capacities and provide for themselves, contributing to their new communities.
Restrictive laws and policies inhibit this. So do measures that are, at times,
deliberately discriminatory.
Improved on-the-ground implementation of the expanded global ideals
established in the 1951 Convention depends on many factors. State will-
ingness is among the most dominant. State capacity is also critical: It is one
thing to know what has to be done and to try to do it, but another to be able to
fulfil commitments. Much more robust engagement in nationally-led efforts,

underpinned by enabling policies and financial support, are required.
For responses to forced displacement to better match international inten-
tions, a deeper understanding of its dimensions, causes and duration is needed.
For this, the enhancement of data and analytical capacities needs to accelerate.
Table of Contents
163 Solutions Overview
165 Resettlement
166 Local Integration
170 Normative Framework

PA R T III
170 Refugees
Solutions – 172 Internally Displaced Persons
An Uneven 173 The First 50 Years
Record 175
194
Focus on Return
Selective Resettlement
200 Local Integration at the Periphery
201 New Millennium
207 Resettlement
212 Complementary Pathways
215 Integrating Locally
220 Lessons Learned

Solutions –
An Uneven Record
Displacement ends once a durable solution is reached.

This means more than just a safe physical presence. For a solution to be
Previous page: durable, a person must be able to live securely, be treated equally under the law,
On a bus bound
for Beirut airport
have a formal status, and be subject to the same rights and responsibilities of
in 2014, Syrian others in the community without discrimination.
refugee Um
Abdullah and her
This Part examines the record on achieving solutions for forcibly displaced
children Asmaa, persons and recent efforts to unlock more. It draws from what we know from
9 (left) and Louai,
3 (right), begin
contemporaneous accounts, available data, and assessments made over time.1
their journey to Traditionally, recognized solutions for refugees have included voluntary,
resettlement in
Germany, with
safe and sustainable return to their countries, local integration in the host
other members country, or resettlement in a third country. For internally displaced persons
of their family in
need of specialist
(IDPs), who are citizens of the State where they are displaced, solutions include
medical care. sustainable voluntary return to the place of origin, or sustainable integration
© UNHCR/
Andrew
elsewhere in the country.
McConnell The historic record on achieving solutions for forcibly displaced persons
is checkered. Over time, many millions have safely returned home or been
accepted permanently in new communities, allowing them to forge new
PART III / SOLUTIONS – AN UNEVEN RECORD 163
futures for themselves and their families. Many more, however, have not.
The persistently high annual numbers of forcibly displaced people in need of
humanitarian assistance reflect this sad reality, as more displacement situations
become protracted and new situations erupt.
On too many occasions voluntary return was promoted in contexts where
peace was fragile and reintegration prospects slim. Returns were followed
by new displacements. Resettlement enabled only a small proportion of
refugees to start new lives, some selected on the basis of their integration
potential rather than on their acute needs. The record on local integration
is thin: evidence points to the difficulties that internally displaced persons
face in locally integrating and the legal barriers that can stand in the way of
refugees doing so.
Past experience points to the need for approaches that recognize that
achieving a solution to displacement is a process in which strengthening
human capital during displacement is one key element. Refugees and internally
displaced persons live among communities that are often poor and margina-
lized. Solutions have a greater chance of success when they build on prior
investments to enhance the socioeconomic development of both forcibly
displaced persons and local communities.
Solutions Overview
Voluntary Return
The story of forcibly displaced persons is dominated by images of flight, and
subsistence living in places of immediate refuge. There is much less visibility on
them returning home once conflict has abated, or when other causes of flight
are gone. Some of the most moving moments in the displacement experience
– returning home in safety – are rarely seen. There is good reason for this: It
happens all too infrequently.
For most of the past 60 years, fewer than 10 per cent of refugees returned to
their countries of origin.2 In the last decade, this proportion has fallen gener-
ally below 5 per cent in most years. Similar data on conflict-induced internal
displacement is incomplete with more extensive data collection only commenc-
ing in the 1990s for displacement and 1997 for returns.3 But the rates of return
since then have also been relatively low. For the past 20 years, annual rates of
returns of internally displaced persons have mostly been less than 10 per cent
of the total number.4
The reasons for the low return rates are clear. Conflicts that have driven
people from their homes remain active. Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Colombia,
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Somalia, and Sudan consistently
generated some of the largest forcibly displaced populations in the world over
the past 20 years, with the displacement from some spanning several decades.5
In places where the guns remain silent, other factors can prevent sustain-
able returns home. They can include destroyed infrastructure, the loss of roads,
schools and medical facilities; the loss of property, when others live on land
once owned by returnees; and ongoing fear of retribution or persecution by
State or non-State actors.
Significant peace, development and humanitarian support is needed to
overcome these obstacles so return can be sustainable. Support is critical in the
immediate period after the peace settlement, as most returns occur within three
years of the end of a conflict.6 But it also needs to be maintained. Aid tends to
fall off within a few years after a peace agreement has been formed, often at a
time when governments start to demonstrate greater absorption capacities.7
Many returning refugees and internally displaced persons do not go to
their original areas, settling elsewhere in the country. Returnees often choose
urban locations, especially if they have resided in cities or towns during their
displacement. Chief among the reasons are employment prospects and better
access to services. 8 For those who previously lived in rural areas, loss of land or
productive assets may also be decisive factors. Some who do choose to return
home face security risks that either prevent them from reaching there or limit
the duration of their stay, resulting in further displacement.9
When large numbers return to already congested and underserved areas,
reintegration can be a struggle.10 This can be further complicated if returnees
have few ties to their country of origin, which is the case for many children
and young people who have grown up in exile.11
In light of the challenges facing return, the decision to go back home is
often difficult. Among the most important considerations are that the return
area is safe and that there are economic opportunities to ensure a means
of livelihood. Evidence shows that returnees with financial and productive
assets and skills fare better upon return than those without.12 This is why
supporting training and education during displacement is important for both
the immediate and longer term.
Households may not return together, with family members remaining
behind either temporarily or permanently as a way to better manage risks.
This occurs especially when security systems are not fully in place, access to
education or medical services is not available, or there is a possibility that some

family members could face greater risks upon return.
Those eligible to be conscripted may choose to remain behind rather than
returning and being compelled to serve in an army that was implicated in their
displacement.13 Women and young girls may face higher risks of abuse in places
of return if policing and justice systems are not effectively functioning. Indi-
viduals with employment or business in the place of refuge may choose not to
return if they determine that they are better off in their current location. And
those who have never known their country of citizenship—spending their
entire lives in the host country—may wish to remain in the only home they
have known.
Significant return can be followed by renewed displacement, often inter-
nally, especially in circumstances where the peace is fragile or conditions in
return areas are so shattered that residents and returnees alike are unable to
gain a foothold. Others who settle in their areas of origin can find it difficult
to rebuild their lives and remain in situations of heightened vulnerability as a
result of their displacement.14
Achieving sustainable returns is a complex task requiring peace, develop-
ment and humanitarian efforts and is seldom quickly accomplished.
Resettlement
Refugees often consider being resettled as akin to winning the lottery. It is an

apt analogy given that the odds are slim, and the payoff is significant in terms
of the opportunity to move forward securely with their lives.
Resettlement to a third country has been a solution for only a limited
number of refugees. It has provided a lifeline for over 4 million people since
1960. As a percentage of total refugees, however, it has rarely reached more than
1 per cent annually. But, unlike a lottery, being selected for resettlement is not
a question of pure chance. It is a specialized and lengthy immigration process.
Rez Gardi and her family were considered for resettlement while living in a
refugee camp in Pakistan. She recalls how they expected to be resettled within
six months. It took nine years.15
Resettlement countries determine how many refugees and from which
regions of the world they will resettle each year. States accept referrals from
UNHCR of refugees in need of resettlement, although this does not guaran-
tee a person referred will be accepted. That is the decision of the resettlement
State, based on its determination of refugee status and its own resettlement
criteria.16 The number and profile of refugees States resettle can be influenced
by foreign policy considerations, labour market needs, security considerations
and public support.
The annual number of refugees resettled fluctuates, but the global total has
never exceeded 180,000 in a year, averaging just over 70,000 persons annually.17
Given the limited number of resettlement places available, UNHCR relies on
criteria reached in consultation with resettlement States, to help determine
which refugees to refer for resettlement. The overriding consideration is to refer
those who are at risk in their country of refuge or who have particular needs or
vulnerabilities that cannot be appropriately addressed there.18
A refugee accepted for resettlement is conditionally approved subject to the
results of medical and security checks. These can take many months depend-
ing on the resettlement country, which means that the length of time from the
selection to arrival in the resettlement country ranges from 12 to 36 months
and, in some cases, even longer.19
Some refugees who are not accepted by one country can be referred to
another, but there are no guarantees. Many are not accepted even after mul-
tiple referrals. And, while they are informed of the odds, many refugees often
hold onto hope well beyond a realistic chance of success.20
Resettlement has not always reflected this systematic and coordinated
approach between resettlement States, UNHCR and partners in non-
governmental organizations. It is a process that has evolved over the years. In
the aftermath of World War II (WWII), it was primarily regarded as a useful
source of European labour for resettlement States.21 Over time, it became a
solution open to refugees from all parts of the world with a specific, although
not exclusive, focus on those most at risk.
Local Integration
As a durable solution to refugee displacement, local integration entails acquir-

ing permanent legal status, generally attained through naturalization process-
es.22 This recognizes refugees as full members of the community and enables
them to pass on that secure legal status to their children.
Refugees who are resettled, or who are recognized as refugees through
asylum processes in many States, are generally accepted permanently in their
new communities. But for most refugees, including those who have lived for
long periods in hosting countries, the path to permanent residency or citizen-
ship is not open to them.
Citizenship has been afforded to a relatively small proportion of refugees

over time. It has been concentrated in high-income countries that are signat-
ories to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (1951 Conven-
tion) and its 1967 Protocol.23 Traditionally, many of these countries have
provided a pathway to citizenship for refugees who have been resettled or who
have been recognized under an asylum process and fulfil other requirements
that qualify them for citizenship.
In the past decade, 97 per cent of all naturalizations were reported from
10 countries. Of these, five are high-income countries and contributed two
An elderly
Burundian
refugee couple
begins the
process of
thirds of all naturalizations. Canada alone naturalized over 144,000 refugees becoming
Tanzanian
representing 45 per cent of the total.24 citizens in 2008,
And while naturalization of refugees has been less common in low- and having arrived as
refugees in 1972.
middle-income countries, three examples in recent years stand out as notable © UNHCR/
exceptions. Tanzania, having been host to large numbers of refugees for many Brendan Bannon
decades, naturalized over 162,000 long resident Burundian refugees, with most
of the naturalizations occurring in 2009.
Meanwhile, between 2017 and 2018, Turkey naturalized over 79,000 Syrian
refugees, equivalent to 25 per cent of the global total of refugee naturalizations
between 2010 and 2019, while also hosting the largest refugee population in
the world.25 In Guinea-Bissau, nearly 9,000 long resident Senegalese refugees
were naturalized in 2018 and 2019.26
Elements of Solutions
Enabling Laws and Policies
RESIDENCE
PERMIT
PASSPORT BANK
LEGAL STATUS ECONOMIC
Recognition of legal identity and right Legal right to

to reside
Residence permit Be employed
Citizenship Own a business
Naturalization Access financial services
Own and sell land and property
VOTE
CIVIL-P OLITIC AL SOCIAL- CULTUR AL
Participation in civil and political life Enjoyment of personal, family and

community life
Protection of the law and access to justice Inclusion in education systems and
Security health services
Civil documentation Social protection
Freedom to move Family unity
Political participation
Short of citizenship, refugees can attain a degree of social and de facto

economic integration. Even in contexts where local integration is officially
not accepted, a level of informal integration especially for populations living
outside camps, is widespread since most host governments do not have the
capacity to prevent this from occurring.27
Restricting the right of refugees to work is often justified on the assumption
that it protects local workers from competition. Yet, such restrictions may in
fact have the opposite effect. When refugees’ qualifications are not reconized
and they are unable to work legally, they are pushed into the informal sector.
This is where local low-skilled and frequently female labour is concentrated.
When permitted to legally work, they engage across a broader range of occu-
pations, pay taxes and make a stronger economic contribution.28
Refugees have faced significant resistance to any degree of local integration,
especially in the context of large refugee movements with high or rising unem-
ployment rates and scarce livelihood opportunities.29 Refugees are frequently
prohibited from moving freely, and from working or establishing a means of
livelihood. Around 70 per cent of refugees face such constraints.30
Restrictions are motivated by several factors. Although the granting of citi-
zenship remains a sovereign decision, some governments fear that legalizing
any form of integration will bind them to conferring citizenship and, therefore,
seek to avoid it. Other reasons include the perceived possible negative impact
refugees may have on local economies and the potential difficulties of moni-
toring refugees should they be permitted to move freely.
Some States express concern that greater inclusion will lead to a withdrawal
of humanitarian support, leaving them to assume greater burdens. Restrictions
are often seen as necessary to deter further influxes, in the belief that provid-
ing more favourable conditions of stay will be a pull factor to new refugees,
discourage those already present from returning home,31 while also leaving
countries of origin unaccountable for their own citizens.
For internally displaced persons who are citizens, integration in places of
displacement or return can also be elusive. Like refugees, many are frequently
poorer, with more children out of school and higher rates of unemployment
than host community members. Those who have been displaced from rural to
urban environments have often lost their productive assets, such as land and
livestock, and may not have skills that are easily transferable to local markets.32
Many who live in camps are often in inhospitable and remote locations, lack-
ing infrastructure and access to markets. Challenges can be exacerbated where
they do not share religious, ethnic, or kinship ties with host communities.33
Some governments have enacted laws and put in place policies to address
the immediate needs of internally displaced persons and resolve their displace-
ment.34 Not all governments are committed to finding durable solutions
for their displaced populations. Many are confronted with indifferent or
even hostile government authorities who may have caused, contributed to,
or perpetuated their displacement. Such authorities may be less inclined to
pursue measures to address the vulnerabilities of internally displaced persons
and achieve solutions.35
Normative Framework
Refugees
Durable solutions for refugees, in the form of voluntary repatriation or full

integration in the host country, were the main objectives in the early years
of the modern international refugee regime. In 1950, the United Nations
Secretary-General Trygve Lie, set out its ambitions. At its core, he noted, were
hopes for progression – from economic integration to membership.
People unable or unwilling to return would be integrated into the economic
life of the country of refuge. The final result would be “integration in the
national community which has given him shelter” as it is “essential for the
refugee to enjoy an equitable and stable status”.36
These alternatives, “voluntary repatriation” and “assimilation in new national
communities” are reflected in the Statute of UNHCR.37 The 1951 Conven-
tion set out progressive enjoyment of rights, with States agreeing to “as far as
possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalization of refugees.”38
Refugee repatriation
In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the right to return to one’s
country is unequivocal and for this to be a voluntary choice and in safety is
definitive in the 1951 Convention. The latter prohibits States from returning
a refugee to a territory where “life or freedom” would be threatened.39 The
concept was considered of such fundamental importance that no derogation
from it is permissible. It was subsequently included in the 1969 Organization
of African Unity Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee
Problems in Africa (OAU Convention), the 1984 Cartagena Declaration,
the 1966 Bangkok Principles, the 2011 updated European Union Quali-
fication Directive, as well as the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees (GCR).40

Some of these instruments also set out principles that are common to
organized voluntary return efforts. Among them, voluntary return is facili-
tated by the involvement of host countries, countries of origin and relevant
international agencies.41 Returnees are also expected to be accorded the full
rights and privileges of fellow citizens and not be penalized for having left
their country of origin.42
Refugee integration
For integration, the 1951 Convention is more equivocal. As discussed in Part
I, refugees are entitled to access courts and must obey the law. But, while they
have some socioeconomic rights on the same terms as nationals, they do not
have full equality in this regard.43 States can make exceptions in this area, and
many have. Reservations especially apply to paid employment, equality of
treatment in labour standards and social security.44
There is no unqualified obligation under the 1951 Convention for States
to grant citizenship to refugees. Rather, they are obligated to take measures “as
far as possible” to assimilate and naturalize refugees.45 While some regional
accords are more progressive on the surface, in practice, refugees often face
legal barriers to integration.
The OAU Convention reflected State reticence to extend rights to local
integration. It provides that States “use their best endeavours consistent with
their respective legislations” to secure the settlement of refugees.46 It is silent
on the economic and social rights to be accorded, although it expressly recog-
nizes that the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol constitute “the basic
and universal instrument relating to the status of refugees”.47
The 1979 Protocol Relating to Free Movement of Persons, Residence
and Establishment of the Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS) has the potential to facilitate the integration of refugees from
member States. It provides for community members to enter and reside in
the territory of any member State if they possess a valid travel document
and international health certificate.48 In practice, however, refugees within
ECOWAS have not systematically benefited as States have the discretion
to exclude certain groups from the provisions of the Protocol. Even in the
absence of these specific limitations, it affords wide and general discretion to
immigration officers who have excluded refugees from benefiting.49
The 1984 Cartagena Declaration, adopted by Latin American States,
includes specific provisions to support the “self-sufficiency of refugees” and
programmes to improve their health, education, labour market access and

safety.50 On its 30th anniversary, these States went further: They committed to
promote the inclusion of forcibly displaced persons in national development
plans and to “multiply efforts” to guarantee the enjoyment of economic, social
and cultural rights for local integration. There was also agreement to
facilitate naturalization, although with qualifications. Naturalizations would
be part of “a comprehensive durable solutions strategy”, meaning when other
solutions were also engaged, and only “in accordance with national
legislation”.51
The 2018 Global Compact on Refugees reflects States’ continued sensitivity
on local integration. It specifically refers to local integration through natural-
ization as a sovereign decision, to be “guided by their treaty obligations and
human rights principles”. But it also recognizes that States may opt for “other
local solutions”, such as interim stay, to facilitate economic, social and cultural
inclusion, and that low- and middle-income countries may need support from
the international community for this.52 The Global Refugee Forum53 is one
platform where this support is pledged.54
Internally Displaced Persons
Internally displaced persons are entitled to all rights of citizens without discrim-
ination. This includes the right to locally integrate in their place of refuge, else-
where in the country or upon return to their place of origin. Nonetheless,
claiming a right, and the ability to exercise it are not the same. And, as mentioned
earlier, they often face significant practical problems in realizing solutions.
The 1998 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement provide global
standards for both the prevention and response to situations where forced
movement arises within borders.55 In regard to solutions, they are clear that the
primary responsibility to establish conditions and means to resolve displace-
ment lies with national authorities.
Internally displaced persons have the right to choose freely and with full
information whether to remain, return or settle elsewhere in the country.56
The Principles are also reflected in the African Union Convention for the
Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (Kampala
Convention) of 2009.57
While both the Guiding Principles and the Kampala Convention make
the right to a durable solution clear, they do not provide guidance on when a
solution has been reached. In 2010, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee58
published a Durable Solutions Framework for Internally Displaced Persons

(the IASC Framework) providing some guidance in this regard.
According to the IASC Framework, a durable solution is reached when
internally displaced persons “no longer have specific assistance and protection
needs that are linked to their displacement” and “can enjoy their human rights
without discrimination resulting from their displacement”.59 Ongoing needs
linked to displacement can include: civil documentation left behind or lost in
flight; employment which is not available due to discrimination or because
skills are not transferable; and the absence of secure accommodation.
Factors to determine whether a durable solution has been reached are broad.
They include: long-term safety and security; adequate standard of living; docu-
mentation; family reunification; and access to employment, justice and effective
remedies to restore or compensate loss of land and property.60
Ten years on, some have argued that the breadth of the criteria accommo-
dates ambiguity, and that the list needs to be refined to eliminate it.61 Others
have focused on tools that can help provide a context-specific means to meas-
ure the extent to which a durable solution has been reached, including quali-
tative long-term studies.62
There is also a need for greater clarity on the right of return, frequently
affirmed in Security Council resolutions concerning situations of internal
displacement.63 Currently, internally displaced persons who have found a solu-
tion elsewhere in the country may still be counted as displaced if they retain
an unfulfilled desire to return.64
The First 50 Years

Available statistics pertaining to different solutions vary. Annual statistics
on refugees by country of origin, asylum, return and resettlement reach back
over 60 years.65 Annual statistics on internally displaced persons, including
returns, exist only partially from the 1990s.66 Considerable work remains
to harmonize how governments define and report on internally displaced
populations and how data is collected to improve accuracy discussed further
in Part V.67
We cannot be certain of the exact number of forcibly displaced persons
who have locally integrated over the decades. For refugees, UNHCR has tried
to use naturalizations as a proxy.68 The problem is that not all States have
annual records on those they naturalize. Among those that do, refugees are
not always distinguished from other non-citizens in the naturalization data.69

Over many years, solutions for refugees were perceived in a hierarchy of
desirability: Voluntary repatriation was consistently described as the most
preferable; local integration came next “where appropriate and feasible”
followed by resettlement, when voluntary repatriation and local integration
were not possible.
UNHCR’s Executive Committee reflected this approach in its guidance on
areas of law and policy issued through Conclusions on International Protec-
tion.70 From 1975 and for over 30 years, its Conclusions repeatedly referred to
voluntary repatriation in an unqualified manner as the “preferred solution”,71
although there was little firm evidence that all refugees viewed it in the same
way.
During the first 50 years of the international protection regime, interest
in solutions for refugees was commensurate with the level of refugee displace-
ment. So, for example, the initial post-war emphasis on solving refugee situ-
ations, re-emerged in the late 1970s, as the number of refugees more than
doubled during the decade.
In Africa, they rose from 1.5 million people to 5.9 million between 1975
and 1990. Among the largest refugee populations in Africa during this time
were those from Angola, Ethiopia, Liberia and Mozambique.72 In Asia, in the
same period, the increase was even more dramatic: from fewer than 100,000
refugees to nearly 8.2 million mostly Afghan refugees. Refugees first started
fleeing Afghanistan to neighbouring Iran and Pakistan after the fall of the
monarchy in 1978. Following the Soviet invasion in 1979, their numbers
increased to some 6.3 million by 1990.73
The wider period between the 1951 Convention and the new millennium
features three patterns within the world’s search for solutions for its refugees.
First, the clear preference for refugee repatriation meant that it was often
favoured in situations that were far from safe or durable. The experience of
this period would inform international approaches in the new millennium
including a wider recognition that political stability was generally a necessary
condition, although not always sufficient for sustainable return.
Second, the period also demonstrated that resettlement would likely not
provide a solution for more than a limited number of refugees with specific
needs. Significant multilateral efforts on resettlement were generally contin-
gent on them serving broader geopolitical ends.
Third, in regard to local integration, the decades revealed ongoing reluc-
tance of States hosting the majority of refugees to consider formal integration.
Focus on Return
Between the end of WWII and the new millennium, over 30 million refugees
repatriated, including some 10 million who had fled to India from East
Pakistan in 1971 and returned to the new State of Bangladesh in 1972.74 The
pressure to resolve forced displacement through returns to the country of origin
was the main policy direction of choice for governments hosting displaced
people, and it was facilitated by the international community.
The review that follows captures major returns and those that resulted in
a durable solution as well as those that did not. It reveals some truths. Polit-
ical stability was common to all successful repatriations. Returns to areas
where the root causes of initial displacement remained unaddressed featured
further flight in subsequent years. So too did returns to situations of ongoing
political instability. Also, help with travel back and initial installation did not
guarantee a durable solution. Nor did more robust development assistance
if the country continued to experience severe internal divisions and unstable
governance.
1950–1990
Middle East and North Africa

Following the massive post-WWII repatriation exercises,75 the next signif-
icant international effort came in support of Algerian refugees. In 1958, the
General Assembly requested that UNHCR support the repatriation and rein-
tegration of over 200,000 Algerians who had fled to Tunisia and Morocco.76
It was the first major United Nations repatriation exercise outside Europe,77
and it defined processes and an approach that would be followed in subse-
quent years.
First, the return of refugees was a part of the Evian Peace Accords, and
the promotion of refugee returns would become a common feature of peace
agreements until the 1990s.78
Second, the roles and responsibilities of UNHCR, the hosting countries
and Algeria were set out in a formal agreement. The use of this kind of tripar-
tite agreement became a standard practice in subsequent years.79
Third, in recognition of the fact that refugees were often returning to areas
devastated by conflict, UNHCR invested in initial reintegration and small-
scale reconstruction programmes. These were of benefit both to returnees and
settled residents of those areas. UNHCR linked the Government with United
Nations development partners.80 A focus on the need to support development

within areas of return would be part of subsequent reintegration efforts, and a
lack of it among the reasons some failed.
Asia
Throughout the 1970s, many displaced populations returned home
following successful independence struggles. The largest and swift-
est return movement came in 1972 following the short and brutal conflict
between West and East Pakistan,81 which led to the separate States of
Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Almost from its creation in 1947, Pakistan was riven by divisions between
West Pakistan and East Pakistan. United in name, they were separated by over
1,000 kilometers and along ethnic lines. A Bengali nationalist movement in
the East grew over the years, fueled by political, economic and social poli-
cies that favoured West Pakistan and Urdu-speaking populations over East
Pakistan and its majority Bengali community.
Tensions escalated in 1970 when the Awami League, based in East
Pakistan, won the majority of seats in the national election which West
Pakistani parties refused to recognize.82 The arrest of the head of the Awami
League, Sheikh Mujib Rahman, was followed by full-scale repression by
the Pakistan Army against the Bengali population. The level of violence was
particularly gruesome, generating a volume and rate of forced displacement
greater than at any other time since WWII.83 Within one year, hundreds of
thousands were killed and some 10 million refugees fled mostly into India.84
India coordinated a massive relief operation. It set up registration systems
and food rationing and provided vaccines for cholera and smallpox. Impatient
with what it considered an insufficient international response, and in the face of
unprecedented rates of refugee arrivals, India intervened militarily in support
of the nationalists.85 This led to the relatively quick conclusion of the war and
the creation of the State of Bangladesh in 1972.
Returns to Bangladesh were immediate, with hundreds of thousands of
refugees returning each day of their own accord. UNHCR received over
$14 million to provide initial assistance to returnees as well as for relief and
rehabilitation projects in areas of return.86 Within four months, India
announced that all but 60,000 of the 10 million refugees had returned home.87
Both the size and speed of the return movement were rare. The relatively short
duration of the conflict helped make it possible. Refugees were returning to a
newly independent State where their interests dominated.88
There were far less auspicious circumstances for the close to 200,000
Rohingya refugees who returned to Myanmar from Bangladesh between
1978 and 1979. They had fled increasingly repressive policies of Myanmar’s
military government, including a massive campaign of arrests and expulsions
in 1978.89
Bangladesh was keen to maintain good relations with Myanmar and was not
willing to provide permanent residence to the refugees. The return campaign
met resistance from the refugees, who feared conditions in Myanmar had not
improved. In response, Bangladesh withheld food aid. The refugees’ resolve
Salt Lake camp

near Calcutta in
1971. It was one
of 800 camps set
up after some
weakened, and most returned. Ongoing persecution led to further outflows 10 million
over subsequent years. refugees fled to
India amid the
UNHCR was not a party to the return agreement. But it was later conflict between
criticized for not doing more to stop it and not monitoring the situation of the West and East
Pakistan.
returnees. Scholars have since noted that UNHCR was in a dilemma. A lack © WFP/
of donor countries willing to take up the cause of the Rohingya refugees Trevor Page
meant there was little it could do. Faced with deteriorating conditions in
Bangladesh, UNHCR took the view that the return would make the
refugees better off.90 The same dilemma would resurface in the 1990s regarding
Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh as well as in regard to Rwandan refugees in
Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Tanzania.91
UNHCR was also accused of compromising its protection mandate in its
response to Thailand’s efforts to resist admitting and insist on the return of

Cambodian refugees in 1978 and 1979. While the plight of the Vietnamese
boat people was capturing the world’s attention,92 less well known were the
mass killings and deaths by starvation, disease and forced labour unravelling in
Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. The plight of Cambodians received more
attention when thousands of Cambodians fled to Thailand during the 1979
Vietnamese invasion that overthrew the Khmer Rouge regime.
The refugees were considered illegal migrants and a security threat
by the Thai Government and were incarcerated in camps along the
Thai-Cambodian border. In 1979, Thai authorities forced 40,000 Cambodian
refugees across the landmine-littered border to Cambodia amidst ongoing
insecurity. Many were killed by exploding mines, others were shot trying
to cross back into Thailand, while others subsequently died of exhaustion,
malaria and starvation.93
UNHCR was criticized as being too hesitant to condemn these actions fear-
ing that criticism would provoke harsher measures. It was seen as supportive
of Thailand’s efforts to promote the return of Khmer Rouge supporters, many
of whom were Khmer Rouge fighters allied with Thailand’s military against
Vietnam. Their return prompted a swift retaliatory response from Vietnam
and led to further refugee outflows from Cambodia.94 UNHCR was accused
of taking a political, rather than principled, stand – assisting a host country
and ally of the West over the protection of refugees.95
Africa
Across Africa, many thousands of refugees returned to their countries following
post-independence civil wars. Not all returns were durable. Internal conflict
in subsequent years led to further displacement. Sudan was one notable exam-
ple.96 In 1972, the 17-year civil war ended and the Government was keen to
welcome refugees back. It reached out to the United Nations to assist. UNHCR
was charged with organizing returns, with the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) leading development interventions needed for rehabi-
litation of return areas.
In what was to become standard practice in subsequent years, returns were
carefully planned with the involved governments, and outreach undertaken
with Sudanese opposition groups and refugees as a means of building confi-
dence that return in safety was both possible and desirable. The President of
Sudan visited hosting countries to speak with refugees and explain the amnes-
ties for their protection. Groups of refugees were supported to return to see
conditions in return areas and to report their findings to others. Within less
than two years following the conclusion of the peace agreement in 1972, over
200,000 refugees had returned.97
Within 10 years, however, internal conflict erupted again in the south. It
followed central government policies limiting the autonomy of the region.
These policies declared Arabic the official language and imposed Sharia law
nationally, including in areas of the south where Christianity and animism
were the predominant faiths. Years of fighting and subsequent drought led to
mass forced displacement and severe food insecurity.98
Ethiopia’s experience in the 1980s also illustrated the complexity of refugee
returns. Close to 900,000 Ethiopian refugees are estimated to have returned
to Ethiopia between 1980 and 1989.99 The reasons for their flight and their
repatriation varied.
In 1977, Somalia launched an unsuccessful invasion of the Ogaden region
of Ethiopia causing several hundred thousand refugees to flee to Somalia
and Djibouti.100 In subsequent years, many returned.101 Initial returns from
Djibouti were under considerable duress, as refugees were corralled into camps,
and suffered various forms of police harassment and withholding of food assis-
tance to compel return. After several months, and only after returnees reported
back on the adequacy of the reception within Ethiopia, did the movement pick
up as more refugees repatriated voluntarily.102
Later in the decade, over 170,000 Tigrayan refugees returned to Ethiopia
having fled to Sudan during the 1983–1985 famine.103 Their return was coor-
dinated by the civilian wing of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF),
which was engaged in an independence struggle lasting over 10 years.104
Refugees returned to areas under rebel control, without the sanction of the
Ethiopian Government. Initially, many refugees experienced great hardship
for without the means for agricultural production they remained food insecure
which contributed to a second famine in 1987.105
Despite these challenges, most returnees remained. This was in part due to
the economic coping strategies of the Tigrayans. Also, within a few years of
the return, the TPLF joined a coalition that overthrew the Mengistu Haile
Mariam dictatorship and formed part of the Transitional Government of
Ethiopia. This too contributed to the sustainability of the returns.106
Tensions between the Tigray region and the central government would
erupt again, however, in later years, with deadly consequences. Disagreements
between the regional and central governments increased in 2019 and conflict
broke out again following the regional elections of 2020, which the central
Ethiopian
refugees in Sudan
in 1985, who
fled devastating
drought, crop
failure and war. government considered illegal. By the end of April 2021, several thousand
© UNHCR/Marc
Vanappelghem people were killed,107 with available information pointing to over 1 million
persons forcibly displaced by the ongoing conflict.108
In Uganda, political instability following the ouster of Idi Amin in 1979
continued to cause significant refugee flight, mostly to Sudan. The outbreak
of civil war in southern Sudan in 1983, directly affected the 200,000 Ugandan
refugees that had sought shelter there.109 Some 50,000 are estimated to have
returned by 1985 to insecure and economically depressed regions.110 Unfolding
insurgency movements, notably the violent Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA),

compromised security in the years to follow.
The LRA’s two decade-long rebellion was characterized by war crimes,
including forced child recruitment, sexual slavery and the internal forced
displacement of an estimated 1.8 million civilians.111 The refugee returns of the
period exemplified how refugees were compelled to repatriate due to conflict in
displacement yet returned to increasingly fragile circumstances back home.112
The mass displacements in the region did not generate the level of international
assistance required to respond to needs or their impact on host communities.

The growing number of people forcibly displaced and their assistance needs
were increasingly not being matched by available support and solutions. In
1970, there were approximately 1 million refugees throughout Africa. By 1980,
this figure had grown to over 4 million,113 most of whom were not supported
by international assistance.114
The Organization of African Unity brought the need for more international
support before the General Assembly. This led to two International Con-
ferences on Assistance to Refugees in Africa (ICARA I and ICARA II)
in 1981 and 1984 respectively.
ICARA I succeeded in raising global awareness of refugees in Africa
and garnered over $500 million to assist them. But the manner in which the
financial contributions were made was highly political. Most donors directed
funds to refugee relief in countries with which they were politically allied.115
This meant that the allocation of the funds was not necessarily driven by the
magnitude of need, nor the burden on the host country. And, while the funds
enabled the mobilization and disbursement of emergency relief, ICARA I did
not provide substantial benefits to host States in terms of sustained support
or solutions.
The second Conference, ICARA II, in 1984 was intended to have
more impact. It was to marshal international humanitarian assistance for
refugees and returnees as well as to address the impact of refugees on the social
and economic infrastructure of host States.116 It appealed for both human-
itarian and development funding. By all accounts, ICARA II fell short. Donors
pledged just $81 million of the $352 million requested. There are several reasons
for its lack of success.
An emerging and catastrophic famine engulfed parts of Africa, and parti-
cularly Ethiopia, where 8 million people were at risk of starvation. This diverted
attention and humanitarian assistance from ICARA II.117 But, even without
the famine, donors seemed reluctant to invest in the development projects that
host countries advanced.
They had several reservations.118 The projects were intended to address
the adverse impact of receiving refugees, yet there was no assessment quan-
tifying the impact. This has always been difficult due to a lack of data and an
agreed methodology that helps isolate the impact of receiving refugees from
other contributing causes. Forty years later, the need to develop measures to
determine the impact of large numbers of refugees was requested by the UN
General Assembly at the time it affirmed the Global Compact on Refugees.119
Donors also viewed the development projects put forward by host coun-
tries as unrelated to hosting refugees and did not see their value in advancing
solutions. They also questioned whether the projects were appropriately costed
and whether host countries had the capacity to implement them and to sustain
them over the longer term.120
ICARA II remains remarkable less for its achievements than its aspirations.
Long before the Global Compact on Refugees, ICARA II recognized the need
for humanitarian support to be accompanied by development assistance. Donor
interest in having the latter be based on sound impact assessments was under-
standable. But it was also unrealistic for that time. Even today, with improved
tools and methodologies, the task is complex as recent progress reports on
‘Measuring the Impact of Hosting, Protecting and Assisting Refugees’ attest.121
Additionally, at the time of ICARA II, government ministries responsible
for development in both donor and host countries often operated separately
from the ministries that responded to the management of refugee influxes
and the provision of humanitarian assistance. The absence of linkages between
them, also evident in certain contexts today, impeded a more integrated human-
itarian and development approach.122
Finally, ICARA II was based on the assumption that most of the projects
would be implemented through United Nations agencies with UNDP lead-
ing on the development side. Development donors, however, preferred to fund
development bilaterally. This is now more firmly reflected in current approaches
to unlocking more development support for host countries.123
1990s: A decade that stands apart
During the 1990s, the emphasis on return continued in the context of rising
numbers of forcibly displaced people. What sets this decade apart from pre-
vious and subsequent ones is both the volume of returns and the fact that so
many of them were neither voluntary nor sustainable.
Refugees were increasingly viewed as burdens and threats to security. Pres-
sure on refugees to return home and on UNHCR to encourage return even
in unfavourable conditions was persistently high, despite the lessons of the
previous decades.
During the 1990s, over 15 million refugees returned to their countries of
origin: the largest registered number in a single decade since WWII. The returns
of internally displaced persons were only recorded in the latter part of the
decade and reveal that almost 1.4 million conflict-induced internally displaced
persons returned to their areas of origin during that time.124 Many returnees
went to areas where power struggles continued, leading to ongoing instability,
insurgencies and renewed forced displacement. The lessons of the 1990s would
lead to a new emphasis on safety and sustainability in the new millennium.
Asia
The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, and the fall of the Afghan
Government three years later, marked a period of rapid and massive refugee-
led return. Over 3 million Afghans returned home during the 1990s, more
than half of whom made the journey in 1992 alone.125 However, the return
movement did not signal an end to displacement. Many return areas lacked
basic health and education facilities, roads and infrastructure were shattered,
landmines were a constant hazard and economic opportunities thin.126 Civil
war broke out, generating new displacement, which continued following the
Taliban’s seizure of power in 1996.
Elsewhere, as many as 365,000 Cambodians also came home to extremely
difficult circumstances.127 Their return was part of the 1991 Paris Peace Agree-
ments that formally ended over 15 years of conflict between Cambodia and
Vietnam.128 The returns needed speed, so refugees could participate in the 1993
elections. Coordinated by UNHCR, it was a logistically well-organized move-
ment, and it made the deadline. Beyond that, reintegration was challenging.
The refugees lived in closed camps in Thailand for many years, unable to
build skills or acquire the assets that could assist them upon return. They came
back to communities where land was scarce, employment opportunities limited,
and infrastructure badly damaged. Projects to support reintegration funded by
UNHCR and UNDP were relatively small and not well coordinated or linked
with longer-term development initiatives.129
But the return proved to be durable, although it took many years for returnees
to be fully reintegrated. Unlike Afghanistan, there was no resumption of civil
conflict following the Peace Agreement. The durability of returns owed much
to relative political stability and economic growth, which were present to a
greater degree than in Afghanistan.130
The return of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar in the 1990s proved far
less durable. Myanmar’s repression of the Rohingya population intensified
in the 1980s. The 1982 Citizenship Law excluded Rohingya, rendering them
stateless and subject to persecutory laws and policies which severely margin-
alized them.
In 1991, a military crackdown on the opposition also targeted Rohingya
communities. Houses were confiscated, mosques burned, and cultivation

destroyed. Rohingya were subjected to widespread abuse, sexual assault and
forced labour. By the end of 1992, around 250,000 had fled to Bangladesh.131
Bangladesh pushed for their repatriation, as it had done 20 years previously.
But, this time, it did so with UNHCR engagement.
Although initially not a part of the agreement between Bangladesh and
Myanmar, UNHCR eventually signed agreements with both countries, inclu-
ding provisions to permit its presence in the refugee camps to monitor that
Refugees return
to Myanmar from
a camp in Cox’s
Bazar District in
Bangladesh in
refugees were not coerced to return and to conduct returnee monitoring in 1997.
© UNHCR/
Myanmar. Once again, UNHCR determined that returning home was pre- Anneliese
ferable compared with the prospect of refugees living in underserviced, over- Hollmann
crowded and insecure camps. It was willing to facilitate return, including the
provision of financial incentives to refugees.
The 1994 and 1995 return of over 150,000 refugees to Myanmar would
come to be regarded as one of the low points in UNHCR’s repatriation
efforts.132 Human rights groups reported that refugees who resisted return
were beaten by the authorities, and UNHCR was criticized for not making
explicit to refugees that they could refuse repatriation. Refugees were report-
edly informed that conditions in Myanmar had improved, attempts to return to
Bangladesh would result in their arrest and detention, and UNHCR’s returnee
monitoring would help safeguard their protection upon return to Myanmar.

The latter, however, turned out to be limited and only in the presence of the
Myanmar authorities.133 As before, grievous repression of Rohingyas conti-
nued in Myanmar, leading to ongoing forced displacement and a much larger
exodus in 2017.134
Middle East
In 1991, some 800,000 forcibly displaced Kurds returned to northern Iraq.
They returned under the protection of the United States and members of the
Allied Coalition of the Gulf War.
Iraq’s invasion and annexation of Kuwait in August 1990, which led to the
Gulf War, came amid ongoing internal conflicts between Kurdish nationalists
and the Iraqi Government. These escalated following Iraq’s defeat in Kuwait.
The Government responded with an intensified military campaign against
the Kurds, resulting in mass displacement. By 1991, 1.2 million people had
fled to Iran.135 Over 450,000 Kurds fled to the Turkish border and became
stranded there. The Turkish Government was confronting a Kurdish separatist
movement in the southeast and closed its borders to the Kurdish refugees.136
It looked to other States to assist.
Hundreds died daily. The Security Council acted on the basis that the
situation inside Iraq posed a threat to international security.137 It passed a
resolution demanding Iraq end its repression and allow immediate access by
humanitarian organizations to all those in need of international assistance. It
also called on the Secretary-General to use all of the resources at his disposal
to address critical needs.138
The United States and other coalition partners then launched “Operation
Provide Comfort”, a military operation to secure northern Iraq and facilitate
the return of the forcibly displaced Kurds. It involved: clearing out Iraqi forces;
maintaining a “no fly zone”; airlifting in humanitarian assistance; and repair-
ing infrastructure and setting up housing to support Kurdish returns.139 Over
200,000 Kurds returned from the border with Turkey within weeks, with some
600,000 who had fled to Iran also returning in 1991.140 But stability did not
follow. Conflict between opposing Kurdish factions plunged the region into
renewed civil conflict within three years.
The return of forcibly displaced Kurds stands out for several reasons. First, it
was intended to further a broader military strategy in the region and it involved
both humanitarian assistance and military force. Secondly, Turkey’s efforts to
bar admission to Kurdish refugees went largely unopposed by Western States,
attributed to the fact that Turkey was a key strategic ally.141 Finally, although
the returns were conducted in safety, long-term security was not ensured as
shown by the quick outbreak of new hostilities.142
Africa
Between 1994 and 1999, over three million people forcibly displaced from
Rwanda returned home.143 The story of their return is one of great risk and
hardship and part of a broader picture of significant international failure during
these years, known as the Great Lakes refugee crisis.144
The roots of the Rwandan displacement crisis predate the 1990s but esca-
lated following the 1994 deaths of the Presidents of Burundi and Rwanda in
a plane crash. Various conflicting allegations of Tutsi and Hutu culpability
circulated. Hutu government extremists in Rwanda used the moment to set
in motion a national campaign to eliminate the Tutsi population and Hutu
moderates. The resulting carnage killed 800,000 Tutsis145 and caused the flight
of hundreds of thousands of refugees and was broadcast on global television.
The refusal of major powers to intervene and stop the genocide remains one
of the most significant United Nations security failures.
It was not the last. Within a matter of months, the Tutsi forces of the
Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) took control of the country. Their rapid
progress precipitated the return of some 700,000 Tutsi refugees.146 It also
marked a new exodus of refugees, as 2 million Hutus fled, encouraged to do so
by their former government and fearing reprisals for the genocide should they
remain. An additional 2 million people were internally displaced.147
The new Rwandan Government, anticipating that refugee insurgency
groups could form in exile and destabilize the country, encouraged refugees to
return to create a State in “unity and equality”.148 However, worrying reports
of large-scale killings and persecution of Hutu civilians, including returnees,
seriously dampened potential support for return.149
Over 1 million Rwandan refugees were in Zaire at the end of 1994,150 the
majority in underserviced camps in the eastern border region. The camps were
controlled by deposed Hutu politicians and their supporting forces, collectively
known as the “génocidaires”. Camp leaders controlled the distribution of food
and other relief supplies and levied taxes. They tolerated no opposition, sexually
assaulted women and girls and forcibly conscripted men and boys. Cholera
and other diseases proliferated, killing tens of thousands.151
Zairian authorities were neither willing nor able to disarm and isolate the
armed groups, prosecute criminals and maintain law and order.152 The United
Nations Security Council also did not act on appeals for a multinational contin-
gent to protect the refugees and ensure the civilian and humanitarian nature
of the refugee camps.
Complicating matters in eastern Zaire was the fact that Hutu mili-
tia were launching attacks into Rwanda. They also attacked Zairian Tutsi
populations with the support of the Zairian armed forces and local ethnic
Refugees arrive
in Zaire from
Rwanda in 1994.
© UNHCR/J.
Stjerneklar groups. Tutsis retaliated and, with support from Rwandan forces, formed a
coalition of anti-government forces under the leadership of Laurent Kabila.
In their advance on the capital, they attacked the refugee camps.153
Over half a million Hutu refugees were driven from the camps in Goma
back to Rwanda in November 1996.154 Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled
into the interior of Zaire, with tens of thousands estimated to have died there
from exhaustion, lack of food and medical care. An additional several thou-
sand refugees and Hutus from Zaire are believed to have been killed by rebel
forces.155 United Nations efforts to locate and help the dispersed refugees often
failed, with just 62,000 airlifted to safety.156 By the end of 1996, some 780,000
Rwandan refugees had fled from violence in Zaire and returned home.157
At the same time, pressure within Tanzania to repatriate all Rwandan
refugees increased. Initial assurances by the Government that the returns would
take place in an orderly and humane manner were abandoned, and more than
480,000 Rwandan refugees were forcibly returned by the Tanzanian military.158

The returnees did not come home to freedom. Many arrived in closed camps
in insecure border regions. In 1995, over 4,000 internally displaced Hutus
were killed in the Kibeho Camp alone.159 In the following year, Amnesty
International reported a significant increase in unlawful executions by the army
and arbitrary killings of civilians by Hutu armed groups and of Hutu civilians
by Tutsi civilians.160
The Great Lakes refugee crisis prompted deep reflection within the United
Nations – including UNHCR – which was criticized for facilitating Hutu
refugee returns that were neither voluntary nor safe.161 UNHCR faced two
dismal options162 left available by such bleak circumstances. It opted for assist-
ing return amid intolerable conditions within the refugee camps, increasing
attacks against refugee populations in exile, and the lack of forthcoming protec-
tion from major powers.
Repatriation efforts in Mozambique around the same time were not as
conflicted. Millions of Mozambican refugees and internally displaced persons
moved home in relative security at the conclusion of its 17-year civil war, which
began in 1977.163 The withdrawal of Soviet and South African support led to
a negotiated peace in 1992. By the end of the war, over 1 million people had
been killed, 4 million were internally displaced and some 1.4 million had sought
refuge in neighbouring countries.164
The terms of the peace agreement included the right of return and rein-
tegration of persons that had been forced to flee. There was a guarantee of
the right to equal treatment, registry on the electoral rolls, and provision for
property to be restored to them.165 A United Nations peace mission oversaw
the transition.166
Over the course of the following four years, millions of forcibly displaced
persons returned to their home areas, in what became the largest repatriation
and return movements on the continent.167 Return was by no means easy, but
neither was it as fraught as in Rwanda, principally because Mozambique did
not experience the same level of intracommunal conflict. The biggest threat
to security came from landmines, rather than the attacks, assassinations and
mass incarceration of the Rwandan experience. The success of the returns was
also helped by relative political stability, and there was significant human-
itarian financing which, in turn, was followed by sustained development
support over subsequent years.
UNHCR assisted returnees at home and provided them with seeds
and tools. There was available land and, in the years immediately following
repatriation, favourable weather helped to secure sufficient food harvests.

Furthermore, a return and reintegration investment budget of $100 million
helped establish road and bridge construction as well as health and education
facilities. A subsequent evaluation of these programmes said they established
the basis for longer-term development. Nonetheless, it also found that the
links they established to further such investments could be improved.168 That
objective would become a prominent ambition for return and reintegration
exercises in later years.
So too would the understanding of how people returned home. Many
family members did so in stages. Among the first to return, including for short
periods, were adult men. They sought to identify economic opportunities,
re-establish social contacts, set up claims to land and bring supplies across
the border. Some refugees chose to remain behind to acquire more financial
capital, while those who had savings and assets were able to use UNHCR’s
transportation assistance and return.169
Latin America
The return of refugees in Central America illustrated both good practice and
the constraints on the support of sustainable return. As discussed in Part II,
civil conflicts in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua throughout
the 1980s resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and over 2 million persons
forcibly displaced.170
The terms of the 1987 peace agreement signed by Costa Rica, El Salvador,
Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua included commitments to: engage in
political, economic and social reforms; give urgent attention to the forcibly
displaced; and facilitate, wherever possible, their voluntary repatriation, reset-
tlement, or integration. The 1989 International Conference on Central Amer-
ican Refugees (CIREFCA) addressed these commitments.171
CIREFCA included a detailed Plan of Action, which formed the blue-
print for specific humanitarian and development projects presented to donor
countries for funding. It contained many progressive elements. It reaffirmed
that returns had to be voluntary and supported by strengthening the capaci-
ties of civil registries to issue identity documents and civil documents relat-
ing to birth, marriage, and deaths. It recognized that initial assistance may
be necessary for those wishing to return home including to equitably acquire
or reclaim land.172
The development of projects under the Plan of Action was approached in
an inclusive manner. The process engaged national and local authorities, non-
governmental organizations, and displaced and host communities, with active

participation of women. This approach helped the projects respond to the needs
of all affected communities and contributed to national reconciliation efforts.173
The projects that each country submitted for funding reflected their
specific circumstances and priorities. Belize, Costa Rica and Mexico submit-
ted projects to enhance refugee self-reliance. Honduras, in contrast, focused
on increasing assistance to refugees in camps. Guatemala and Nicaragua prior-
itized projects to facilitate the reintegration of returnees, with El Salvador
focusing its projects primarily on solutions for internally displaced persons.174
Guatemalan
refugees
voluntarily
returning home
from Mexico start
CIREFCA had a five-year time frame. At its conclusion in 1994, over their journey in
1993.
$422 million were raised, representing 86 per cent of the amount solici- © UNHCR/A.
ted.175 The funding helped to support the return of refugees to El Salvador, Serrano
Guatemala and Nicaragua. Available data suggests that between 1989 and
1999 just over 100,000 returned to these three countries.176 CIREFCA is noted
for having engendered a particularly collaborative approach among displaced
persons, local communities, non-governmental organizations, international
organizations and national governments. It would endure beyond its term.177
CIREFCA’s focus on humanitarian assistance linked with longer-term
development investments was also among the first of its kind in a forced
displacement context. This helped support the sustainability of many of
the efforts. It was not without its failings. Although it also aimed to find solu-
tions for all forcibly displaced, funding disproportionately benefited recognized
refugees.178 And while funding was supposed to be contingent on projects
meeting certain protection norms, much of development funding did not make
this a requirement.179
Other problems emerged shortly after, which dampened some of its
sustained impact but which were not connected with CIREFCA itself. If
anything, they illustrated the kind of massive national and international polit-
ical commitment that would have been needed to bring about lasting peace
and security in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
The revolutions that gripped Central America were spurred by demands for
socioeconomic reforms. The peace process included commitments to expand
economic opportunity, improve social justice and check the arbitrary exercise
of authority characteristic of old regimes. The ambitious aims were not fully
realized in part because many of those who wielded power and influence during
the wars, retained considerable influence thereafter.180
After the end of the conflicts, the causes that had stoked them persisted.
Trade liberalization, relaxed labour laws, and business-friendly tax systems
did not generate significant economic growth or lessen the gap in wealth
distribution. Unemployment rates remained high. Insecure and poorly paid
work in the informal sector grew, and social programmes were not in place
to ease conditions faced by large segments of the populations in Central
America.181
Crime also increased which led governments to resort to the authorita-
rian practices of the past. The number of youths leaving for the United States
increased dramatically, driven by a lack of opportunity, absence of security as
well as natural disasters that hit the region at the turn of the century. Among
those deported back to the region were those who joined gangs during their
time in the United States. Upon return, they contributed to an increase in
violent crime and the expansion of transnational criminal networks in the
region. Today, the region is among the most violent in the world, contributing
to ongoing significant population exoduses.182
Violence that had besieged Central America during the 1970s would increase
and lead to significant outflows in the 1980s, resuming again in large numbers 20
years later.183 And, while this helps to explain why CIREFCA was not sufficient
to address the systemic drivers, it also does not diminish its notable achievements.
CIREFCA brought solutions to many thousands of displaced persons, set an
important precedent for linked humanitarian and development responses, raised
the profile and engagement of non-governmental organizations and led to more

sensitive and effective programming for women.
Europe
The breakup of the former Yugoslavia brought ethnic cleansing and geno-
cide once again to the continent. The conflicts in Croatia, Bosnia-
Herzegovina and Kosovo184 from 1991 to 1999 incurred the largest European
wartime casualties and forced displacement since WWII. At the end of the
war in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995, nearly half of its population of 4.4 million
was displaced: nearly 1.1 million internally and 770,000 externally.185
The Dayton Peace Accords brought an end to the war in Bosnia-
Herzegovina and created Republika Srpska, which is predominately Serbian,
and the Federation, which is composed mostly of Bosnians and Croats.186 It
included provisions that all parties commit to the safe and voluntary return of
refugees and displaced persons. It also called for the repeal and prevention of
any laws, policies or actions inhibiting safe and secure return and reintegration.
It acknowledged the right of displaced persons to return to their homes, to
property restitution, and compensation for property that could not be restored.
UNHCR was tasked with providing a plan for reintegration, which was to be
fully facilitated by the parties to the agreement.187
Those who originated from areas where their group dominated were able
to return in line with the aims of the plan. Circumstances for people return-
ing to regions dominated by another group were less straightforward. They
faced ongoing discrimination, harassment, unequal protection under the
law and no foreseeable progress on property restitution or compensation.188
In Kosovo, the war ended in 1999. An estimated 1.6 million people, close
to 90 per cent of the population, were forcibly displaced at some point during
and after the conflict.189 The provisions for return of those forced to flee during
the conflict were part of the United Nations Security Council resolution autho-
rizing an international civil and security presence there.190 The return of ethnic
Albanians was massive and quick. Although the security sector underwent
positive reforms, ethnic tensions lingered and resolution of property disputes
through the regular justice system was relatively slow.191
And despite efforts in support of ethnic reintegration, non-Albanian
minorities faced discrimination and harassment leading 200,000 to flee Kosovo.
Meanwhile, displaced Serbs were prevented from returning to their areas of
origin within Kosovo.192 More than 20 years later, thousands of people displaced
by the conflict continue to have ongoing displacement-related needs.193
Selective Resettlement
The resettlement of refugees from the post-WWII period through the end
of the 1980s was primarily a State-driven process with a specific focus on serving
a broader geopolitical purpose. The first major multilateral resettlement effort
came at the conclusion of WWII in response to the close to 1 million people
remaining in displaced persons camps through Allied-occupied Germany. As des-
cribed by Ben Shephard, they had “diverse and complicated wartime histories”.194
Displaced
people queue
for resettlement
opportunities
coordinated
through the
International There were around 250,000 Holocaust survivors. There were others
Refugee too: Estonians; Latvians; Lithuanians; Ukrainians; and Yugoslavs. Among
Organization
established them were those who had been displaced and forced to work in Germany,
in 1947. prisoners of war and Nazi collaborators. Their most unifying characteristic
© IRO
was an inability or unwillingness to return to their former homes.195
Part of the remit of the International Refugee Organization (IRO) was
to assist in finding solutions to this displacement. Persons of German ethnic
origin, “whether German nationals or members of German minorities in other
countries”, were excluded from its mandate on the grounds that they were the
responsibility of Germany.196 This was not the only politicization of the IRO.
While the Soviet Union and its allies supported the idea of a humanitarian
relief agency, they opposed it having anything to do with the resettlement of

refugees. They demanded that their nationals be returned to help rebuild their
countries and for Nazi collaborators to be returned to face prosecution.197 The
refusal of the Soviet Union to join the IRO left the solutions work it undertook
largely steered by Western allies. It also marked the beginning of Cold War
politics influencing international efforts for durable solutions more generally.
The United States funded 40 per cent of the IRO’s budget of close to half a
billion dollars. Along with over 16 voluntary agencies, the IRO helped to coor-
dinate with States the voluntary repatriation and resettlement of the displaced
persons camp populations.198 The latter was more of an immigration exercise
than a humanitarian one.
Countries across Western Europe, the Americas and Australia approached
the displaced person camps as sources of much needed labour. Depending on
the national economy, workers were required for farming, mining, logging,
manufacturing, and domestic work. At one point, there were over 50 national
missions in the displacement camps undertaking recruitment operations.199
Each resettlement country had its own selection criteria, tailored to meet
its immigration needs. Competition for workers was so intense that many
displaced people were in a position to choose from several resettlement offers.
UNHCR urged States to stop the “continuous skimming processes” whereby
the most skilled and employable were taken first and others rejected.200
Forty per cent of those resettled, 380,000 persons, went to the United States.
Australia and Canada resettled approximately 170,000 and 160,000 displaced
persons respectively. Western European countries accounted for an additional
170,000 more and close to 100,000 displaced persons were resettled in Latin
America, over two thirds of whom went to Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela.201
But tens of thousands of unselected refugees were left in the camps, includ-
ing many Jewish refugees. Resettlement countries tended to screen them out
as inadmissible, keeping the closed-door immigration policies of the war years
firmly in place. It would take several years before the displaced persons camps
in Europe were empty. The majority of the Jewish camp population eventually
resettled in Palestine.202
Among the legacies of the post-war push for solutions to displacement
was the fact that refugees were not screened for their wartime records, and
subsequent decades revealed Nazi collaborators and war criminals successfully
resettled with impunity.203 Some were able to immigrate by obscuring their
identities and histories. Others – including leading scientists, military and
political leaders – were deliberately selected for resettlement to countries, like
the United Kingdom and the United States, for their skills and knowledge.204
And so the immediate post-war period revealed that Cold War politics and
State self-interest dominated the calculus in regard to international efforts in
support of refugee repatriation and resettlement.205 These motivations would
again come into play in the international response to the Hungarian crisis of
1956.
In the course of the Russian military intervention to suppress the 1956
Hungarian Revolution, some 20,000 Hungarians were killed and over 200,000
Hungarians fled, most to Austria. Over 140,000 Hungarian refugees were
resettled within two years to the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom,
West Germany, Australia, Switzerland, and France.206
The fact that the refugees were fleeing communism, and a large propor-
tion were young, educated and skilled largely accounts for the relatively swift
response from allied nations. There was also considerable public support in
the resettlement countries for the programme.207 There were relatively few
refugees left behind.208
An international resettlement effort of significant size would not come
again for close to 25 years. There was one notable exception in 1972: the
resettlement of South Asian residents of Uganda who Idi Amin ordered to
leave the country within 90 days. They numbered around 80,000 people, many
having lived in Uganda for decades. Over half of them held British passports.
Despite initial reservations, the United Kingdom accepted close to 30,000
Ugandan Asians who were British citizens.209 Those with Bangladeshi,
Indian or Pakistani nationality went there. The United Kingdom appealed
for other countries to come forward with resettlement offers for the others
who were not recognized as nationals by any country. The response was quick.
Eighteen other countries participated, and the crisis was resolved within two
years.
The success came about because refugees were largely skilled and
educated, allowing them to meet labour needs in receiving countries. The
United Kingdom’s call for help from other countries was also an important
factor.210 The response was the first multilateral effort of such size outside
Europe. It was a prelude to the massive efforts undertaken at the end of the
1970s to respond to the Indochinese crisis.
Multilateral efforts to resolve mass displacement in Indochina resulted in
the resettlement of an estimated 1.4 million refugees from 1979 to 1996.211 It
was the largest multinational resettlement exercise since WWII and, like then,
was a reflection of the geopolitical interests of resettlement States.
The end of the Vietnam War in 1975 saw the steady exodus of refugees from
the communist regimes of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. By 1979, 570,000
refugees had fled.212 Vietnam was the source of the largest number. Individuals
associated with the previous United States-backed government faced persecu-
tion as did religious leaders, journalists and intellectuals who were suspected
of questioning the government’s policies. Over 1 million people were sent to
forced labour “re-education” camps where many died.213
Ethnic Chinese, primarily concentrated in south Vietnam, were also
viewed as anti-government and their loyalty was suspect. Their situation grew
more tenuous following a brief border war between China and Vietnam between
the years of 1977 and 1979. Growing restrictions on their rights to work, be
educated and own a business prompted up to 260,000 to leave for China.214
From Laos, the Hmong and other highland people took flight fearing
government retribution for being allied with the United States throughout the
war. They were joined by other educated and urban refugees from the lowlands,
also associated with the United States Government. In Cambodia, the policies
of the Khmer Rouge who were in power from 1975 to 1979 included wide-
spread killings of intellectuals, massive compulsory population relocations,
forced labour, and repressive surveillance. An estimated 1.5–2 million people
died as a result of their policies and, by 1978, over 160,000 Cambodians had
fled the country.215
Most refugee departures were clandestine, across treacherous overland
routes and perilous voyages by sea. As today, the ones who departed by boat
captured the greater part of the world’s attention, so much so that the move-
ment came to be known as the “boat people crisis”.
The crisis was due not just to the large and increasing numbers of
refugees, but also to the then British Territory of Hong Kong and neighbour-
ing States that progressively refused refugees entry. Refugees attempting to
land were pushed out to sea where they languished for weeks to months in
overcrowded, unseaworthy vessels, lacking sufficient food and water and prey
to repeated and vicious pirate attacks.216 An estimate 30,000 people perished
at sea during this period.217
To address the growing human calamity, the United Nations convened an inter-
national conference in 1979 to broker a burden-sharing solution. It included
delegates from over 65 governments, as well as representatives from inter-
national agencies and non-governmental organizations. Industrialized coun-
tries agreed to resettle refugees.218 Receiving countries in the region agreed to
admit and temporarily protect refugees pending their resettlement. For its part,
Vietnam agreed to maintain an Orderly Departure Program in collaboration

with UNHCR, to enable Vietnamese to leave legally without risking their
lives in the process.219
These commitments bore results. Pushbacks largely ceased. Some 125,000
persons departed directly from Vietnam during the first eight years of the
Orderly Departure Program.220 More than 400,000 Indochinese refugees
were resettled overseas from countries in the region, considerably outpacing
new arrivals which also fell.221 By the end of the decade, however, these trends
Vietnamese
refugees on
a boat off the
Malaysian coast
in 1978.
© UNHCR/ were in jeopardy. The pace of arrivals picked up, resettlement places declined,
Kaspar Gaugler and pushbacks commenced again.222 The willingness of resettlement countries
waned, as many were receiving more asylum-seekers directly at their borders
and there was a growing perception that people were leaving Vietnam more
for economic than protection reasons.
In 1989, a second international conference on Indochinese refugees
resulted in a revised agreement: The Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA).223
Under the CPA, the Orderly Departure Program from Vietnam continued.
As for those who were newly arrived in countries in the region, only those
determined to be refugees would be resettled, while the others were returned
to their home countries.224 The CPA provided for Vietnam to receive
financial support and assistance in reintegrating returnees and UNHCR
would monitor their safety on return.225 It also included provisions for a

mass media and education campaign on the dangers of irregular travel by sea.
The CPA was implemented by UNHCR and steered by a Committee
of participating governments. Countries largely met their commitments,
pushbacks diminished, and the number of arrivals fell.226 Close to 400,000
Vietnamese and Laotians were resettled from countries in the region, while
about half a million departed directly from Vietnam.227 Receiving countries in
the region worked with UNHCR to put in place refugee status determination
procedures to determine eligibility for resettlement.228
The implementation of the CPA was not without its challenges and, while
it succeeded in delivering solutions to more refugees in a given situation than
before or since that time, it also had its weaknesses. The refugee determina-
tion procedures in countries varied. Procedural protections were not uniformly
applied, criteria were open to diverse interpretations, and different approaches
were taken on determining credibility.229 There were also extensive delays,
with many asylum-seekers having to wait for long periods, including years, in
detention facilities or refugee camps. These were often overcrowded with high
levels of violence reported.230
The CPA was based on a shared view that many of the boat arrivals were not
compelled to flee but, rather, were seeking better life prospects. Some authors
claim that the CPA may have reinforced notions in the Asia Pacific region that
people arriving irregularly on boats were not refugees but economic migrants
and queue jumpers.231 It has also been suggested that the CPA unhelpfully
deflected responsibility for refugees outside the region, away from receiving
States. Countries of the region increasingly came to see solutions as lying with
resettlement nations abroad. This could have reinforced reticence in some
countries to sign the 1951 Convention and assume responsibilities towards
refugee resettlement.232
Generally, observers agree that the CPA was on balance an exception-
ally successful international refugee responsibility-sharing initiative in the
post-WWII period. The forging of this agreement among disparate States
across both sides of the Cold War divide looks like a remarkable achievement
today. It was possible because of the rather unique convergence of interests
of the country of origin, the countries of first asylum and resettlement countries.
Vietnam sought to repair relations with its Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) neighbours. It had started to pursue greater economic libe-
ralization for which better relations with industrialized States were important.
For receiving States in the region, the CPA enabled them to resolve a growing
problem at their maritime borders without being responsible for the perma-
nent settlement of refugees.
For the countries that resettled most of the refugees, the CPA was aligned
with their foreign policy objectives. These included normalizing relations with
Vietnam to further regional stability and serving their immigration priorities
which favoured refugees from communist countries. The CPA also received
considerable public support in resettlement States, which helped to ensure the
robust resettlement quotas they assumed.233
Although the size of the resettlement programme was record-breaking,
the size of the refugee situation was not. There were existing and emerging
situations in Africa and other parts of Asia which eclipsed the number of
Indochinese refugees and for which no similar multinational resettlement effort
was made.234 In fact, globally there was an immediate drop in annual reset-
tlement places following the Indochinese resettlement effort.
By the close of the Indochinese programme, most resettlement govern-
ments expressed a sense of having met their commitments. The strong public
support for resettlement fell off.235 The end of the Cold War also removed one
of the incentives that had underpinned past resettlement efforts. The number
of refugees arriving directly in resettlement countries seeking asylum was
on the rise, leaving the countries less inclined to significantly increase reset-
tlement programmes, especially during the economic recession of the early 1990s.
Local Integration at the Periphery
Through the 1960s and 1970s across Africa, local integration as a solution was
not embraced although refugees faced relatively fewer barriers to achieving
self-reliance. Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia were among the countries at this
time that allocated land to refugees to cultivate and opportunities to trade in
local markets.236 Uganda has maintained this approach in areas designated
for refugee settlement, while also granting access to employment and relative
freedom of movement in recent years.237
Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, during his tenure as the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees (1966–1977), advocated for more develop-
ment approaches to refugee situations. Considering the growing numbers of
refugees in Africa and Asia, he stressed that development assistance was critical
to help refugees contribute to the economic and social development of their
host countries and assist those countries who faced significant development
challenges of their own.238 This would also be pursued by subsequent High
Commissioners but, as discussed in Parts IV and V, only gained significant

traction recently.
Meanwhile, refugees faced increasing barriers to local integration and
restrictions on their ability to integrate socially and economically in their
host communities. These barriers and restrictions became more prevalent in
the 1980s as refugee numbers grew appreciably. Refugees were increasingly
confined to camps and otherwise prevented from moving freely, working,
accessing services or otherwise integrating.
There was also very little effort made to encourage host States to integrate
refugees. This was, in part, based on the assumption that local integration
would involve significant costs that host States should not have to bear. That
view would only be tested in later years as the cost of protracted displacement
grew, and the potential benefits of greater inclusion came to the fore in the
new millennium.
New Millennium
The 20 years of the new millennium are bracketed by two initiatives to enhance
international responses to refugees and improve the record on achieving durable
solutions. The first was the Global Consultations on International Protection
in 2001–2002 and the Agenda for Protection marking the 50th anniversary of
the 1951 Convention. The second was the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees.
The Global Consultations took place over the course of two years. They
aimed to address the many challenges that faced the implementation of the
1951 Convention and its 1967 Protocol, including new forms of persecution
and conflict, complex mixed movements, the reluctance of many States to accept
refugees, and restrictive interpretations of the 1951 Convention. A specific
component was dedicated to solutions, highlighting what had been learned from
past experience and ways to secure more. Among the understandings reached
was the value in investing in education and skills development in displacement
and the many factors that help sustain successful voluntary repatriation.239
The Global Consultations helped inform the Agenda for Protection, first
published in 2002. A joint effort by UNHCR and States, the Agenda was a
comprehensive programme of action, one goal of which focused on “redoubling
the search for durable solutions”. 240 It included a number of commitments
such as improving conditions for safe and sustainable voluntary repatriation,
expanding resettlement and using it more effectively, and examining where,
when, and how to promote secure legal status and resident rights for refugees
in host countries.
Over the next 15 years various initiatives were launched to reach these goals.
While they failed to realize significantly more solutions for refugees, the efforts
led to a deeper understanding of displacement dynamics. They showed that
strengthening human capital is often critical to the success of any solution, and
that there are opportunities for more solutions to displacement beyond the
traditional three options of permanent return, resettlement or local integration.
The Global Compact on Refugees reflects this orientation. In addition
to affirming the need to expand opportunities to realize the three traditional
solutions, it emphasizes strengthening the human capital of refugees and
host communities. It promotes investing in institutional capacities through
inclusive development policies and looks at opening up migration path-
ways to refugees and facilitating labour mobility.241 Also drawing from past
experience, it recognizes the need for improved data and better use of evidence
to underpin programmes for solutions.
Voluntary Return
The 21st century has seen an overall reduction in the number of refugee returns
from the previous decade, chiefly due the protracted nature of the conflicts that
account for most of the world’s refugee population and a significant proportion
of internally displaced persons.
The 1990s led to a greater appreciation of the complexities of repatri-
ation. Among the lessons learned was the damaging consequences of
premature return. Another was the importance of strong links between return
and the peace and reconciliation processes.242 There was more insight into the
importance of political stability and security. Without it, heavy investment in
reconstruction and reconciliation are often not sufficient to sustain returns.243
Experience also showed that returnees can arrive in places and circumstances
that have been significantly reshaped since they left. That, in turn, demonstrated
why the acquisition of new skills and capital during displacement is often crit-
ical to the sustainability of return.244
The fluid nature of return was also evident between 2000 and 2020, provo-
king new thinking on when movements in a back-and-forth pattern should
be supported. Afghanistan provides an example of this. Between 2002 and
2020, over 6 million refugee returns were recorded, with the largest numbers
following the fall of the Taliban regime in 2002. A further spike was ex-
Percentage of refugees and internally displaced
people finding a solution
2000-2020
100
90
80
70
60
Population %
50
40
30
20
10
0
00
01
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
14
20
1
1
1
1
0
1
1
1
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
Refugees finding solutions Internally displaced people finding solutions

Population (in millions) Population (in millions)
1
2
3
1
7
2
6
4
20 20
00 00
20 20
01 01
20 20
0 2 02
Refugee returns
20 20
0 3 03
20 20
0 4 04
20 20
05 05
20 20
06 06
Refugee solutions
20 20
07 07
20 20
08 08
Resettlement arrivals
20 20
09 09
20 20
10 10
20 20
11 11
20 20
12 12
20 20
13 13
20 20
Naturalization
14 14
20 20
15 15
Returns of internally displaced people

20 20
16 16
20 20
17 17
20 20
18 18
20 20
19 19
20 20
20 20
2000-2020
2000-2020
perienced in 2016 in the face of intensified pressure to return from Pakistan.245

Overall, however, Afghan refugee numbers remained relatively constant
between 2002 and 2020, at 2–3 million persons.246 At the end of 2020, 2.6
million Afghans remained refugees, more than 85 per cent of them hosted in
Pakistan and Iran.247 Overall, this points to persistently high levels of refugee
displacement.
Available figures on internally displaced persons show a similar trend.
Between 2002 and 2020, close to 1.3 million internally displaced persons
reportedly returned to their places of origin. And, while the number of inter-
nally displaced persons initially fell after 2002, they began to rise annually again
in 2007 reaching over 3.5 million people by mid-2021.248
Afghanistan has consistently ranked low on the Human Development
Index afflicted by ongoing conflict, violence and extremely high rates of
unemployment, weak State institutions and ongoing insecurity. These factors
contribute to ongoing high levels of forced displacement.249
Studies of Afghan returnee populations demonstrated the precarious nature
of their situations. They further highlighted the importance of acquiring skills
and capital in exile and showed how robust return assistance can contribute posi-
tively to returnees’ livelihoods and accommodation in certain contexts.250 They
also showed how return was not simply a one-way movement. Afghan return-
ees continued to move between Afghanistan and Iran and Pakistan, both in
flight from violence as well as for employment and other commercial activities.251
The back-and-forth refugee flight and return pattern seen in Afghanistan
is also apparent in other places. It comes as forcibly displaced people check
on their families or landholdings and assess the prospects for longer return.
It has been followed in recent decades by Congolese refugees in Uganda,
Iraqi refugees in Jordan, and refugees from the conflicts in Sudan and
South Sudan. These movements often predate periods of conflict and relate
to seasonal and temporary labour opportunities as well as community and
commercial ties.252
In Sudan, despite ongoing fragility, at least 750,000 refugees and inter-
nally displaced persons returned to the South between 2005 and 2010,
many to participate in the 2011 independence referendum.253 As noted in a
2008 study, they returned to an “impoverished and ill-prepared post-war
social and economic environment”, which came under further pressure
from returning populations.254 Returns were not all one-off movements. Some
moved back and forth. Others opted for a staggered or partial process, such as
maintaining links in the host country through employment, commercial activities
or remaining family members, while seeking to secure a more stable foothold

back home.255 Maintaining these links was also important when renewed conflict
caused some of the largest forced displacements of the past decade.256
Cyclical movements and significant forced displacement have marked the
Democratic Republic of the Congo for many years. In the past decade refugee
returns have remained relatively low, at just over 255,000. And while some 6.5
million internally displaced persons returned during the same period, as in
Afghanistan, constant instability and insecurity led to further forced displace-
ment. At the end of 2020, over 5 million people were internally displaced, up
from 1.7 million in 2010.257
The Syrian civil war began in 2011 and, since then, over half its
population of 22 million have been forced to flee, often multiple times. At the
end of 2020, there were approximately 6.7 million Syrians internally displaced
and 6.7 million Syrian refugees mostly residing in neighbouring countries of
Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.258
Internal forced displacements have remained both significant and fluid
over the years. Families have repeatedly been forced to flee, as areas that had
offered a modicum of safety come under fire and front lines shift. Many also
move to seek humanitarian assistance and search for family members. Some
have returned to their homes. Ongoing hostilities, however, have seen more
people flee than return. In 2020 alone, close to 1.8 million internally displaced
persons moved mostly due to conflict, while just under 450,000 were estimated
to have returned home that year.259
The largest Syrian refugee movements occurred between 2011 and 2014,
after which time neighbouring countries tightened their borders. Returns
to Syria by refugees have been relatively modest. UNHCR has verified that,
since 2016, some 280,000 refugees returned to Syria from Turkey, Lebanon,
Jordan, Iraq and Egypt.260 A World Bank analysis of returns of Syrian refugees
between 2014 and 2018 reveals their complex nature.
It found that a lack of security inside Syria was a major deterrent to return.
Other disincentives included destruction of the family home and the lack of
employment, education, health and basic services.261 This analysis mirrors the
findings of a series of UNHCR Syrian Refugee Intention Surveys. These show
that, while the majority of refugees want to return home eventually, fewer than
3 per cent wished to do so within the following 12 months, citing the same
obstacles to return.262
Documented Syrian returns show a partial and staggered approach, as seen
in other places. For example, it is not uncommon for some relatives of returning
family members to remain behind, including those fearing reprisals for leav-
ing or forced military service and those with insufficient capital and assets to
restart their lives there.
Moreover, among those who do return, many do so to test the waters,
as an interim approach to a decision to return permanently. This can help
build confidence for eventual return. Many host States have been unwilling to
facilitate this formally through the issuance of visas that would permit autho-
rized cross-border movements. They have insisted that return should be one
way. The result is that many refugees may be cautious about returning if it means
giving up legal status in neighbouring countries.
There have been some notable State practices in the last 20 years that could
provide useful precedents. Between 2007 and 2010, Nigeria regularized the
status of 117,000 Liberian refugees and 18,000 Sierra Leonean refugees who
did not wish to participate in the voluntary repatriation exercises at that time.
They were permitted residency as migrants, on the condition that they also
acknowledged they were no longer refugees.263
More recently, in 2017, Pakistan adopted a Comprehensive Policy on Volun-
tary Repatriation and Management of Afghan Affairs. It provides for a flexi-
ble visa regime for registered Afghan refugees that enables them to apply for
visas from within Pakistan. While promising on its face, challenges remain. To
qualify, a refugee must have an Afghan passport. Although the World Bank
has provided funding for Afghanistan to issue passports within Pakistan, this
has not yet occurred.264 Additionally, a refugee who receives a visa must give up
refugee status without being assured of reobtaining refugee status at the expiry
of the visa. Finally, many eligible Afghans would have difficulty meeting the
formal requirements for a visa.
If these challenges are overcome, a flexible visa system, like this and others
elsewhere, could facilitate mobility between home and place of refuge. Such
schemes may not be enough to signal an end to displacement, but they could
regularize what is already a critical coping strategy and often a means to help
prepare the way for future return. They could enhance security by revealing a
more accurate picture of cross-border movement, not least for the host coun-
try and the country of origin. Some have even pointed out that a small fee for
visas could raise substantial revenues.
Resettlement
Resettlement has moved between peaks and troughs in the first two decades of
the 21st century, with little evidence to suggest that it will provide solutions for
Refugee resettlement
2000-2020
200,000
180,000
160,000
140,000
Population
120,000
100,000
80,000
60,000
40,000
20,000
20
00
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
significantly more refugees in the future. But, more positively, resettled refugees
increasingly have come from a broader range of countries.265
Annual resettlement levels fell by almost half following the 2001 terrorist
attacks on the United States, to just 50,000 persons in 2002.266 Not only did
some major resettlement countries lower their annual quotas; most imposed
more stringent security clearance tests which lengthened the processing times.
It would take almost a decade before annual resettlement levels would rebound
to approximately 100,000 persons.267 Even after this recovery, resettlement
served as a solution for a very limited number of refugees compared to the
number of refugees globally.
Various efforts were made to improve resettlement processes. They
included the 2004 Multilateral Framework of Understandings (MFU) on
Resettlement. Endorsed by long-standing and emerging resettlement States,
it was a compendium of good practices. Nonetheless, it underscored that the
decision to use flexible selection criteria was entirely discretionary.268
Eritrea 64,600 Main resettled refugee populations
Sudan 78,200
by country of origin
Iran (Islamic Republic of) 85,900
2000-2020
Afghanistan 94,900
Bhutan 107,900
Democratic Republic of the Congo 112,700
Somalia 143,800
Syrian Arab Republic 207,800
Myanmar 221,800
Iraq 260,800
United States of America 1,117,000
Canada 332,500
Australia 225,900
Sweden 45,900
Norway 32,500
United Kingdom 32,300
Germany 18,000
France 17,100
Main resettlement countries
New Zealand 15,800 receiving refugees
Finland 15,500
2000-2020
An attempt to put the MFU to use as part of a Comprehensive Plan

of Action for Somali refugees in 2004 fell through when the Plan did not
materialize.269 Aspects of the MFU, however, were used to facilitate expedited
processing of refugees whose circumstances were so similar that individual
processing was not necessary.270 Rather than conduct individual interviews,
they could be processed as a group.
Meanwhile, a parallel effort was underway to use resettlement more
“strategically” to benefit not just resettled refugees but also other refugees. It
envisaged, for example, agreements between resettlement and host countries
whereby the former would increase the number of refugees it resettled and the
latter would enact more favourable integration policies towards the majority
of refugees remaining on its territory.
But, in practice, the strategic use of resettlement did not yield signifi-
cant tangible benefits.271 Instead, it led to some problematic results. Some
European States considered it “strategic” to reduce offers of resettlement
places in response to increased asylum applications, or to make resettlement

conditional on the host country readmitting failed asylum-seekers.272 Australia
considered it was using resettlement “strategically” to benefit “worthy” refugees,
while resorting to offshore processing and detention to deter asylum-seekers
who were labelled “queue jumpers”.273
Other initiatives achieved results more in line with their intentions,
but for small numbers of refugees. In some instances, refugees who have
already been selected for resettlement but are in imminent risk, are relocated
temporarily to emergency transit facilities in Romania and the Philippines,
pending the completion of resettlement processes.274 Other facilities have
since been set up in Niger and Rwanda for refugees evacuated from appalling
detention conditions in Libya. Refugees in those centres are assessed for reset-
tlement, although not all are selected by resettlement countries.
Beginning in 2016, there was an encouraging rise in annual resettlement
figures, largely in response to the Syria situation. The number of resettle-
ment States more than doubled between 2014 and 2017,275 and resettlement
departures rose to a 20-year high of 173,000 in 2016.276 It was not to last. A
significant reduction in United States resettlement places in 2017 led to a
steep 41 per cent drop in the number of refugees annually resettled.277 Refugee
resettlement dropped to the lowest levels on record in at least two decades.
Fewer than 35,000 refugees were resettled in 2020, representing a fraction
of 1 per cent of refugees globally.278
In 2019, a set of goals for the decade ahead was agreed between UNHCR,
resettlement countries and other partners. The aim is to facilitate the admission
of 1 million refugees from 2019 to 2028 through resettlement, and an addi-
tional 2 million refugees through other immigration admission programmes,
known as complementary pathways.279
The decline in annual resettlement quotas, however, is not encouraging,
and neither is the level of firm multi-year pledges from States at the first Global
Refugee Forum of 2019.280 Most resettlement States pledged to continue
their resettlement programmes, but there were no firm commitments to signi-
ficantly increase them. While some countries pledged to start resettlement
programmes, they provided few details on time frames or the numbers of
refugees they would accept.281 Meanwhile, calls to prioritize resettlement
of refugees most at risk continue to clash with States determined to apply
integration criteria relating to language or educational skills, religion, health
and family size.
Resettlement has always provoked vigorous debate in receiving countries,
especially during economically challenging times which also tend to correspond

with increased populism and demands for fewer refugee admissions. Main-
taining existing programmes, let alone increasing them, will likely continue to
depend on public support. Evidence that resettled refugees do integrate into
their communities and contribute to economic growth over time can help.
Empirical evidence of what leads to better integration outcomes is improving.
There are costs in providing support to refugees, such as through finan-
cial assistance, language classes and help in accessing housing, health care,
education and employment. However, recent findings show that the costs of
Syrian refugees,
Abdel Qader and
his sister, Ruha,
are resettled to
Germany in 2013.
these measures are more than compensated by economic gains that they gene- © UNHCR/
Elena Dorfman
rate in the medium and longer term.282 The engagement of non-governmental
organizations, local volunteers and diaspora also has been shown to improve
integration outcomes and deepen understandings between refugees and host
communities.283
Studies in the United States have demonstrated that employment rates of
resettled refugees are on par with native-born citizens. Although they often
experience lower wages and tend to be concentrated in unskilled sectors, they
out-perform other migrants in terms of English language acquisition, labour
market participation and earnings.284 Over the course of their first 20 years in
the United States, resettled refugees are estimated to pay on average $21,000
more in taxes than they receive in benefits.285 Similar studies in the European
Union also point to initial short-term economic costs that are estimated to be
more than offset in the longer term.286
More generally, a recent review of available literature on the influx of
refugees to high-income countries reveals that host countries are able to absorb
large influxes into their labour markets with no adverse effects on average wages
or overall employment.287
As long as there are immigrant-receiving countries and public support for
refugees, government resettlement programmes will likely be around for some
time to come. The 2020 drop in annual resettlement figures – largely on account
of a global pandemic and policy change which has since been reversed in the
largest resettlement country – is not likely to be permanent if past highs and
lows are any guide.288 Equally, however, we also are unlikely to see a significant
increase in resettlement places beyond previous peak levels.
The resettlement strategy seems to reflect this. It calls for 1 million places
over the next decade, a target consistent with the annual resettlement admis-
sions of the past. There is one area where it looks for an increase: in the doubling
of opportunities for refugees to access other immigration avenues referred to
as “complementary pathways”.
Complementary Pathways
Opening up more immigration channels to refugees and migrants appears

among the commitments made by States in the New York Declaration in 2016.
It is also found in two more recent compacts of 2018: the Global Compact on
Refugees and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.289
Global migration trends point to the potential of complementary pathways.
Immigration levels to high-income countries are increasing, and the national,
economic, social and cultural backgrounds of immigrants are diverse.290
In 2021, UNHCR and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD) examined the extent to which individuals from
seven of the top refugee-producing countries were already benefiting from
complementary pathways in 35 OECD member States and Brazil.291 In partic-
ular, they looked at the granting of family, education and work visas between
2010 and 2019 to nationals from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Somalia,
Syria and Venezuela. The study produced three interesting pictures.
First, it found that 60 per cent more nationals from these countries came
to the OECD and Brazil through family, education and work permits (1.5
million) than the number that arrived through resettlement (572,000).292

Secondly, they made up a particularly small percentage of the total number of
immigrant admissions through these categories overall.293 The report concluded
that more could be done to make these avenues more widely accessible to forci-
bly displaced populations.
Like many good intentions, commitments to expand complementary path-
ways systematically and significantly will take effort – and more than has been
expended so far. That could include ensuring that forcibly displaced persons
are aware of these options. Importantly, there is a need to ease barriers that
obstruct access to them. The obstacles can be significant. They include a lack of
needed documentation,294 insufficient funds to pay processing and travel fees,
evidence to show the person will not rely on public funds post-arrival and, in
the case of temporary permits, guarantees that the person can return to their
previous place of residence.
Furthermore, visa application processes can be complicated, and they are not
uniform across countries. Knowing how to navigate them can take specialized
knowledge not readily available in many forced displacement contexts. There are
efforts to help refugees navigate these processes. But they have not yet reached
the scale needed for States to meet their commitments for increased access to
complementary pathways.295
Measures to widen access to family immigration schemes could include
broadening the definition of family beyond the nuclear family, waiving process-
ing fees, and easing some financial requirements that resident family members
must demonstrate to show they can support applicants.296
Efforts to help forcibly displaced people access education pathways also
need significant expansion to fulfil the ambitions of the Global Compact on
Refugees. The existing programmes designed for this purpose are also relatively
few in number and small in scale. Expansion could occur through broader
outreach to refugee communities, greater engagement from education insti-
tutions, and financial support to refugees selected. They could also be comple-
mented by further access to online education opportunities.
The situation with labour mobility schemes is arguably more complex.
Migrant workers make up some 18 per cent of the workforce in high-income
countries, according to the International Labour Organization. Over 45 per
cent are concentrated in North America and Northern, Southern and Western
Europe.297 This points to opportunity. However, the OECD-UNHCR study
demonstrated that only 4 per cent of all work permits issued to foreigners in
the OECD went to nationals of the seven major refugee-producing countries
under review. Positively, the number of work permits granted steadily increased
throughout the decade and more than doubled by 2019.298
Some economists have voiced doubts about the prospects of labour migra-
tion to high-income countries becoming a viable option for refugees. Among
the noted obstacles is that most labour programmes are set up on a temporary
basis, which is a problem for refugees who cannot return home. If the work is
in a third country, return to the country from which the refugee was selected,
requires agreement of that State.299 Experience has shown that host and transit
countries are reluctant to enter readmission agreements. Without that, States
with temporary worker programmes may be reluctant to offer labour market
access if they believe the refugees will never leave.300
While others recognize the challenges in bringing labour mobility schemes
to scale, they maintain that there is potential for them to be of significant
benefit. Talent Beyond Boundaries (TBB), which matches displaced people
with job opportunities around the world, holds this view. It points to Canada,
where an initial agreement with the Government to match 10–15 refugees
with employers has now expanded to 500 refugees and their families between
2021 and 2022.301
Kris Braun, a representative of Canada’s technology industry observes that
the programme has helped fill skills gaps. He notes that it works for refugees
trying to “get their life moving forward again” and for Canada’s growing tech
industry that is in need of their skills.302 Australia has initiated a scheme with
a current quota of 100 refugees and their families.303 The United Kingdom is
considering a similar commitment.304
Private sponsorship programmes are another form of complementary
pathways whereby private groups identify and sponsor refugees, undertaking
responsibility for their care after arrival and for a specified period. Refugees
benefiting from these programmes are identified independently by the spon-
soring group or State and not by UNHCR, and not necessarily prioritized by
critical need. While the number of these programmes is gradually expanding,
they have not yet generated significant increases in overall refugee admissions.
Canada’s private sponsorship programme is the largest and has been in place
the longest. Through it, 327,000 refugees have been admitted to Canada over
40 years.305 Most assessments conclude that community engagement improves
reception and helps advance refugee integration. But some have also argued
that, in certain cases, private sponsorship programmes can come at the expense
of a reduction in State resettlement programmes.306
Taken together, the potential of complementary pathways is not yet clear.
State commitments over the past five years to expand their availability to
forcibly displaced persons are a start. But much more work is needed to make
these promises a reality. And, to repeat a recurring theme of this publication,
better data collection is needed to assess progress against the ambitious target
that has been set.
The Canadian example has demonstrated the value in starting with a pilot
scheme in labour mobility. Since it was facilitated through a central ministry,
it featured the ability to convene other government authorities, and the oppor-
tunity to assess what works, helping build support.
The OECD-UNHCR study reveals that immigration avenues are being
used by populations affected by conflict, including those from the countries
generating the largest displacements in the world.307 Further study is needed to
identify how those who benefited were able to access these pathways, notably
whether refugees were able to access them autonomously, the obstacles they
faced and how those were overcome.
Meanwhile, some academics have suggested that one way of opening more
mobility for refugees is to facilitate their movement to a country of their
choice by reviving the Nansen passport. A determination of refugee status by
a recognized authority, such as UNHCR, could be followed by the granting
of a Nansen passport recognized by States participating in refugee protection.
The passport would entitle a refugee to move for work, to join family and/or
to find a community beyond the country where the refugee first finds refuge.
Recognizing that this idea is likely to meet opposition among States, the
authors suggest that States could determine how many refugees they would
accept in this way and make it conditional on factors, such as job offer, and
proven means to be self-supporting upon arrival.308
Integrating Locally
Local integration figured rather timidly as a solution in the 2002 Agenda for
Protection. In it, States committed only to “examining” the circumstances
in which it could be supported. However, strengthening human capital in
displacement – through education, skills and opportunities for self-reliance –
was expressed more definitively.
Several initiatives followed over the next decade but, globally, the
picture did not appreciably change.309 There was ongoing resistance to the
economic and social inclusion of refugees and serious challenges regarding
the integration of internally displaced persons.310 A significant shift finally
emerged around 2015: At this time, the world’s attention was focused on
the mass movement of Syrian refugees from the Middle East to Europe.311
The relative impact the Syria crisis had on approaches to forced displace-
ment will continue to be debated for some time to come. The growing reach
of the Syrian exodus focused attention more clearly on the worsening situa-
tion faced within the country and its neighbours. Bordering countries hosting
5.5 million Syrian refugees – or 90 per cent of the global total – felt the strain
on their already fragile infrastructure and economies. This was compounded
by the loss of trade, tourism and investment due to the conflict. As middle-
income countries, their calls stood out for development grants and concessional
lending to help ease the burdens they were carrying.
As for Syrian refugees, their displacement was becoming protracted.
Refugee poverty deepened as initial savings dried up, and mobility and employ-
ment restrictions limited their ability to provide for themselves. Human-
itarian assistance was insufficient to meet all needs. Most children remained out
of school, living conditions were overcrowded and frequently lacked adequate
sanitation and protection from the elements. Access to health services was often
restricted. While constituting a small minority, refugees with financial means
sought a way out, willing to risk their lives in perilous journeys to Europe.
The realities in the region, the political challenges, and the sudden
increase in refugee arrivals in Europe shifted the conversation. Investing in
refugee-hosting areas, through substantial development funding, became a
priority of many large bilateral and multilateral development donors. New
funding instruments were introduced to support this.312
Strengthening human capital in displacement moved more into focus. It
was supported through increased development investments to improve access
to employment, education and health services for forcibly displaced and host
communities.313 The inclusion of forcibly displaced persons in efforts to achieve
the Sustainable Development Goals was also more integrated into United
Nations multisectoral development work.314
This orientation is reflected in the objectives of the Global Compact on
Refugees and its Programme of Action. A significant part of it is dedicated
to strengthening access to education, jobs and livelihoods, accommodation
and health services for host communities and refugees.315 The emphasis is not
just on States opening these avenues to refugees, but also on the international
community providing additional financial, material and technical support to
reinforce such changes.
This had already begun. As discussed in more detail in Part V, from 2016,
new international funding instruments came on stream and were specifically

designed for low- and middle-income countries with large forcibly displaced
populations.316 They feature both concessional loans and grants to promote and
support the socioeconomic inclusion of refugees. Objectives include improv-
ing infrastructure and inclusive service delivery to both forcibly displaced and
host communities. There are efforts to enhance livelihoods in host community
areas and measures to relieve government finances from the strains of their
hosting responsibilities.
The range of development and financial institutions engaged in this work
has grown significantly, as have the beneficiary countries over the past five years.
Billions of dollars have been committed to strengthen the human capital of
forcibly displaced and host communities.317
Increased financing opportunities also highlighted the need for better
data. A recurrent theme of the Global Compact on Refugees is that efforts
to enhance social and economic inclusion of refugees and support State in-
stitutions and services must be informed by improved, reliable, comparable
and timely data.318 Until recently, there were no agreed criteria to determine
the socioeconomic conditions of refugees and internally displaced persons as
compared to local hosts, an important building block to any inclusion strategy.
Significant efforts are being made to close this information gap.
In 2018, the Expert Group on Refugee and Internally Displaced Persons
Statistics (EGRIS)319 developed guidance on refugee statistics including
how to measure and quantify integration in a way that is comparable and
consistent across different contexts.320 A complementary exercise was subse-
quently concluded for internally displaced persons.321 Both sets of indicators
are designed to assess the situation of host and displaced communities in a
simultaneous manner, that makes sound comparisons possible. Many are also
useful for reporting progress on the Sustainable Development Goals.
Having comprehensive indicators is an important step. Data for them can
be sourced from surveys, censuses, administration records and polling. But
processes in which they are used are equally important. Studies have shown that
integration assessments have a greater chance of influencing policy outcomes if
they are collaborative from start to finish. In other words, they should engage
all interested parties: humanitarian and development actors; donors; local
and State authorities; forcibly displaced; and host communities.322 It helps to
achieve a consensus on methodology, findings and policy prescriptions. It is
useful to find out from both forcibly displaced people and their hosts what they
perceive as obstacles, and the potential for these to be overcome.
Two recent studies demonstrate the benefits of such an approach. One

examined the situation in Ethiopia for refugees and the other examined the
situation of internally displaced persons across four countries.
Ethiopia hosts over 800,000 refugees. In 2017, the Government agreed to
make far-reaching legislative changes to facilitate the integration of long-term
refugees. This included permitting refugees greater mobility and improved
access to services, especially education. It also sought to improve livelihoods by
expanding access to jobs and land. In February 2019, the Ethiopian Parliament
passed a proclamation to strengthen these pledges via enabling legislation and
administrative frameworks.
To inform this work, the World Bank conducted a study to determine the
social impact of refugees on host communities in Ethiopia, the extent to which
refugees were integrated, the obstacles they faced, and the impact more inclu-
sive policies could have on host communities. Its findings are important, for
their observations and the policy implications derived from them.
It highlighted the importance of local conditions to the prospects for greater
refugee integration. In some areas of the country, improving the self-reliance of
refugees could increase competition with host communities, risking the esca-
lation of tensions between the two groups. Elsewhere, the creation of better
opportunities for interaction and exchange between the communities could
help build trust in tandem with improving livelihood opportunities. Policies
and programmes have to be tailored to these different realities.323
Another World Bank study profiled the populations of internally displaced
persons and host communities in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan.324
This study also found that the obstacles to integration varied across regions,
highlighting the need for strategies to be tailored to the specific context.
In northern Nigeria, this meant prioritizing “security and improve-
ments to living conditions in host areas”. In Somalia, it included strength-
ening human capital by expanding access to education, health, skills training
and cash transfers as well as enhancing living conditions of host com-
munities. In South Sudan, the study found that security services and humani-
tarian assistance remain critical. As the security situation stabilizes, continuing
to invest in human capital “through nutrition, health, and education programs”
was also considered necessary along with expanding access to employment
and helping host communities support new arrivals. In Sudan, improving
security and enhancing employment opportunities were also identified as key
priorities along with improved living conditions and reduced gender-based
vulnerabilities.325
The studies show that successful local integration strategies are specifically
designed for their contexts. They also build on any promising circumstances
where integration already exists and address challenges that inhibit it. These
observations apply to both durable and interim solutions, and there are other
studies with similar policy implications.326
Economic and social inclusion for refugees is far preferable to ongoing
marginalization, but it often does not constitute a full solution to displacement.
There are many situations in the world where refugees have been displaced
for generations, with younger people having few to no ties to their country of
origin and therefore identifying more closely with their respective host country.
States hosting most of the world’s refugee population are reluctant to
provide a progressive path to citizenship for various political, social and
economic reasons. This applies even when refugees comprise a relatively small
proportion of total populations. Recent policy changes in Colombia are a
dramatic and notable exception.
As discussed in Part II, in February 2021, Colombia announced that it
will provide Temporary Protection Status (TPS) to all Venezuelans residing
in the country who register with the Government within a certain period, as
well as to prospective regular arrivals over the next two years. At the time of the
announcement, over 1.7 million displaced Venezuelans were in Colombia and
new arrivals were ongoing. The TPS will be valid for 10 years during which time
permit holders will be able to work, attend school and access health services.
During the 10-year period, they will be able to apply for permanent residency.
In announcing the policy, President Duque made clear that its aim was
to provide Venezuelans the opportunity to make a positive contribution to
Colombia, that he hoped other countries would do the same and he called on
the international community to increase funding for the Venezuelan crisis.327
Within five months, Ecuador, host to an estimated 450,000 Venezuelans,
announced a new regularization policy for Venezuelans in the country. In
communicating the news, President Lasso said the new policy would be
complemented by economic integration and labour market access “to be an
effective, lasting and permanent policy”.328
José Soto and María José left Venezuela two years ago with their three
sons and now live in Ibarra, Ecuador. They express the views of many
Venezuelans who see regularization of their situation as removing the deep
anxieties they have faced on account of their uncertain status. María José
describes the impediments they face without a national identity document.
They are unable to establish and grow their business, and their children cannot
obtain their education diplomas. “Regularization is vital”, she remarks, “it’s

what we need to find stability and calm.”329
Other countries may follow these two examples. A positive outcome for
Colombia and Ecuador will no doubt be important. Similarly, studies that
demonstrate the benefits of offering permanent residence and citizenship
could also be important.
Regularizing large numbers of migrants is already common in high-
income countries, with a record of success. Research demonstrates how immi-
grants contribute to economies and communities, with rising productivity
helping to reinforce social cohesion.330 Regularization is often based on
criteria, including length of residency, ties to the community, and proof of
good conduct. For example, in 2017, the World Bank noted that Italy
regularized 1.2 million migrants in 2012 accounting for 2 per cent of its
population. In the first 15 years or so of the 21st century, the United States on
average regularized 700,000 foreigners annually. That took the total to over
10 million people, roughly equivalent to the number of refugees hosted in low-
and middle-income countries.331 If these experiences are any guide, extending
more opportunities for full citizenship to long-term refugees may also be of
benefit to other host communities.
Lessons Learned
Seventy years of experience in the search for solutions to displacement reveal
the following six main points.
First – Politics has often defined the level of support and attention solu-
tions receive. They have been realized – or prematurely pushed – due to the
geopolitical interests of States rather than based on acute need or sustainability.
While States will continue to be motivated by geopolitical priorities, agencies
working on behalf of displaced and affected communities must seek protection
for those most at risk and insist that repatriation only be promoted when it is
voluntary, safe and sustainable.
Second – There has been a traditional emphasis on voluntary return as the
“preferred solution”. And, while returning home is a fundamental right, it may
not always be preferred, especially if the underlying causes of displacement
are not resolved. Political stability, security and ability to sustain livelihoods
are among the key requirements for it to succeed which, in many contexts,
remain elusive.
Third – The resettlement solution has never reached more than a small
proportion of the world’s refugees. The potential to broaden third-country
settlement for refugees depends on making fresh avenues more accessible,
including through labour and education migration means.
Fourth – When development investment targets host communities along-
side refugees, it can be of mutual benefit among communities. Programmes to
improve the skills and employment opportunities of hosts and refugees alike
help overcome resistance to the socioeconomic inclusion of forcibly displaced
people. So do infrastructure and service delivery efforts, which also help reduce
the poor health and multi-generational poverty associated with long-term
displacement and dependence on humanitarian aid.
Fifth – Allowing back-and-forth movements across borders may amount
to a solution in some areas of displacement. Solutions are not simply bestowed
on forcibly displaced persons but are ones they seize based on their calculation
of what will be best for them. Refugees may choose to return permanently or
temporarily. Families may choose to move together or in a staggered manner
to minimize risks. These assessments can change over time, especially when
displacement has occurred for longer periods. Some refugees may move back
and forth between the country of origin and displacement as the best means
of securing a foothold back home. Facilitating such cross-border movements
in some contexts may be the most appropriate solutions strategy.
Sixth – A shift in approach is essential for meaningful improvement in
the life prospects of most refugees. The traditional durable solutions –
sustainable return, resettlement and/or local integration – only provide a
solution for a small proportion of the forcibly displaced. More people face a
long-term wait between displacement and attaining a solution. Widening
access to education, services and employment during displacement provides
net benefits in the immediate term. It also lays important foundations for the
success of any solution that may arise in the future.
The operational shifts that may be needed to do this more effectively are
the subject of Part IV.
Table of Contents
228 Conflict and Displacement Impacts
229 Education
229 Context
232 Evolution
233 Inclusion Challenges

PA R T IV
Improving 243 Health
Life Prospects 243 Context
244 Evolution
246 Advances and Ongoing Challenges
255 Economic Inclusion
255 Context
257 Evolution
259 Local Labour Market Impacts
275 Consolidated Findings
276 The 2030 Ambition

Improving
Life Prospects
Improving lives and advancing human development for forcibly displaced

persons is a global ambition. It is part of the international community’s Sustain-
able Development Goals (SDGs), agreed by 193 States in 2015.1
This set of 17 goals and 169 targets aims at ensuring inclusive economic
development and growth. They are due to be met by 20302 and apply to
Previous page: all nations, for the benefit of all people, regardless of status.3 States have
Children from pledged that “no one will be left behind” in the efforts to meet the Sustainable
Myanmar attend
school in a Development Goals and to endeavour to reach “the furthest behind first”.4
refugee camp in The 2030 Agenda, which outlines the goals, explicitly recognizes refu-
Thailand in 2009.
© UNHCR/ gees and internally displaced persons as among the most vulnerable, and
Thierry Falise States resolve to remove all obstacles and strengthen support for their
empowerment.5
But the fact that refugees and internally displaced persons should be
included in these landmark development efforts does not mean that they
are. While major international development donors increasingly take an in-
clusive approach, national practice lags behind. Although State practice is
improving, internally displaced persons are not always included in national
PART IV / IMPROVING LIFE PROSPECTS 227
development plans.6 Refugees are largely left out, regardless of how long they
have lived in the country.7
The exclusion of internally displaced persons is striking, as they are
nationals of the country in which they are displaced.8 And, while their exclu-
sion can be intentional, it also can arise because they are in remote areas,
less visible, and/or their needs not prioritized given the many challenges their
countries face. It is also the case that data on internally displaced populations
is often insufficient to obtain a clear understanding of their socioeconomic
status and poverty levels – important for development plans, as noted in
Part III.9
Refugees are not nationals of host countries, and 83 per cent reside
in low- and middle-income countries, which struggle to meet the needs of
their own populations.10 Receiving large numbers of refugees places add-
itional strains on their infrastructure, environment and social services.11
To include refugees in their development programmes, States need to be
convinced that this will not only help refugees but also benefit their own
communities.
This consideration is crucial to policy decision-making and is influ-
enced by many factors. Local political considerations can be definitive. There
may be insufficient public support for more inclusive policies. States may also
not want to appreciably improve the lives of refugees if they think that, in
doing so, refugees may be more inclined to remain. Governments may not be
convinced that inclusive development will lead to better outcomes for local
communities.
And so, the move towards more progressive and inclusive policies depends
on persuasive evidence that doing so will not come at the cost of political
support and will help to improve socioeconomic conditions for everyone.
For this, sound evidence and additional technical and financial support are
needed.
In Part IV, we look at the essentials required to improve lives by strength-
ening human capital in displacement – the skills, knowledge and experience
that enable individuals to realize their potential as productive members of
society. We focus on low- and middle-income countries, which are home to
more than 90 per cent of the world’s forcibly displaced populations. Investing
in people through health care, education, skills, and jobs helps them develop
their human capital. It is key to reducing poverty and to stimulating economic
growth.12 It provides the foundation for building sustainable solutions, as we
saw in Part III.
Conflict and Displacement Impacts

It is often assumed that receiving large numbers of refugees invariably has
negative impacts on host communities. The reality is more complex. Conflict
itself often has knock-on effects internally and in neighbouring countries
that exist independently of the impact of forced displacement. Conflict often
disrupts and distorts economic and commercial performance and activities.
For example, it can lead to disruptions in supply chains and higher costs of
transport, goods and services, falling demand and diminished production.
Knock-on effects include higher unemployment, reduced purchasing power,
shrinking markets and declining investment and trade.13
It is difficult to disentangle the economic impact of the conflict from
that of forced displacement. Other relevant factors are the size and
composition of the displacement, pre-existing conditions in the place of
displacement, government policies and development and humanitarian
responses.14
For most host countries, refugees comprise considerably less than 1 per cent
of their total population. There are a few notable exceptions, such as Jordan
and Lebanon, where refugees constitute a much larger share: close to 30 per
cent and 20 per cent respectively.15 In most countries, however, the effects
of receiving refugees are experienced locally, with only modest nationwide
effects. The impact of internal displacement also tends to be experienced mostly
at the local level.16
Many hosting areas confront significant development challenges. The
sudden or sustained influx of forcibly displaced persons can place a strain on
public services, like education and health care to the detriment of hosts. Infra-
structure that may have been fragile before the influx can be further taxed by a
larger population. That can include water and electricity and sanitation services.
Environmental impacts can also be severe, with trees and shrubs cleared for
firewood, water levels reduced, or waste improperly disposed. In countries
with large subsidies on essential commodities, a sizeable influx can also lead
to increased public expenditures.17
Even when the arrival of large numbers of forcibly displaced persons creates
economic challenges, there are also opportunities. It can benefit employers
by providing more workers and lift demand for goods and services, helping
producers and suppliers. At the same time, however, new workers can also
increase competition and lead to job losses among those who have similar skills.
Prices for land and housing can rise, helping owners but hurting renters. Price
movements for food and other commodities depend more on local contexts
and can either rise or fall.
The negative impacts can lead to declining welfare, especially among the
most vulnerable in the host community. That can worsen if public services,
like health and education, become strained and lack increased investment to
expand capacity. Even when household welfare actually improves, individuals
may still perceive themselves to be worse off due to the presence of more forci-
bly displaced persons.18
Understanding the differential impact of a large influx of forcibly displaced
persons requires a detailed and nuanced analysis that also examines the effect of
government policies. Government policies can exacerbate the negative impacts
or, conversely, responsive policies can mitigate losses and maximize potential
gains from the socioeconomic changes of an influx.
In Part IV, we examine these issues in relation to education, health and
employment opportunities. Traditionally, humanitarian assistance has been
delivered through parallel health and education systems, in part due to govern-
ment policies that did not encourage socioeconomic inclusion. Investments
made to encourage self-reliance have been relatively modest.
This pattern is beginning to change, in step with the influences which
informed the Sustainable Development Goals, and their commitment to
inclusive development. We look at the opportunities this presents for mean-
ingful change, which humanitarian and development partners have begun to
accelerate.
Education
Context
“If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees.
If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children.” Those words set the
tone for the World Bank’s 2018 World Development Report on education.
They date back to the 7th century (BCE) Chinese philosopher and politician,
Kuan Chung.19
To this day, they capture a centuries-old understanding of the importance of
education to human development, which is also embedded in the foundational
documents of the United Nations. Article 26 of the 1948 Universal Declaration
of Human Rights begins quite simply with the phrase: “Everyone has the right
to education.” It goes further, recognizing education’s intrinsic value, specifying

that elementary education shall be both free and compulsory.20
Ever since, evidence consistently points to the crucial importance of educa-
tion to human development. It is essential to the reduction of poverty. For
individuals, education leads to enhanced earnings,21 better health22 and lower
risks of gender-based violence,23 all of which affect overall quality of life. For
nations, it drives economic growth.24
Education targets have been central to every major global development
Syrian refugee
children attend
school in north
Lebanon.
© UNHCR/
Andrew
initiative since the 1980s, not least because of its enormous development
McConnell dividends. In 1987, the United Nations published Our Common Future, with
recommendations to improve international cooperation on the environment
and development with education playing a central role.25 Achieving univer-
sal primary education was one of the eight Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) launched by the United Nations in 2000.26 An expanded ambition
for education followed in 2015, with the Sustainable Development Goals call-
ing for inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning oppor-
tunities for all by 2030.27
International efforts to achieve universal primary education by 2015 had
some success. Global net enrolment rates in developing countries increased
from 83 per cent in 2000 to 91 per cent by 2015.28 But the gains were not
experienced equally.
Children in the poorest households were “four times as likely to be out

of school as those in the richest households”: over 34 per cent of the poorest
children did not complete primary school. In conflict-affected countries, the
proportion of children not in school increased from 30 per cent in 1999 to
36 per cent in 2012.29 This was a worrisome trend since the number of conflict-
affected countries was also increasing.
And, while the rising enrolment of students overall was positive, this did not
necessarily translate into good learning outcomes. Assessments showed that, in
many developing countries, half of all children who completed primary school
were unable to read simple texts or to perform basic arithmetic.30 By the time
the Sustainable Development Goals were adopted in 2015, there was wide-
spread appreciation that “schooling is not the same as learning”.31 Attendance
is important but learning while in school is critical.32
The Sustainable Development Goals’ target for education was informed
by these realities. It aims at expanding universal, free, equitable and qual-
ity primary and secondary education by 2030. It also focuses on early
childhood education, eliminating gender disparities and enhancing access
to affordable technical and tertiary education. It seeks to substantially
increase the number of youth and adults with relevant skills for wage or self-
employment. Among the targets are increased support for education facil-
ities, strengthened teaching capacity and a substantial expansion in the
global number of scholarships available for developing countries, particu-
larly the least developed.33
Eliminating what is now known as “learning poverty” is widely acknowl-
edged to be an urgent development priority. Global enrolment rates remain far
from the Sustainable Development Goal target, and ensuring quality educa-
tion will also take longer than the 2030 goal.34 Positively, increased develop-
ment resources are being invested in enhancing quality and equitable access
to education.35
As we will see, COVID-19 has increased the challenges. Mandated
school closures affected 1.6 billion children. The impacts are particularly
severe in low-income and conflict-affected countries.36 Working around
COVID-19 restrictions has also led to the expansion of remote and home-
based learning that may help education systems cope, recover and become
more inclusive in the future. 37 But, as discussed below, this will require
addressing the absence of connectivity to digital or broadcast networks
faced by many forcibly displaced persons and the communities in which
they live.
Evolution
Forced displacement is disruptive on many levels, especially for children. It

generally involves the loss of home, friends, loved ones and quite literally all
the things that make life familiar and predictable in childhood. For children
who were in school, forced displacement marks the beginning of an extended
period out of school – on average three-to-four years for refugees – and many
do not remain in school.38
Each year of lost learning makes it difficult to catch up and leads to economic
losses over time. Children out of school are more vulnerable to child labour,
forced recruitment, sexual exploitation and child marriage.39
Education is often mentioned by forcibly displaced persons as their chief
priority, regardless of how dismal their shelter, how insecure the environment,
and even how irregular their access to food. That is not surprising given the
benefits it provides. Even very young displaced children, unlikely to appreciate
the links between learning and income, will frequently mention being able to
go to school at the top of their wish list. School can provide a place of stability,
friendship and learning. It helps to overcome trauma and loss.40
Or, in the words of an eight-year-old Syrian refugee boy in Lebanon, school
“is like the difference between the earth and the sky”.41 Ahmed fled Syria with
his parents in 2011, when he was just five years old. Initially, he was not admit-
ted to school and had to work to supplement tight family finances. After two
years of serving as a “tea boy” in Tripoli, he joined a local school. When asked
to describe the change this had made to his life, Ahmed’s poignant answer was
given with his arms open wide.
UNHCR estimates that there are over 7 million school-age refugee chil-
dren.42 The enrolment rates of refugee children fall considerably short of
global averages. There are an estimated 14.1 million school-age children who
are internally displaced due to conflict and violence, many of whom also face
significant challenges in securing an education.43
In 2019, 77 per cent of all refugee children were enrolled in primary school,
compared to the global average of 91 per cent. The gap in secondary school
was even starker: 31 per cent compared to 76 per cent globally, with refugee
boys disproportionately represented compared to refugee girls. The rates for
tertiary education fall to just 3 per cent enrolment for refugees compared to
38 per cent globally.44
As relevant as these statistics are, they provide only part of the picture. As
mentioned, enrolment does not necessarily translate to learning outcomes. Many
people forced to flee are in countries where access to quality education remains
out of reach for many local people.45 Here, improving learning opportunities
for the forcibly displaced must go hand-in-hand with improving education
opportunities for other poor and marginalized groups.
This inclusive approach has not always been made. For most of the 20th
century, refugee education was predominately organized and delivered by
refugee communities themselves with nominal support from UNHCR.46 In the
mid-1980s, in line with the growing international push for “education for all”,
UNHCR refocused its education efforts on supporting primary education for
refugees.47 It concentrated on programmes delivered to refugees in camps, often
distant from local communities and cut-off from national institutions.48 With
a view to helping refugees prepare for eventual return, the content and language
of instruction was aligned as closely as possible to their countries of origin.49
In this parallel system, the education refugees received was not nationally
accredited, either by the country of origin or the host country. That created
a barrier to transitioning into post-primary and secondary education and in
recognizing qualifications for employment purposes.
As refugee numbers and the length of displacement grew, maintaining
parallel education systems was not only costly but also failed to respond to
refugee learning needs. Many refugees had no foreseeable prospect of living in
their country of citizenship, so using its language and materials of instruction
had significant drawbacks. Parallel education did not help with the social and
economic inclusion of refugees and did not contribute to improved education
outcomes for host communities.50
Including refugees in national education systems is increasingly recognized
as the most sustainable and equitable approach.
In 2012, UNHCR launched a new global Education Strategy which focuses
on the integration of refugee learners within national systems.51 This remains
the cornerstone of UNHCR’s education efforts.52 States also endorsed the
approach in the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees. The Compact calls for
additional support to host countries to expand and enhance the quality and
inclusiveness of national primary, secondary and tertiary education systems.53
Inclusion Challenges
Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals’ education targets for forcibly

displaced children depends on being able to access school and learn there. In
many countries, there are significant challenges to both.
Access
The fact that primary school enrolment of refugees reached 77 per cent in
2019 was promising.54 But these figures reveal only part of the reality. As
UNHCR’s statistics show, the likelihood of a refugee child progressing to the
next academic grade drops sharply with every year of education.55
The drop is particularly significant between primary and secondary school.
Fewer than half of refugee children who start primary school end up in second-
ary school, with proportionately more refugee girls falling out of school than
refugee boys. In 2019, 36 per cent of refugee boys were enrolled in secondary
education compared to just 27 per cent of refugee girls.56 This is further exac-
erbated by COVID-19. The Malala Fund estimates that half of all refugee
girls in secondary school will not return when classrooms reopen.57
The loss is staggering, especially considering that women with second-
ary school education on average earn almost twice as much as those with no
education at all.58 The links between a lack of education and child marriage
are similarly telling.59
Comparable figures for internally displaced persons are not available. As
nationals, they have a right to attend public schools. Yet, they face many of the
same challenges that confront refugee children.60 Financial pressures can be
prohibitive. Families often do not have resources to pay for fees, uniforms or
school supplies. Forcibly displaced children are frequently located at signif-
icant distances from schools, with no available or affordable means of trans-
port. There are added pressures for food-insecure families, whose survival often
depends on every possible means of additional income, including through the
work of their children. In addition, many internally displaced persons are in
countries experiencing ongoing conflict and violence and at risk of persistent
insecurity and repeated displacement. The public provision of education may
not be a government priority.
In conflict areas, schools are often damaged or destroyed and teachers
and students deliberately targeted. Between 2015 and 2019, the Global
Coalition to Protect Education from Attack reported 11,000 incidents of
education facilities being attacked or used for military purposes, harming
over 22,000 students, teachers, and education workers. Over 8,000 children
and education personnel were directly targeted with killing, injury, abduc-
tion, and threats of harm.61
Many forcibly displaced persons have fled their homes suddenly and do
not have the documentation needed to place children in the right class. Even
when they have appropriate certificates, some schools may not recognize them.
This can lead to the child not being accepted into the institution or receiving
an inappropriate grade placement.62
For those who have completed secondary school, further education is
often simply unobtainable. High tuition fees, pressures to earn an income to
support themselves and their families, distance from education institutions
and language barriers are among the multiple obstacles.63
Rez Gardi, an international lawyer and former refugee recounts the diffi-
culties in overcoming these obstacles and the self-doubt that accompanied her
Ten-year-old
Kamala (right)
with her friend
in 2016 in
Golzow, on the
pursuit of a higher education. “People like me did not finish school, let alone German-Polish
border, where
end up at university. ” She recalls that wanting “more than safety and survival her family’s
seemed ungrateful”. Yet, it was also essential to reclaim “control of our lives” . arrival from Syria
helped the village
She set her sights on being a lawyer, to one day be able to influence the laws school survive
that apply to people who are displaced, as she once was.64 by reaching the
minimum class
size.
Learning © UNHCR/
Gordon Welters
Access to school is a huge step but, as mentioned, it is not a guarantee to learn-
ing. In most cases of forced displacement, there are significant challenges, many
of which are also shared by local students.
The list is long and led by the lack of financial resources. High-income coun-
tries account for 65 per cent of global education spending, while low-income
countries make up just 0.5 per cent,65 and both groups have approximately the
same number of school-age children.
Insufficient financing means poor facilities, a lack of education materials,
low teacher remuneration and large class sizes. Other persistent weaknesses
include a lack of trained teachers, and the absence of strong school leadership
and engagement of parents.66 These contribute to weak education outcomes
overall.67
In addition, forcibly displaced children often face other specific and daunt-
ing constraints. When they attend classes delivered in a language they do
Venezuelan
children sit
alongside their
Colombian hosts
in a school in
Paraguachon not understand, they may need additional support to learn. Many have been
in 2019. out of school for some time and need help catching up.68 Trauma can also
© UNHCR/
Vincent Tremeau affect learning, requiring psychological support. Discrimination and bullying
at school further contribute to low enrolment and require concerted efforts
by schools to establish understanding among students and a safe learning
environment.69
Sometimes, the attitudes of local children reflect deeper frustrations within
the community. These can be particularly evident at the outset of forced
displacement crises. For example, schools are sometimes used to shelter new
arrivals, which interrupts classes of local children. Sudden increases in class
sizes can also raise concerns of education quality being diminished.70 National
and local leadership is required to overcome these challenges, supported by
strengthened technical and financial capacity.71
Supporting Sustainable Inclusion
Positive developments are in evidence over the last several years, not least with
a number of countries opening their public schools to refugees.
In 2017, the eight countries which form the Intergovernmental Authority
on Development (IGAD), pledged to ensure that every refugee, returnee, and
member of host communities has access to quality education in a safe learning
environment without discrimination.72 Several have implemented laws and poli-
cies to give effect to their promise with some positive results already achieved.
In Uganda, primary school enrolment rates for refugees grew to 76 per
cent in 2020, up from 73 per cent the previous year, although secondary school
enrolment rates fell slightly and remained low at 11 per cent in 2020.73 In
Ethiopia, primary school enrolment has seen a progressive trend upward
over the years, with primary and secondary school enrolment rates averaging
62 per cent and 13 per cent respectively in 2020.74 In Ethiopia, however, educa-
tion is provided to refugees in schools separate from local children and run by
a different ministry.
In Kenya, refugees in urban areas have access to public schools. Those in
camps have access to the national curriculum and are able to sit national exams,
with schools managed and funded with international support.75 In Rwanda,
refugee children have equal access to the same schools as nationals.
There are some 3.7 million refugees in Turkey: host to the largest number
of refugees globally.76 Close to 3.6 million are from Syria. Turkey prioritized
education early in the refugee emergency, investing in preparing Syrian refu-
gee children to transition from temporary education centres into the Turkish
public school system.
Additional help to refugees included Turkish language classes, remedial
learning, school materials and transportation assistance. The Government
also strengthened teacher capacity. The achievements are particularly strik-
ing. By 2020, 64 per cent of Syrian children were enrolled in formal education
programmes, up from 30 per cent in 2014.77 Similarly, Egypt has also facilitated
the integration of Syrian refugee students, with some 95 per cent registered in
mostly formal education.78
Lebanon opened its public schools to Syrian refugee children in 2012. Over
time, the number of enrolled Syrian refugee children increased, stretching the
capacity of the public education system and leading to the introduction of an
afternoon shift in which a second set of children could be taught. At the end of
2020, some 197,000 Syrian refugee children were enrolled in Lebanese public
schools.79 Challenges remain in reaching the 57 per cent of Syrian refugee

children in Lebanon who are out of school.80
Jordan has also pursued an inclusive education policy which aims to improve
access to, and the quality of, education for Jordanians and refugees. The Jordan
Education Strategic Plan (2018–2022) prioritizes resources to address the
barriers and outstanding education needs of Jordanian and refugee children.
At the end of 2020, 61 per cent of school-age Syrian refugee children were
enrolled in school, nearly all in the formal system.81
In Iraq, refugees with legal residency have free access to public primary and
secondary schools. The country integrates data on Syrian refugee children into
its national education information management system. Yet, 34 per cent remain
outside the formal and non-formal system.82 Among the reasons are: limited
availability in the public system; insufficient non-formal education options;
financial pressures leading children to work to contribute to family income;
and concerns regarding security on the way to and from school.83
In Latin America, several countries like Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica
and Ecuador have inclusive education policies for public primary and second-
ary education. Attending school, however, can be difficult for many displaced
children and youth. In Brazil and Colombia, for example, Venezuelan children
are much less likely to be in school than local children.84 Among the prac-
tical barriers hindering access to education are: inability to pay for incidentals;
pressures to earn an income; discrimination; language barriers; overcrowding
of schools; and limited access to computer devices and the internet.85 A lack
of necessary personal documentation can also be an obstacle.86
The efforts of a number of States to include forcibly displaced children in
national education programmes is a significant leap forward from just a decade
ago. Maintaining momentum depends on improving evidence-based deci-
sion-making and sustained funding in support of inclusive policies.
Evidence-based decision-making
There are significant data gaps in forced displacement contexts which, if
bridged, can help to inform government policy options, design effective
programmes, raise money for them, measure progress and make adjustments,
as necessary. The education sector is no exception.
Data collection generally needs to be strengthened, as discussed in Part V.
For education programmes, better data would provide area-specific inform-
ation concerning host and displaced children, with respect to their age,
gender, special needs and education achieved. It should include information
on household income since the costs of sending children to school or retaining

them in school can be prohibitive.87 The capacity of local institutions must also
be assessed to determine how best to accommodate displaced children, and
where efforts to strengthen capacities are needed.88
Host countries generally have education management systems, but most
are not required to include refugees or internally displaced persons. And many
do not.89 This can be due to the lack of political will. But it can also be due
to limited resources, difficulties in collecting data, especially in remote and
conflict-affected areas, weak infrastructure for storing and analysing data, a
lack of sufficient enumerators, and inherent difficulties in maintaining updated
data on populations that must move frequently due to conflict or climate.90
Faced with many competing priorities, the inclusion of refugees and inter-
nally displaced persons in education management systems may need to be
part of broader efforts to support national statistical capacities. Determining
what areas of data improvement are most impactful would help. Improvement
needs a context-specific approach, led by national education authorities, with
engaged schools and local communities. There should be international support,
as needed, with technical and financial assistance.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO), with other specialized partners, is working with education minis-
tries in fragile States and those affected by conflict to strengthen education
management information systems.91 There may be further potential for other
donors to strengthen data-inclusive systems as part of their funding for educa-
tion in crisis-affected countries.92
Clear evidence on the impact of interventions helps to ensure programmes
are efficient and effective. It is necessary for accountability to those they aim
to benefit and to those who fund them. Impact evaluations of education
programmes are common in non-conflict contexts.93 In forced displacement
situations, where tight resources tend to be directed at expanding or initiating
programmes, such analysis is often lacking.94 This leaves an absence of rigorous
evidence on what works and what does not.95
Bridging the gap can improve programme design. It can also help to address
anxieties that including forcibly displaced persons inevitably leads to worse
outcomes for local students. A study in Jordan revealed that an influx of Syrian
refugee students did not affect school enrolment or the retention of local
Jordanian students.96 Meanwhile, an assessment of maths, science and read-
ing scores of Turkish youths revealed that they had improved following the
arrival of Syrian refugees.97 The results of these studies can help ease tensions
in communities. Where studies find more negative trends, they can also be
important in making adaptations to interventions.
Financing and partnerships

Humanitarian and development financing for educating people forced to flee
is improving, although it remains far from meeting the need.98 The World
Bank and UNHCR recently estimated that close to $5 billion annually would
be needed to support inclusive education for all refugee children and young
people in low-, lower-middle, and upper-middle-income host countries,99
from pre-school through grade 12. That is less than one day of global military
expenditure.100 It is six times what is available currently for refugee education.
To date, most education for refugees has come from humanitarian fund-
ing. As mentioned, for many years it went to fund parallel education systems.
More recently it is increasingly prioritizing support for inclusive national
programmes. Humanitarian funding is raised and disbursed much more
quickly than development funding. But it is short-term, unpredictable and
often tightly targeted to specific interventions and situations. It is not designed
to provide the longer-term institutional support that inclusive and quality
education through national systems requires. To maximize impact, human-
itarian funding should complement development funding.
Development programmes are years in the making, through a process
of engagement and agreement between donors and national governments.
Their focus is on strengthening public systems. To maximize their benefits
for forcibly displaced and local children alike, it is vital to support this trans-
formational shift to inclusive, quality education in national systems.
Positively, funding for education in forced displaced contexts has risen
in recent years. In 2016, the Education Cannot Wait fund was launched to
support education in emergencies. Its funding has increased in successive years,
with over $138 million disbursed across 34 countries in 2020.101 A number of
long-standing global funding agencies for education have also introduced new
financing to address the needs of forcibly displaced and host communities.102
For example, through the World Bank’s International Development Asso-
ciation (IDA) special mechanisms for host communities and refugees, approx-
imately $330 million has been approved for education projects as of February
2021.103 The International Finance Facility for Education could also prove to
be important in forced displacement contexts. It aims to unlock at least $10
billion in new funding by 2030 for lower-middle-income countries, using
innovative financing mechanisms.104
The Global Compact on Refugees calls for financing to be predictable, flex-

ible, and multi-year and supportive of national inclusive education.105 Predict-
able funding is essential to plan and deliver strategies over more than the short
term. Flexibility is necessary to respond to new and challenging circumstances,
brought on by sudden crises, such as large-scale displacement or the COVID-
19 emergency. It also must be designed in a way that supports the move from
short-term humanitarian strategies to longer-term development initiatives.
This transition is vital to meet the ambitions of the Sustainable Develop-
ment Goals and the Global Compact on Refugees for education. The task
ahead is enormous. Strong and informed partnerships will be critical. Currently,
the mechanisms for planning and advocacy are diffuse. They include separate
forums for: development partners; partners supporting refugee education; and
partners supporting internally displaced populations. There are few cross link-
ages between them. Moreover, there is no means of comprehensively tracking
what partners receive for education, or where the funds are allocated.106
This complexity is not conducive to well-coordinated approaches or to the
mobilization of resources needed to maintain the advance towards those impor-
tant ambitions. It can lead to serious gaps in critical areas, creating difficulty
in understanding what works best to improve learning in a given context.107
Progress will be best served by country-led responses, where partners
contribute based on their comparative advantages, seeking agreed results
that can only be achieved in cooperation with each other.108 Partners with a
comparative advantage include those with technical expertise in education for
development as well as those with operational knowledge of forcibly displaced
communities and their education needs.
Sustainable change is more likely with leadership from State authorities.
The aim should be to support governments to set priorities, coordinate the
work of others and implement inclusive policies. Donors and specialized agen-
cies need to work more on unified advocacy, gathering evidence and efforts to
strengthen local capabilities.109
Humanitarian programmes will remain necessary in various circumstances.
They include the immediate period of a displacement crisis, given that devel-
opment funding generally has a much longer response time. But humanitarian
programmes should be designed as much as possible to facilitate the eventual
transition to the national system.
Education delivery through non-government systems may also be needed
when legal and policy barriers prevent access to national systems, or in contexts
where assistance cannot be channelled impartially and accountably through
national institutions. They also can be of added benefit for services to children
with specific needs.
In all contexts, however, consolidated approaches are required, supported
by partners with the right expertise and comprehensive understanding of the
specific needs, including those of refugees.110
The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic further show the need for robust,
well targeted and coordinated responses for education. COVID-19 has had
a disproportionate impact on poor and marginalized communities. Increased
financial pressures put added strains on children who may be compelled to
work.111 Additionally, many remote learning options are not available. The
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that 31 per cent of
schoolchildren around the world cannot be reached by digital or broadcast
remote learning.112 COVID-19 has brought to the fore the urgency of closing
the digital divide given the potential of online learning.
The task is challenging, especially in remote underserviced areas. The
Government of Kenya partnered with Alphabet Inc. and Telkom Kenya in
deploying Google Balloons carrying 4G base stations to remote areas without
internet access. But, after several years, the project was discontinued as it was
not possible to bring costs down to a sustainable level. In commenting on the
closure of the initiative, its chief executive observed that the “arc of innovation
is long and unpredictable”. He noted that, although they did not reach their
goal, the project had value in that it pioneered new software, enhanced existing
technologies, and strengthened cross-cutting partnerships.113
Some projects for enhancing internet connectivity have been able to reach
their intended goal. For example, UNHCR and mobile operators worked
successfully to introduce 3G and 4G coverage in northwest Uganda and there
are plans to implement similar programmes in other countries.114
The remote delivery of education materials mitigates learning losses during
school disruptions but is not a substitute for parental engagement, which is
known to improve outcomes. Given that home-based learning is likely to be used
more in the post-COVID-19 world, efforts to encourage and support paren-
tal involvement are also needed as part of the path to improve quality learning.
Overall, financing a holistic approach to education is needed,115 not least
to guarantee teachers. Shortages of trained teachers often occur in forced
displacement settings. More efforts are required to expand the supply of
qualified teachers including through appropriate salary structures, improved
teacher training and recognition of teaching qualifications of refugees to
address capacity gaps.116
The challenges ahead in reaching the education target of the Sustainable

Development Goals are significant, and particularly so for forcibly displaced
communities. But these should not detract from the significant gains achieved
over the past decade.
Education for all is globally recognized as essential to individual well-being
and national economic growth. A number of host countries have taken steps for
the inclusion of refugees and internally displaced persons in public education
systems and new financing instruments now support this. If governments have
the data and evidence needed to make informed policy choices, the financing
to implement and sustain them, and reliable partners, this positive trajectory
has a strong chance of continuing.
Health
Context
Health promotes learning, and poor health seriously compromises it. Ensur-
ing healthy lives and promoting well-being is the third goal of the Sustainable
Development Goals.117
Poverty is a major cause of ill health, and ill health is a significant cause of
poverty. A lack of financial resources can prevent a person from being able to
afford quality food or from seeking and receiving health care when needed.
A lack of proper nutrition in children affects mental and physical growth.118
Poor health not only inhibits learning but also the ability to find and hold a
job, maintain strong social relations and work towards a better future.119
In situations of conflict, poor health is not as visible a killer as bullets and
bombs. Yet, a lack of access to food, water, sanitation and medical care in these
contexts can lead to high levels of mortality.120 Thousands of forcibly displaced
persons die or are incapacitated each year due to the spread of communicable
diseases, such as diarrhoea, and acute respiratory infections.121 As the COVID-
19 pandemic has made abundantly clear, communicable diseases can sweep
through large communities with devastating force.122
Deaths due to non-communicable diseases are more insidious. Among
their causes are respiratory, cardiac, renal and neurological conditions as well as
forms of cancer. Many are treatable. Yet, in most forced displacement contexts,
care is often unavailable, inaccessible and/or unaffordable, which can lead to
severe disability and premature death.
Providing adequate health care to forcibly displaced persons is an enormous
challenge and often at best only partially met. Health interventions can be rela-
tively expensive compared to other forms of assistance, like food and shelter.
Some treatments are simply unaffordable, especially ones that require a referral
to specialists and/or the hospital. There are simply not enough funds to meet
needs, leaving humanitarian health programmes to make very difficult choices.
This means a life and death decision cannot always be made in favour of life.
Health care for refugees has mainly been delivered outside national systems.
But this parallel provision is not sustainable, as the number of displaced persons
increases and most live among local populations. Over time, the health-care
needs of forcibly displaced populations become more similar to those of
their hosts, and less specific to the immediate circumstances of their flight.123
In recent years, inclusivity and integrated service delivery through national
systems have become the focus. With it, economies of scale can be realized in
merged services. Delivering health care through existing public systems can
improve it for displaced and local communities alike.124
The importance of inclusive health systems also forms part of a 2021 policy
brief submitted by several academics to the High-Level Panel on Internal
Displacement.125 It is also the approach promoted in the Global Compact on
Refugees, which recognizes the importance of ensuring health care is supported
by expertise and resources from States and other relevant partners.126 That could
mean building and equipping health facilities, strengthening service delivery,
and investing in disease prevention and immunization services. Other exam-
ples include support for adequate supplies of affordable medicines, vaccines,
medical supplies and diagnostics.127
It has taken many decades to develop such clear and high-profile acknowl-
edgments of the value of inclusive health care in displacement situations, and
they are important. But, while inclusivity in health care shares its significance
with inclusivity in education, there has been comparatively less study of it, and
fewer comprehensive efforts to support it. This is only beginning to change.
Evolution
Health interventions for forcibly displaced persons from the 1960s to the 1990s
were concentrated in camps, set up to respond to mass influx situations. Health
programmes were focused on two imperatives. The first was food assistance, to
stave off starvation and illness.128 The second was the prevention of diseases,
notably malaria, respiratory tract infections and diarrhoeal diseases.
As displacement numbers grew in the 1980s, the efficacy of the established
health interventions was brought into question, especially due to the relatively Saleema Rehman,
a 28-year-old
high mortality rates within the first year of an emergency. Evidence from Afghan refugee
refugee situations in Somalia, Sudan and Thailand and internal displacement in the final year
of medical
in Ethiopia between 1979 and 1985 showed significantly high deaths among training, works
refugees and internally displaced persons. Mortality rates were between 7 and on the postnatal
ward at Holy
45 times higher than local populations.129 Family Hospital
In 1990, a review published in the Journal of the American Medical in Rawalpindi,
Pakistan in 2019.
Association suggested that relief programmes were failing in too many cases. © UNHCR/
The authors observed several systemic problems, including deficiencies in the Roger Arnold
dietary composition of food rations, inadequate water and sanitation systems

as well as insufficient immunizations.
In addition to addressing these lapses, the authors argued for policy objectives
that eventually became standard. These included health information monitor-
ing systems, increased engagement of forcibly displaced persons in prevent-
ive health measures, using financial resources to strengthen host countries’
capacities and identifying alternatives to closed camps for displaced people.130
At the time the 1990 review was published, the global health community
had already embraced a preventive approach to health care, drawing in part on
the experience in rural China.131 It focuses on good health and full engagement
of the community in its promotion. It covers nutrition, water and sanitation,
accommodation, environment, stress and lifestyle.
Known as the Primary Health Care model, it was launched glob-
ally at an international conference in Kazakhstan in 1978. Convened by
the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF and attended
by delegates from 134 States, and health experts from around the
world, it resulted in the Alma-Ata Declaration that remains relevant
to this day.132 The Declaration stresses the importance of primary health
care to “physical, mental and social well-being”. Over 40 years later, it
is recognized as the most cost-efficient and effective health delivery mecha-
nism, including in forced displacement contexts.133
Advances and Ongoing Challenges
Primary health care

The value of the primary health-care approach was evident in some of the initial
efforts to understand and remedy the relatively high rate of death and overall
poor health of female refugees. Their comparably inferior health conditions
were a focus at the International Consultation on Refugee Women in 1988
and of a 1994 study by the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC).
Among the main causes of poor health were inequitable food distribution
practices, preferential feeding practices that discriminate against women and
girls, and food aid which did not account for women’s specific nutritional
requirements. Additionally, inaccessible health services, lack of comprehensive
sexual and reproductive health care, and sexual abuse and family violence were
other contributory factors of poor health.134
Recommendations from the conference and from the WRC report included
a broad range of actions to ensure better physical and mental health and psycho-
social interventions. These ranged from tailored guidance on diet, comprehen-
sive maternal and reproductive health services, safe accommodation, clean
water and sanitation, and the engagement of women in project design and
implementation.135 They were acted upon in subsequent years.
An important element for the success of preventive efforts is community
involvement. Greater understanding and acceptance of habits and practices
to promote good health can often avoid the need for costly therapeutic inter-
ventions. Achieving this can be difficult in forced displacement contexts. Exp-
erience has shown that preventive measures may not be seen of value since the
benefits are not immediate. Engaging community members to provide outreach

on the importance of diet, clean water, sanitation, vaccines and reproductive
care can help to overcome barriers.
The COVID-19 pandemic illustrated the value of community engagement.
Across several countries, forcibly displaced people engaged in responses. These
included delivering food, medical and other support to vulnerable refugees
and host families.136 In some countries they formed part of national and local
government efforts.137
Gender-based violence and reproductive health responses

In the 1990s, a greater awareness developed of the prevalence of gender-based
violence in displacement contexts. Sexual assault, human trafficking, harm-
A Colombian
refugee survivor
of sexual and
gender-based
violence receives
ful traditional practices, forced and early marriage, and increases in domest- help in 2019 at
ic and intimate partner violence were more widely documented, notably in the Fundación
Casa de Refugio
the context of conflicts in Africa, the refugee exodus from Vietnam, and the Matilde in
Balkan Wars.138 Ecuador, a local
women’s rights
Over time, expanded efforts to prevent and respond to gender-based organization.
violence and a focus on reproductive health needs became permanent features © UNHCR/
Jaime Giménez
of primary health-care services. The objective is timely treatment for sur-
vivors of gender-based violence, comprehensive reproductive health services
and community-based prevention efforts.139 The extent of coverage in forced

displacement contexts continues to be driven by available resources, which are
often insufficient.
Alongside these responses, measures to prevent violence and discrimination
based on gender, sexual orientation and identity, have been integrated into all
aspects of humanitarian interventions beyond health services.140 For example,
accommodation and settlement areas are designed and equipped in a manner
that reduces risks, such as providing lighting at night and secure places to
shower, clean clothes and collect water. Other measures include working with
community leaders to stop harmful practices, engaging authorities to prose-
cute crimes, providing income support to avert child marriage, and facilitating
means for survivors to securely report incidents and receive immediate care.141
Communicable disease prevention

Measures to prevent the spread of communicable diseases were among the first
to show inclusivity in health care. An example in the 1980s involved efforts
to combat the spread of tuberculosis.142 Since then, refugees and internally
displaced persons have been covered by a number of host community testing
and treatment programmes.143 In later years, the same approach was applied
in the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS.
Early studies found that population movements during conflict could in
certain circumstances contribute to the spread of HIV/AIDS as could blood
transfusions and the use of non-sterilized implements and procedures in
these contexts.144 Further studies showed that refugees were often incorrectly
assumed to be more infected when, in fact, they generally had lower or similar
HIV prevalence as compared to host populations. This misconception exac-
erbated discrimination.145
In 1994, the United Nations established the Joint United Nations
Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) to expand resources for combatting
the spread of the disease and to consolidate approaches within United Nations
participating agencies and the World Bank.146 States are part of its governance
structure. This work helped HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment become part
of health responses in situations of forced displacement.147
Nonetheless, the inclusion of forcibly displaced populations in national
strategies to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis remains uneven.
This was the finding of the UNHCR/United Nations Foundation study that
reviewed applications for funding to The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tubercu-
losis and Malaria (the Global Fund).148 The Global Fund provides a significant
proportion of international funding for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

The review revealed that, even among countries with large internally
displaced populations, references to them for malaria and tuberculosis preven-
tion and response had dropped dramatically from 2014 to 2019.149 Similarly,
proportionately fewer mentioned refugees or internally displaced persons in
their HIV/AIDS-related activities. The report was careful to point out that
failure to mention these groups specifically did not necessarily mean that they
were excluded.150 However, it did recommend that United Nations country
teams press for forcibly displaced populations to be included and that Global
Fund technical teams make this a consideration in their funding decisions.151
The COVID-19 pandemic has presented similar, yet more far-reaching,
challenges. Worldwide, it has disrupted access to regular health services.152 Key
preventive measures, such as masks, handwashing testing, and social distancing,
are not available in many displacement contexts. As one senior official in Yemen
lamented, displaced communities often live in close quarters with many to a
room, have no access to clean water or soap and cannot afford to miss work.153
More encouragingly, most States are working to include refugees and
internally displaced persons in their vaccination strategies.154 Yet, massive
global disparities in access to vaccines are leaving middle- and low-income
countries behind, heightening their risks and deepening their COVID-19-
related losses.155
Mental health
Attention to mental health support for displaced persons has significantly
increased over the past two decades. In the health field, there is grow-
ing evidence of how mental health affects physical health, learning and job
retention.
Forcibly displaced persons have sustained enormous losses: their homes,
assets, communities and livelihoods. Many have experienced severe violence or
torture, witnessed family members killed or disappeared, and seen explosions
shatter their houses and neighbourhoods.156
Their trauma can be exacerbated by the stresses of displacement: lack of
income; barriers to education; loss of family or social networks; inadequate
accommodation; discrimination; and uncertainty for the future.157 These pres-
sures are often compounded for individuals with specific needs, such as those
who have experienced abuse, unaccompanied children, former child soldiers,
and persons with physical and mental disabilities.158
Two comprehensive reviews of epidemiological studies in the refugee
mental health field were conducted in 2005 and 2009. They revealed that
refugees had an elevated risk of post-traumatic stress and depression, although
the prevalence and rates varied considerably across contexts. This was due, in
part, to the different methodological approaches used.
Nevertheless, they all were largely consistent in identifying post-flight
stressors that impact mental health and in illustrating that post-traumatic stress
and depression were higher among refugees exposed to torture or severe trauma
as compared to non-refugee populations.159 Similar findings emerged in studies
Rohingya refugee
Shahina Begam,
45, in Bangladesh
in 2014 holding
the shirt of her
son, Mohammad involving internally displaced populations.160 Based on available data, a 2019
Unus, 18, who study co-funded by WHO estimated that approximately one in five people
is imprisoned
in Myanmar. living in conflict-affected areas suffers from a mental health condition.161
© UNHCR/ Unfortunately, there remains limited data and analysis on important areas of
Saiful Huq Omi
mental health in displacement contexts. These include psychosis, substance use/
abuse and age-related disorders, such as dementia and degenerative conditions.
More positively, mental health has been integrated into primary health-care
approaches. For over a decade, there has been considerable effort in aligning
approaches to mental health in emergencies and humanitarian contexts. In
2007, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee issued guidelines for addressing
mental health and the provision of psychosocial support in emergencies.162
In 2013, UNHCR published operational guidelines on programmes for
mental health and psychosocial support.163 This was followed by joint WHO
and UNHCR guidance for addressing and managing acute and post-traumatic
stress and grief in settings where there is no specialized care.164 The guidance is
inclusive of addressing “mental, neurological and substance abuse conditions”.
Recognition of the importance of mental health in forced displacement
situations and agreed guidance for humanitarian agencies are important
developments. But serious challenges in comprehensively treating mental
health problems remain in many contexts and there is a need for rigorous
assessments of the impact of current programme methodologies. There is also
a need for accompanying education to help remove stigmas that can prevent
people from seeking help when available.
Broadly speaking, there are a few dominant methodologies. Counselling
and psychotherapy are the common methods accompanied by the use of
specific medications for severe mental illnesses.165 Social programmes are
also a means to establish connections, foster support and help in overcoming
displacement losses.166 Programmes have also been designed to help those
with specific needs, such as survivors of gender-based violence and former
child soldiers.167
These treatments and humanitarian programmes very much depend on the
availability of resources and trained professionals. As Hippocrates is reported
to have said: “Healing is a matter of time but also of opportunity.”168
Where there is a scarcity of trained medical professionals, efforts have been
made to train lay or community workers, including displaced persons in the
treatment of common mental disorders, such as post-traumatic stress, anxiety
and depression. There is potential to build on these initiatives and integrate the
approach where possible in public health systems.169 This, as well as other mental
health interventions, requires ongoing supervision and mentoring of front-line
workers. This can be difficult in many locations where even remote supervision
is stymied by intermittent or nonexistent internet or phone service.170
To date, there have been few long-term impact assessments in forced
displacement contexts to determine the effectiveness of approaches to
mental health and the treatment of mental illness in these contexts. Simi-
larly, there is not enough evidence to know the extent to which mental health
problems associated with flight and displacement become chronic and disa-
bling over time.171 These are evidentiary gaps that require prioritization
in the coming years.
The more comprehensive approaches taken through the primary health-care
model have led to broader health coverage in forced displacement situations.
Yet, the impact very much depends on the resources available for their imple-
mentation, which are always stretched. So, even when emergency and primary
health care are prioritized, the content and quality of care can vary.
Specialized care
Global health data reveals that deaths from non-communicable diseases are
responsible for 74 per cent of all deaths worldwide.172 In contrast, communi-
cable diseases are among the chief causes of excess morbidity of refugees and
internally displaced persons in low-income countries.173 However, recent
years have also seen an increased prevalence of non-communicable diseases,
especially among older forcibly displaced populations in middle-income
countries.174
Globally, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, and respiratory disease
are among the leading causes of death.175 Major risk factors include unhealthy
diets, smoking, physical inactivity and mental health conditions.176 Many
common risk factors are often present among forcibly displaced populations.
And, for those who already suffer from non-communicable diseases, these
factors can exacerbate their illness. Without proper care, these illnesses lead
to premature death.177
Primary health-care interventions can help to manage certain non-
communicable diseases, like diabetes and hypertension, by assisting those
afflicted to mitigate the risk factors that aggravate their disease.178 Other
disorders, however, such as renal and cardiovascular disease and cancer,
may require treatments or complex surgeries that can be unavailable in remote
forced displacement settings. Even when offered in urban environments,
they can be prohibitively expensive. Humanitarian health budgets are
generally insufficient to cover these costs.
UNHCR confronted these challenges during the Kosovo crisis of the 1990s,
and the Iraq crisis of the following decade. In both situations, a high proportion
of refugees suffered from chronic diseases.179 Refugees were largely displaced
in urban areas where treatment was available but costly.
UNHCR and partners had to decide how to best honour the long-held prio-
ritization of emergency and primary care in the face of compelling requests for
more costly specialized treatments. It was a stark dilemma: how to maximize the
health of the greatest number of individuals, while permitting equitable excep-
tions for those with specific needs?180 Guidelines were developed on how to
make these tough choices, and Exceptional Care Committees set up to do so.181
The first Exceptional Care Committees were established in Iraq. On the
basis of predetermined guidance and criteria, such as prognosis and cost, the
Committees consider individual cases and make independent decisions on
whether to refer the individual for treatment.182 The Committees are comprised
of medical professionals and engage refugees with medical backgrounds to
communicate and facilitate understanding of the process and constraints with
refugee communities.183
This is not to suggest that an Exceptional Care Committee removes all
ethical dilemmas in determining who gains access to specialized care. What
it does is try to assure that tough choices are guided by a set of clear criteria,
implemented consistently and transparently, communicated and discussed
with affected communities. They are not yet in widespread use because, in
many operational contexts, there are insufficient resources to support even a
minimum number of chronic care interventions.184
Other responses are required, especially since displacement situations are
more protracted, populations in displacement are ageing, and the incidence of
chronic diseases is likely to increase in the future. It has led some to explore
alternative funding models, including subsidized insurance schemes, as a possi-
ble means to respond to ongoing needs.185
Supporting Sustainable Inclusion
Evidence-based decision-making
In camps, where health services are provided by UNHCR and/or non-govern-
mental partners, health data is relatively easy to collect. In these situations,
health tracking systems and disaggregated data collection help achieve better
health assessments, more targeted interventions and improved decisions on
where scarce resources should be allocated first.
For example, improved epidemiological tracking systems can quickly detect
disease outbreaks when they initially occur, leading to early treatment, isola-
tion of cases and general protection of the non-infected populations. Yet, most
forcibly displaced people do not live in camps. Many are located in urban or
adjacent areas, relying on local health services, or a combination of those and
humanitarian services. That makes systematic monitoring and data collection
more complicated.
In many contexts, there is no local capacity for detailed data tracking
and analysis for host communities let alone internally displaced persons and
refugees. Many national health registries do not have a detailed tracking of
diverse sub-categories of populations. In these contexts, household surveys
are a tool to assess the health of displaced and host communities and obstacles
they face in accessing health care.
UNHCR has employed Health Access and Utilization Surveys in
Lebanon and Jordan and started to roll these out in other urban situations.186
The surveys provide insight into how refugees access health services over
time, the costs of accessing them and the barriers faced. This, in turn, informs
advocacy and interventions aimed at overcoming challenges. It is a promising
development, but far short of what is needed for strengthened and inclusive
health systems overall.
Financing
In several countries, States report including refugees in their national health
policies and systems. However, many refugees are unable to access them due
to their inability to pay the fees for services, as well as due to discrimination,
language barriers and, in some cases, long distances to health facilities.187
Few countries include refugees in their national insurance schemes, and these
often require the payment of a premium which can be beyond the abilities of
refugees and internally displaced persons to pay.188
Low- and middle-income countries are not in a strong position to ensure
refugees have access to basic services without additional funding to support
their effective inclusion. Comprehensive information on increased financing
to support inclusive health systems in displacement is not readily available. The
World Bank, however, reports on some of its major and innovative contribu-
tions in this regard.
After the major influx of Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh in 2017, the
World Bank set aside $50 million for health programmes in Cox’s Bazaar
where some 870,000 refugees are residing.189 The programmes include health
tracking and data systems, education materials and medical supplies for the
benefit of both refugee and host communities.
The World Bank has similarly approved $36 million in grants and credit
for Pakistan, to support district health services in regions with high numbers
of refugees. Other host countries that are receiving additional support include
Cameroon, Djibouti, and Mauritania.190 Overall, 15 per cent of the over
$2 billion which the World Bank has provided in support of refugees and host
communities since 2017 under its International Development Association’s
special mechanisms has been approved for health services.191
Proposals have also been put forward to complement financing schemes with
innovative tools which distribute risks among a wider group of stakeholders
(including private sector investors) and utilize mechanisms, such as catastrophe

bonds, to cover crisis-affected countries in case of an emergency.192 Financing
forced displacement responses is discussed more in Part V.
Good health is recognized as a key element in strengthening human capi-
tal which, in turn, supports sustainable solutions for displacement. Despite
the progress made, there remain areas where further health advancements are
necessary. They include expanding community approaches to preventive health
and treatment, improving efforts to ensure mental health is systematically cov-
ered, and effectively including the forcibly displaced in national health services.
Research and academic interest in health in displacement are expanding193
which, together with improved data systems and analysis, promises to enrich
the evidence base for enhancing programme design, delivery and impact. This
should help promote the consensus that moving from providing displaced
people with parallel health systems to including them in the wider national
care services is a more effective, equitable and sustainable approach.
Economic Inclusion
Context
The right to work is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human

Rights,194 the 1951 Convention, and the International Covenant on Economic
Social and Cultural Rights.195 But, once again, it is often respected more in
theory than practice in regard to forcibly displaced persons.
Work is important for survival, to restore a sense of dignity and acquire skills
that can improve life prospects. It also reduces dependency on aid. The inability
to work legally can also drive individuals to cope in ways that are harmful to
themselves or to others. These include resorting to survival sex, requiring chil-
dren to earn wages, and marrying off daughters at a young age. In the absence
of formal work, forcibly displaced persons are driven to the informal sector.
There, they compete with low-skilled local workers, often disproportionately
affecting less educated and female workers.196
Many refugees and internally displaced persons face challenges in find-
ing work. Common difficulties include a lack of employment opportunities,
especially in remote or conflict areas. They also may have lost productive assets,
such as livestock, tools, vehicles, and documentation needed to earn a liveli-
hood.197 Discrimination by local officials and employers, language barriers and
disruption of social networks can also hinder the ability to find employment.198
And, those who are displaced from rural to urban environments, or vice versa,
may find their skills are not in demand.199
Forcibly displaced persons tend to have lower levels of physical and mental
health than host communities. As discussed, this can be due to the experiences
they endured prior and during flight, and the conditions in which they reside,
such as insecure residence, a lack of adequate accommodation, food and health
care. This can negatively impact their ability to find and retain work.
Many displaced families have lost their wage earner, with households
headed by women often disproportionally represented. Human capital can be
diminished for those who have been out of work for some time. They may not
be favourably considered by employers due to their long unemployment.200
Additionally, and most commonly, refugees face legal barriers which restrict
their ability to move and their right to work. In fact, 70 per cent of refugees
reside in countries where they face restrictions on their right to work, including
countries with relatively few refugees.201 This limits their ability to use their
skills and entrepreneurship to benefit local economies.
Even where refugees have the right to work, this can be seriously limited.
For example, where legal work is conditional on obtaining a work permit,
permits can be subject to conditions and costs that refugees are unable to
meet.202 A lack of recognition of education certificates and professional quali-
fications can be additional obstacles.203 And the inability to access language
or skills training can also impede the ability of forcibly displaced persons to
improve their employment prospects.
Forcibly displaced persons also encounter serious difficulties in starting
their own enterprises. Refugees can be prohibited by law from engaging in
business. Even when legally permissible, a lack of individual documentation
can be a limiting factor. This can leave individuals unable to open bank accounts,
receive money transfers or benefit from loans.204
As noted earlier, in most host countries, refugees comprise less than 1 per
cent of the population.205 Yet, governments often assert that legal limitations
on refugees’ right to employment and ability to move freely are necessary to
protect the local labour market and welfare of host populations.206 The effects,
discussed later in this section, can exacerbate existing disparities. Restrictions
can drive refugees to concentrate in the local informal sector, often under more
exploitative conditions than nationals.207 Depending on the size of the influx,
this may result in lower wages and unemployment of local workers in the
sector – consequences the restrictions exacerbate rather than avoid. When
refugees are permitted to work, they tend to work in more diverse occupations.208
While most refugees do not have the means to move elsewhere, the lack
of opportunities can lead those who have some financial capital to move further
afield. This generally means engaging smugglers and traffickers to help them
move to other countries, risking their lives in the process.209
Many host countries are also concerned that measures that improve the
lives of refugees, such as legal work, will inevitably reduce their readiness to
return home, prolonging their displacement. This is a pervasive perception even
though multi-generational restrictive policies in host countries have not led
to significant refugee returns.210 This is because conditions in the country of
origin, notably safety and security, are what attracts refugees to return home,
as noted in Part III. Negative drivers, such as dismal and unforgiving living
conditions in exile, can be push factors but without peace and security, return
is generally unsustainable and further displacement follows.
Security is another frequently cited reason for constraining refugee
movement and employment and for the reticence to receive internally
displaced persons favourably. There is often a presumption that an influx of
forcibly displaced persons will lead to increased crime and conflict in host
communities. A review of situations between 1991 and 2014 suggests that this
has only been the case in exceptional situations, as a result of a mix of factors.
The risks are less when refugees are not confined to camps which can be
infiltrated by armed individuals and groups. It is the responsibility of the
government to ensure that camps are for civilians only and weapons-free: a
responsibility that some host governments have been unwilling or unable to
meet.211 In internal displacement situations, threats to national security tend
to emanate from the conflict with evidence suggesting that it generally has not
spread to hosting areas.212
Perceptions that underpin host countries’ reluctance to accept the economic
inclusion of refugees persist. But these are being tested as more studies are
undertaken to reliably assess the economic impact of forced displacement
on host communities. This is an encouraging trend. It should support more
context-specific policy advocacy and self-reliance strategies than has previ-
ously been possible.
Evolution
For most of recorded history, refugees given safety in regions beyond their own
were expected to fend for themselves and make an economic contribution.
Examples in Europe from the 12th century through World War II (WWII)
show how economic potential was a major consideration of States granting
refuge, as discussed in Part I.
The drafting deliberations for the 1951 Convention also reveal that, for the
United Nations, the aim was to ensure that refugees could rebuild their lives
and become independent and integrated into their new societies.213 The 1951
Convention itself commits States to facilitate as far as possible the assimila-
tion and naturalization of refugees. It recognizes the rights of refugees to move
freely and to individual identity and travel documents. It provides minimum
standards for the treatment of refugees, such as access to the courts, to educa-
tion, and to work.214
In the decades following the 1951 Convention, many host countries
encouraged and enabled refugees to be self-reliant, especially in Africa.215
Rising refugee numbers, however, were also met with increasing restrictions
on employment. Where self-employment was permitted, it was often confined
to specific areas or subject to restrictions limiting refugees’ ability to work in
the formal sector.
Humanitarians have long advocated for host States to recognize the right
to work for refugees. Meanwhile, interventions to improve livelihoods for refu-
gees and internally displaced persons focused on skills development or lending
mechanisms to support small self-employment enterprises. They aimed more at
improving access to jobs than on development interventions needed to create
jobs. There has been little in the way of quantitative evidence of their impact.216
In fact, the evidence available on vocational and skills training points to
many of these interventions falling short of their ambition.217 Until relatively
recently, they were not systematically informed by an assessment of the legal
environment, the skills in demand, and the ability and willingness of forcibly
displaced persons to attend the training.218
There is also limited evidence on the impact of interventions to strengthen
self-employment and entrepreneurship among forcibly displaced populations.
In their comprehensive review, Schuettler and Caron found that, in a few cases,
loans to refugees led to increased incomes.219 Similar positive outcomes have
been noted in qualitative studies concerning internally displaced persons in
Azerbaijan and Uganda, who benefited from microfinance.
However, the authors note that these examples are not necessarily indicative
of positive outcomes overall. Most microfinance in low- and middle-income
countries has not led to increased profits because of short and inflexible repay-
ment periods.220 They point to evidence that suggests that graduation-type
programmes that include cash grants to help build assets, business or entrepre-
neurship training, as well as coaching and financial inclusion, are more likely
to yield positive results for refugees and internally displaced persons.221
As discussed in Part III, efforts to attract development investments in
forced displacement contexts had limited success. In the 1980s and 1990s,
these included the International Conferences on Assistance to Refugees
in Africa (ICARA I and II) and the International Conference on Central
American Refugees (CIREFCA). In the new millennium, several other
initiatives were launched, such as Development Assistance for Refugees,
Development through Local Integration, and an integrated relief to devel-
opment approach for sustainable repatriation.222
There were some modest results, but these initiatives did not mark a signi-
ficant change in global orientation or resource allocation. That has come only
relatively recently, and largely in the wake of the Syria crisis that began in
2011. Since then, strengthening human capital in displacement and signifi-
cantly increasing development assistance to countries hosting large numbers
of forcibly displaced persons became more of a shared global priority.
This is reflected throughout the Global Compact on Refugees. Drawing
on the Sustainable Development Goals, the Compact recognizes the need for
“shared and inclusive economic growth in refugee-hosting areas from which
all can benefit”, through additional development support and contributions
from the private sector.223
Jobs and entrepreneurship are among the specific areas where the Global
Compact on Refugees seeks to improve outcomes for host communities and
refugees.224 They are also areas where more development financing is being
directed, supported by a growing body of evidence regarding economic impacts
on host communities of receiving large numbers of forcibly displaced persons.
This expanding evidence base is helping to inform what kinds of policies
are beneficial in a given context, and what types of interventions are needed to
improve economic prospects for forcibly displaced persons and their hosts.225
Local Labour Market Impacts
High-income countries
There are many studies on the effects of refugee influxes on wages, productivity
and economic growth in high-income countries. They include examinations of
some of the major refugee influxes from the 17th century to the present day.
Zara Sarzin’s study provides a comprehensive review of these.226 While debate
is ongoing, there seems to be an emerging consensus that, by and large, host

countries have been able to absorb large numbers of refugees with little to no
effect on average wages or overall employment of native workers.
For example, the arrival of over 125,000 Cubans to Miami during the
Mariel Boatlift of 1980 has been found not to have negatively affected local
employment. Similarly, the arrival of over 1 million Jewish refugees and
migrants from the former Soviet Union to Israel in the 1990s also is reported
to have had no adverse impact on local wages or employment. 227
Tim Julian, the

Mayor of Utica in
New York State,
credits refugees
with saving “entire
neighbourhoods” Decades later, the influx of asylum-seekers to Germany between 2015
of the US city in and 2016228 was found not to have negatively affected host workers. Initially,
2005. “We can’t
put a price on refugees had difficulties in finding jobs. However, within five years, they
this,” he said. integrated faster than previous influxes. Approximately half have repor-
© UNHCR/
Vincent Winter tedly found work, around 50,000 were doing apprenticeships, over 10,000
were enrolled in university, and three quarters of the arrivals lived in their
own accommodation and felt welcome in Germany. The financial cost to the
German Government is reported to be likely recovered in taxes sooner than
anticipated.229 According to a report commissioned by the Government,
more than half of all Germans are reported to have supported the arrivals
in some way.230
There have been a few documented exceptions to the general findings noted
above. Ethnic Germans who fled or were expelled from East and Central
Europe to Germany in the wake of WWII were largely absorbed by the local
labour market but did have a negative effect on the employment of host commu-
nities in some areas. These were areas where the refugees exceeded 15 per cent
of the native population.231
This was also the case when over half a million Portuguese citizens moved to
Portugal from its former colonies during the colonial wars of the 1970s. Their
arrival coincided with a significant reduction in military employment at the
time. The combined effect of these two events led to an increase in the labour
force by 15 per cent, and a consequent fall in labour productivity and wages of
native workers.232
Conversely, in other contexts, evidence suggests that employment and wages
for native workers improved following the arrival of a large number of refugees.
This was the case in Denmark in 1986 and 1998. Refugees concentrated in
low-skilled employment, and less educated native workers moved from manual
intensive occupations to more cognitive ones.233
Many studies point to the fact that the negative effects dissipate over time
and positive effects take hold over the longer term. Among the factors that
contribute to this is when forcibly displaced populations introduce new skills,
production expands and/or workers of the host communities move to more
skilled and higher wage-earning employment.234
These findings are important and can help to inform broader discussions
concerning the impact of the refugees on high-income countries. This is particu-
larly important in countering populist claims that refugees are a drain on these
societies. Yet, while some 17 per cent of refugees are located in high-income
countries, the remainder are hosted in low- and middle-income countries.235
These contexts are very different.
High-income countries overall receive far fewer refugees than low- and
middle-income countries and have greater capacity to absorb them. They
have lower rates of unemployment, more effective labour market regulations,
better working conditions, favourable business and investment climates and
refugees are generally able to work legally and move to areas where they are
more likely to find employment. They are also often assisted with other inte-
gration services, such as language classes, support to find accommodation, and
job-seeking assistance.236
Low- and middle-income countries

There is a growing body of literature on the labour market consequences of
forced displacement in low- and middle-income countries.237 It points to
several factors that influence how communities are impacted by the arrival
of large numbers of forcibly displaced persons. As the following examples
illustrate there can be both positive and negative consequences which, as with
other impacts, can depend on pre-existing conditions, the size and composi-
tion of the influx, and the policy choices of the government.
Middle East
Turkey
The majority of recent empirical analyses in this area has been in the context
of Syrian refugees in Turkey. Between 2012 and 2020, over 3.6 million Syrians
fled to Turkey.238 The arrival of Syrians led to some market changes in receiving
communities. Demand for goods and services increased, as did labour compe-
tition in the informal sector, particularly in construction and agriculture.239
Several studies found that this concentration in the informal sector led
to job losses of local workers while findings on wages are mixed.240 Evidence
of job losses were particularly pronounced in regions where refugees were
more highly concentrated, such as border areas.241 Local workers with low
education levels, younger and female were most negatively affected.242
At the same time, employment in the formal sector increased slightly for
local workers and highly educated Turkish workers moved from manual to
more complex occupations.243 It has also been suggested that the positive effect
on formal employment did not last beyond the initial years and was reversed
once the initial set-up of reception facilities was over, and Syrians began to
disperse throughout the country.244
Several studies point to a sizable increase in small- and medium-sized
enterprises started by Syrian refugees. In 2018, the Economic Policy Research
Foundation of Turkey reported that approximately 10,000 companies had
been established by Syrians since 2011, providing a living for an estimated
250,000 Syrians: 7 per cent of the Syrian population in Turkey.245
Overall, the influx of Syrian refugees to Turkey had both negative and
positive effects on the economic outcomes of host communities. In areas
where Syrian refugees were concentrated, there was a decline in employment
of local workers, particularly in the informal sector. Meanwhile, prices of
housing, transportation and some goods increased.246
More positively, production expanded to meet increased demand for goods
and services,247 new enterprises emerged, average consumer prices fell,248 and
wages of local workers overall remained largely unaffected.249
Lebanon
The Syrian conflict had a massive effect on Lebanon. It led to a considerable
loss of trade and tourism, and interrupted capital flows – mainstays of the
Lebanese economy.250 Together with internal political insecurity, this led
to investor uncertainty and weakened economic activity.251 In addition, the
conflict provoked mass displacement, with Lebanon receiving over 1 million
Syrian refugees by 2014.252
A welfare study of Syrian refugees published by the World Bank in 2016
found that Syrian refugees lived in precarious situations and 70 per cent were
poor.253 Unable to work legally, unemployment rates of Syrian refugees were
far higher than Lebanese.254 Employed Syrians concentrated in the informal
low-skilled sector, which led to job losses among vulnerable Lebanese. This
negative effect was partially compensated by the increased economic activity
driven by rising consumption and international aid.255
Lebanon was therefore faced with a struggling economy, political
uncertainty and growing vulnerability among impoverished Lebanese and
refugees. As a middle-income country, Lebanon was not eligible for conces-
sional finance granted to low-income countries by multilateral develop-
ment banks. New financing instruments, such as the Global Concessional
Financing Facility established in 2016, were designed to help countries
impacted by a refugee crisis, such as Lebanon, address the associated chal-
lenges by providing support to infrastructure and service delivery and helping
stimulate economic growth.256
Jordan
In Jordan, the number of Syrian refugees also steadily increased from 2012
and, within two years, reached 600,000 persons.257 Today, some 81 per cent of
Syrian refugees in Jordan live among Jordanian communities, with the remain-
der living in three large refugee camps in the north of the country.258
Two economic studies reviewed the impact of Syrians on the Jordanian
labour market through 2016.259 Jordan experienced economic challenges
prior to the Syria conflict. These were related to the global financial crisis
of 2008–2009 and the economic impact of the Arab Spring.260 The Syrian
conflict also affected trade and tourism. Economic growth rates declined and
poverty rates increased.261 The influx of Syrian refugees compounded the chal-
lenges. Government expenditures increased to meet additional demands on
water, electricity and sanitation, as well as health and education services, which
were each made available to Syrian refugees.
The two studies found that the influx of Syrians had no significant negative
effect on wages or employment of Jordanian workers. Syrians were prohib-
ited from working, and those who found work in the informal sector largely
competed with migrant labourers. Refugees were not entitled to move freely,
which may have also limited the ability of Syrian workers to access jobs.
Moreover, improved employment opportunities for Jordanians, as a result of
the presence of international agencies and increased spending on health and
education, may have increased the demand for Jordanian workers.262
A recent World Bank study examining the regional consequences of the
Syrian conflict reached similar conclusions. In Jordan, it found that while
labour force participation of Jordanians decreased and unemployment
increased between 2010 and 2016, it was not on account of the Syrian influx.
In fact, Jordanian unemployment rates were lower in areas with high refugee
concentrations.263
Moreover, research conducted for the World Bank Group’s Refugee Invest-
ment and Matchmaking Platform (RIMP) found that Syrian businesses
contributed to the Jordanian economy, particularly in the areas of food process-
ing, chemicals and pharmaceutical manufacturing, trade, real estate and hospi-
tality. In 2019, there were over 1,600 Syrian-owned businesses in Jordan and
over 10,000 with at least 50 per cent Syrian ownership. It was also estimated
that capital invested by Syrians in Jordan had reached $240 million in 2017.264
In 2016, Jordan reached an agreement with several donors to improve
education and employment opportunities for refugees and provide needed
financial support to Jordan. Known as the Jordan Compact, the European
Union (EU) and multilateral development banks265 pledged over $2 billion in
grants and low interest loans to Jordan and Jordan agreed to facilitate access
to employment and education of Syrian refugees.266 As with other compacts
of its kind, it involves multi-year commitments by the parties in areas of policy
reform and financial investments.267
The $700 million in grants and $1.9 billion in concessional loans were
linked to specific targets, such as the granting of 200,000 work permits to
Syrian refugees in certain sectors and measures to ensure Syrian children were
able to attend public schools. The European Union agreed to provide Jordanian
companies in special economic zones with easier access to European markets
provided they met a hiring target of 15 per cent Syrian refugees.268 Business
reforms to help formalize Syrian businesses were also among the terms.269
Access to education improved under the Compact. However, the work
permits were initially slow to be put in place due to a number of factors
including lack of knowledge among refugees and employers. Fees and restric-
tions on applicable sectors also created disincentives for both.
It was difficult for businesses in the special economic zones to ensure 15 per
cent of the workforce were Syrian refugees. The zones were far from where most
Syrian refugees lived, had poor transportation links, and wages were often lower
than could be earned in the informal sector. It was anticipated that Syrian job
gains in these zones would benefit women garment workers. This expectation
was not realized due to the remoteness of the zones, lack of required skills,
social norms that did not encourage Syrian women to work outside the home,
and the absence of childcare.270
For employers, the Compact initially did not result in significant benefits.
Many employers preferred to maintain their largely migrant workforce rather
than hire Syrian refugees. They were also often unable to meet EU export
standards, and some were not incentivized to do so because they already had a
market in the United States.271 Measures to improve access for Syrians to open
businesses also did not initially deliver intended outcomes as the conditions
to register a business remained too onerous for most Syrians to meet.
Several adjustments were subsequently made, such as waiving work permit
fees, de-linking permits from specific employer sponsorship, expanding the
sectors in which refugees are permitted to work and increasing the flexibil-
ity of work permits to enable workers to move jobs within specific sectors.272
By the end of 2020, over 200,000 work permits were issued to Syrians,273
with research indicating that possessing a work permit had a positive impact
on income, sense of security and overall socioeconomic conditions.274 Tariff
reductions were extended to firms outside the special economic zones and the
Government made it easier for Syrians to run home-based businesses without
the necessity of having a Jordanian partner.275 This approach aimed to lower
barriers for women to formally engage in business opportunities.276 Further
analysis will be needed to assess the full impact of the changes.277
The experience pointed to the importance of a thorough contextual analysis.
This includes a market analysis, an understanding of the skills and constraints
facing refugees in employment and business creation, as well as the ability of
firms to meet qualification standards of intended markets.278 Ensuring critical
stakeholders, notably refugees and employers, are consulted early on can help
avoid potential implementation difficulties.279
The Jordan Compact continues to be regarded as an important initiative that
has resulted in more Syrians entering the formal labour market and provid-
ing needed support to Jordan affected by the crisis in Syria. It is seen as an
innovative departure from previous approaches, not least because it linked

financing to meet agreed protection targets and shifted the focus from short-
term responses to sustainable investments aimed to be of economic benefit
to both Jordanians and refugees. It marked a shift in Jordanian Government
policy, enabling agencies for the first time to expand livelihoods and skills
programmes for Syrian refugees.280
Latin America
Colombian internal displacement

In 2016, the Parliament of Colombia approved the peace agreement between
the Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC),
bringing the over 50-year civil war to a formal conclusion. The conflict, which
began in the 1960s, saw rising levels of internal displacement, with some 7.4
million persons internally displaced by the time of the peace agreement, accord-
ing to Government statistics.281
A number of studies have examined the wage and employment impact of
internally displaced persons in receiving municipalities. Several have pointed
to adverse effects concentrated in the informal sector, with a fall in wages in
the short term, especially in regard to low-skilled jobs.282 After several years,
there is no overall effect on wages, which could be due to an increase in local
residents moving to other areas. However, the negative effect on low-skilled
women was found to be more prolonged. Among the reasons for this is that
while they can adapt to a new labour market, they face more competition and
tend to have less flexibility to move elsewhere than others.283
Venezuelan displacement
Since 2013, millions of Venezuelans have left their country mostly for other
countries in the region. At the end of 2020, there were some 5.4 million
Venezuelan refugees and migrants globally, the majority of whom were hosted
in the region.284 This has been in response to a severe economic crisis, politi-
cal instability, chronic shortages of basic goods and services, criminality, and
violence.285
A number of studies have examined the economic impact of displaced
Venezuelans in host countries. One examined the short-term impact and
found that, between 2013 and 2017, Colombian host communities witnessed
a decline in local wages in the low-skilled informal sector, with young work-
ers and low-skilled men particularly affected. Lower wages also corres-
ponded to higher poverty levels. The effect was concentrated in urban areas.286
In 2018, Colombia enacted a new policy: to regularize over 400,000
undocumented Venezuelans. Over 60 per cent of those eligible applied and
received a renewable two-year visa, Permiso Especial de Permanencia (PEP),
which entitled them to work and access public services.2 8 7 An economic
study on the impact of the programme found that it had no significant effect
Carmen Sánchez,
a Colombian
refugee in
Ecuador, shows
the bread she
on hours worked, monthly wages, employment and labour participation of is baking at her
home to sell
Colombians in the formal or informal sectors. It also found a small positive it in the local
impact on the formal employment of Venezuelan workers.288 Esmeraldas area
in 2021.
Ecuador has received over 400,000 Venezuelans who comprise over 2 per © UNHCR/
cent of the population. Their arrival corresponded to a difficult economic period Jaime Giménez
induced by the 2014 fall in oil prices. This led to a decrease in government
revenues, a reduction in spending and economic growth. GDP stagnated and,
by 2016, had fallen.289
Most Venezuelans moved beyond the border areas to high-income
regions of the country.290 A study of the labour market effects reveals that
employed Venezuelans were concentrated in the informal sector. While over-
all their presence did not affect employment prospects of local workers, there
were negative impacts on the quality of employment and income of young,
less educated Ecuadorians. They experienced lower wages and/or fewer hours
of work compared to similar workers in areas of the country that had far lower
concentrations of Venezuelan workers.291
Depending on the policy choices of the Ecuadorian Government, the
authors noted that the inflow of workers could spur investment, the creation
of new businesses, and economic opportunities over time. They recommended
the consideration of granting formal labour market access to Venezuelans to
help lessen the concentration in the informal sector, while contributing to
increased productivity of Venezuelan workers and entrepreneurs.292
In 2021, Ecuador announced a new regularization policy for Venezuelans
in the country, to be complemented by economic integration and labour market
access.293
Africa
The examples from the Middle East and Latin America examined the labour
market outcomes as a result of the influx of forcibly displaced persons. The
case studies presented below from Africa examine the effect on livelihoods
and welfare.294
The policy context in each host country varies. In Kenya and Tanzania,
governments have restrictive refugee policies, requiring refugees to reside
in camps and limiting legal work. In contrast, Rwanda and Uganda
have promoted the social and economic integration of refugees and host
communities.
Tanzania
In 1993–1994, Tanzania experienced two large influxes of refugees. In 1993,
over 250,000 Burundian refugees fled to western Tanzania, followed by a
similar number of Rwandan refugees the next year.295 Numbers continued to
grow and, by 1995, there were 830,000 refugees in Tanzania, over 90 per cent
from Burundi and Rwanda.296 The refugees were concentrated in the north-
west Kagera region, one of the poorest in the country, with a local population
of some 1.5 million persons at the time.297
Refugees were accommodated in camps and had to seek permission to
leave them to work or trade. To benefit from services, they had to return to the
camps in the evening.298 Several studies have looked at the impact of the refu-
gee influx on local communities, showing both positive and negative effects.299
The settlement of so many refugees led to environmental degradation, with
trees and shrubs cut mainly for firewood. Various water sources were deplet-
ed.300 Some casual workers were paid less due to increased competition from
refugees.301 Prices of certain commodities increased, benefiting suppliers but
hurting Tanzanians on low fixed incomes.302 And, while child labour initially
decreased following the influx, likely due to an increase in household welfare,
the rates increased again after 10 years. This could be a result of increased
demand for agricultural labour.303
At the same time, increased demand led to expanded local markets, helping
suppliers in and beyond the camp areas.304 New businesses were created,305 and
infrastructure, health and sanitation services in the region improved largely
as a result of the increased presence of international organizations. Add-
itionally, farmers benefited from lower labour costs and increased prices for
their commodities. Non-agricultural workers experienced an increase in job
opportunities and higher wages, principally in humanitarian organizations.306
On balance, the refugee presence had a persistent positive economic effect
on the local population,307 but it was not evenly distributed. The more vulne-
rable Tanzanians did not benefit equally. Several studies concluded that educa-
tion and microfinance opportunities could support those most negatively
impacted to cope and adapt to the new conditions.308
Kenya
For over three decades, Kenya has been one of the largest host countries on
the African continent. Today, the country hosts more than 500,000 refugees
and asylum-seekers, with some 84 per cent living in camps in its northwest
and eastern areas.309 A joint World Bank-UNHCR socioeconomic survey in
2018, found that in Turkana County in the remote northwest, refugees and local
residents “are among the worse off in Kenya”.310 It is susceptible to extended
periods of drought and consequent famine.311
Two studies published in 2016 and 2018 examined the economic impact
of refugees in Turkana County.312 It hosts some 216,000 refugees or about 40
per cent of the national total. Refugees comprise approximately one fifth of
Turkana County’s population.313 In a refugee camp near the town of Kakuma,
more than 50 per cent of the people are from South Sudan, with most of the
others coming from Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.314
Receiving permits to work outside the camps is extremely difficult, which
means that refugees within them depend on food aid, remittances, and any
income they earn from their own businesses or employment opportunities
within the camp.315
A long- The studies found that Kakuma’s refugee camp has a more vibrant market
established
community than the town itself and is better connected to other major markets than most
of Burundian towns in the wider county. Goods come from other regions, often through
refugees thrives
in the Tanzanian Somali firms located in Kakuma town. The camp market is open to the host
village of Lukama community, who come to both buy and sell goods and services.316
in 2008 and
hopes to do Within the camp, Turkana workers are employed in security and domestic
even more service, construction, maintenance and clerical work. Members of the Turkana
when granted
citizenship. community also supply basic necessities, such as charcoal, firewood317 and live-
© UNHCR/ stock.318 The studies observed that members of the Turkana community who
Brendan Bannon
lived near the camp benefited from the presence of refugees overall in terms
of income, employment and nutrition.319
The benefits to the local community, however, were unevenly distributed.
Farmers and wage earners, for example, experienced long-term asset growth Ishimagizwe
Eliana, a 23-year-
which was not the case for those who raised livestock. They did not benefit from old pregnant
rising prices, largely because they sell through brokers who charge a commis- refugee from
Burundi, in the
sion.320 The studies concluded that further economic integration, alongside shop she runs in
targeted interventions to assist local populations, would help.321 Kalobeyei village
in Kenya in 2020.
In 2015, the Kalobeyei settlement was established within close proximity © UNHCR/
to Kakuma, with the aim of promoting refugee self-reliance and social cohe- Samuel Otieno
sion. In it, land is allocated for homes and household gardens. Cash is provided
directly to residents, enabling them to purchase materials for housing and other
goods. To help build good relations, members of the local community also
live within the settlement.322
There were relatively fast and broad positive outcomes, some of which
became evident within the first 15 months of Kalobeyei’s operation.323 A study

undertaken in 2017 found refugees there had improved nutrition and sense
of autonomy compared with residents in the Kakuma camp. But improve-
ments in self-reliance were curtailed by the same constraints experienced by
refugees in Kakuma: an absence of access to financing, and laws restricting
the right to work and to move.324 This suggests that the impact of efforts to
improve self-reliance is diminished when such basic limits remain.
This is consistent with findings of the 2018 UNHCR-World Bank socio-
economic survey of conditions of refugees and host communities around
Kalobeyei. It concluded that improving programmes and interventions for
both refugees and hosts could enhance their well-being. Examples provided
include more investments in building and maintaining human capital and
programmes to improve agricultural self-reliance for better food security.
Increased work possibilities and more favourable business environments could
be supported by partnerships with financial institutions as well as the private
sector to promote refugee-led business and create employment opportunities.325
Uganda
Uganda stands apart from most host countries. Its policies support the self-
reliance of refugees with a range of long-established open and inclusive
measures.326
It hosts over 1.4 million refugees, most from South Sudan.327 Refugees
are allowed to move freely, work, own property and businesses and can access
national services. In dedicated settlements, they receive a plot of land to live
on and cultivate.328 The settlements are remote, but people are free to move out
to find employment, although they then lose access to almost all humanitarian
assistance, which the Government limits to the settlements.329
A study of the economic impact of refugees on the population of Uganda
between 2002 and 2010, found that poverty levels among Ugandans living
near refugee settlements declined.330 During this time, Uganda hosted on
average 209,000 refugees, the majority from the Democratic Republic of the
Congo.331 Households also benefited from improved education services and
infrastructure, findings which when published in 2016,332 showed similarities
to studies undertaken in Tanzania.
But it also found that host communities perceived that they were worse off.
They felt that, compared to refugees, they had been neglected by the Govern-
ment.333 Thus, while the overall effects were positive, they were unevenly
experienced. Some groups faced competition from refugee labour, and increased
demand for health services came without deeper Government investment.

Such findings highlight the importance of helping members of the host
community adversely affected by an influx and making efforts to foster better
understanding between the local community and the displaced.334
Rwanda
A study published in 2019 examined the influence that Congolese refugees
had on the labour market activity and household welfare of host communi-
ties in Rwanda. It is based on data from 2016, when Rwanda hosted 156,000
refugees of whom 73,000 were from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.335
They resided primarily in five camps throughout the country. The study
analysed household survey data collected from three Congolese refugee camps
and surrounding areas.336
It observed that refugees had access to basic health care, water and sanita-
tion. Refugee children attended school in local communities or exceptionally
in camp-based schools which follow the national curriculum.337 Refugees also
had the right to move and to be employed. However, the right to move out of
the camps and work was subject to formal procedures and costs that can be
difficult for refugees to meet.338 This was found to increase their dependence
on assistance for prolonged periods of time.
Rwandans living near refugee camps were more likely to have moved from
subsistence agriculture into wage employment. This may have been due to their
being better able to hire low-skilled labour to maintain farming or livestock
production and take up other opportunities. Local women living near the
camps had a higher likelihood of being self-employed, and proximity to the
camps also correlated with greater household asset ownership.339
Overall, host communities near the camps did not perceive their situation
to be worse than before the refugees arrived. Nonetheless, neither did they
perceive a net benefit, despite evidence to the effect that there was.340
Another related study found that, in relation to education, school attendance
and education outcomes for local children living near the camps were higher
than for those elsewhere. Locals living near the camp positively viewed the
effects of refugees on education and appreciated the Government’s investments
in education in these areas.341
Sudan
In 2003, armed groups in the Darfur region rebelled against Government
policies that disadvantaged the non-Arab population. Repression by
Government forces and the Janjaweed militia led to tens of thousands of deaths
and mass forced displacement. By 2011, the number of internally displaced
persons reached over 2.4 million persons, rising to 3.2 million in 2015.342
Most lived in camps adjacent to major cities and were heavily dependent
on food assistance. In many areas, the number of internally displaced persons
was larger than that of local populations.343
The conflict caused the collapse of rural economic activities. And, while
demand for goods and services rose in internal displacement areas affected
by conflict, so too did competition for low-skilled jobs, according to a study
published in 2015. The urban economies were not able to easily absorb the
increase, and recently arrived internally displaced persons faced unemploy-
ment.344 However, local residents had a higher probability of being employed
in skilled sectors compared to those in cities outside conflict areas, and a lower
likelihood of being unemployed.345
To help address the impact on the host areas, the authors suggested prefe-
rential employment opportunities for the most vulnerable or heavy investments
in securing the periphery of cities to allow for more agricultural production.
This would be a source of employment for low-skilled and unemployed work-
ers and help reduce food shortages.346
Consolidated Findings
The findings of these country studies are consistent with a broader review
published by the World Bank in 2019. It found that there are long-term posi-
tive effects from the arrival of forcibly displaced persons, while the negative
impact dissipates over time. It puts the chances of an overall negative impact
for host communities at less than 20 per cent.
The review examined the results of studies on the economic impact of
forced displacement on host communities conducted over the previous 29-year
period. It examined 762 results related to employment, wages, prices and
household well-being.347 Measures of well-being included levels of income,
consumption, accommodation, assets and poverty. In regard to well-being,
the results pointed to positive or insignificant change over 80 per cent of
the time.348
As country-specific studies show, prices can increase or decrease. Those for
food and rent tend to rise, while those for labour-intensive services or products
fall. Employment and wages showed similar variation, with close to two thirds
of results showing no significant changes. Positive and significant improve-

ments are documented in up to 20 per cent of the results, with up to 25 per cent
of the cases pointing to negative and significant results, mostly experienced by
young and informal workers.349
While the research suggests that, over time, the positive effects remain rela-
tively constant, and the negative impacts wane, longer-term work is needed
to better understand the prevalence of these trends.350 More in-depth reviews
are also needed to determine the extent to which forcibly displaced persons
are socially and economically integrated over time.351
For refugees, the findings are clear on the benefits of legal employment: It
removes the insecurity of being fined, detained or arrested for working. Formal
work tends to be higher paid. Incomes increase over time and opportunities
to be self-reliant are enhanced. It can also encourage further investment in
personal development because it increases the likelihood of acquired skills
being put to use.
Refugees who are productive and have improved incomes support the eco-
nomy through their spending and payment of taxes.352 They are better able to
provide for themselves and their families and build the human capital essential
for sustainable solutions.
Legally recognizing the right to work removes a disincentive some employ-
ers may have in employing those who are not authorized to work. This could
help raise refugee employment rates.353 However, because informal markets
in low- and middle-income countries tend to be large, refugees and internally
displaced persons may remain in the informal sector, especially those with
fewer skills.354
Loss of wages or employment for local workers needs to be addressed
through skills training or social protection programmes, integrated into
national poverty-reduction strategies and supported internationally as a mean-
ingful form of burden-sharing.
Achieving socioeconomic inclusion and improved outcomes for host
and forcibly displaced communities is complex. It requires deep appre-
ciation of the local context, including the structure of the economy, related
laws and policies, economic trends and potential for growth. It also requires
information on the economic impact of conflict and forced displacement,
and the relative skills and capacities of displaced and host populations.
Interventions to improve human capital in displacement need to be based
on reliable, context-specific data, analysis and “evidence of what works and
at what cost”.355
The 2030 Ambition

Rwandan International cooperation frameworks for responding to forced displacement
teenager Anethe
Cyuzuzo (left) are focused on more than ensuring safety. They also seek dignified lives and
and her best improved futures for people forced to flee. That has often been elusive.
friend Irikungoma
Bellaca (right), from National policies and practices have frequently undermined the ability of
Burundi, displaced persons to overcome their losses, improve their lives and make a
are educated
together at a contribution to the communities in which they live. Global recognition that
school in Mahama forced displacement is as much a development imperative as a humanitarian
refugee camp,
Kirehe, in eastern one has only come recently.
Rwanda in 2018. The explicit inclusion of refugees and internally displaced persons in the
© UNHCR/
Georgina Goodwin Sustainable Development Goals is a significant and promising turning point
reflected in two of the four objectives of the Global Compact on Refugees:
easing the pressures on host countries and enhancing refugee self-reliance.
These objectives are more likely to be met

if education and health services are inclu-
sive and economic growth is facilitated.
In less than a decade, significant and
financially supported policy changes
have already facilitated improved access
to education for forcibly displaced
populations. Improved and inclusive
public education can provide powerful
benefits for displaced and host comm-
unities. Consolidating gains and the
experience and evidence they provide may be
the best way of ensuring that this approach
spreads. Progress is usually incremental with
global policy initiatives.
Compared to education, inclusive
health-care provision has seen fewer global
initiatives and investment. Nonethe-
less, progress in preventive and commu-
nity health care has been significant.
Communicable diseases are best controlled
by national and local health strategies that
do not discriminate between displaced and
local communities.
Considerable and recent economic study into the labour market effects
of forcibly displaced persons also provides clarity. It should help set a new
direction for national policy: to facilitate lawful work, rather than inhibit it.
Most of the time, this brings net benefits. But measures may also be necessary
to mitigate the impact for some within host communities.
This path to inclusivity in education and health care and openness in labour
markets depends on context-specific data, analysis and evidence. We need
considerably more of these. The countries most affected by conflict-driven
displacement face pre-existing economic and development challenges, which
can be exacerbated by the arrival of large numbers of forcibly displaced
persons. These countries need evidence of the benefits offered by a broad
and inclusive development agenda – and how its risks can be mitigated –
before they can be expected to embrace it. This requires strengthened technical
capacity and additional development support.356
Table of Contents
284 Financing
286 Humanitarian Financing
287 Financing for Development
293 Private Sector Investments
299 Other Innovative Financing

PA R T V
304 Enhancing the Evidence Base
Bridging 305 Content and Collection
The Gap 308 Strengthening Capacities
311 Impact Evaluations
313 Partnerships
314 Forcibly Displaced People
318 Local Actors and Authorities
324 Private Sector
329 Academics
334 Accountability
334 International Criminal Prosecution
343 National Criminal Prosecution
349 Independent Fact-Finding

Bridging the Gap
Previous page: “Don’t let me become a beggar” was the simple plea from a recently arrived
Venezuelan
mother Jenny Tigrayan refugee in an emergency displacement camp in eastern Sudan. Speak-
Hernandez ing to a visiting delegation, he mentioned his education, skills and desire to
teaches her son
how to use a independently support himself and his family.1 He did not want to be relegated
protective mask. to a path of dependency and despair, but to be able to use his skills to provide
It was donated by
UNIQLO as part for himself and his family.
of a much larger A large number of forcibly displaced people have been trapped on that
contribution
which UNHCR dependency path, as this book has shown. Many have reached safety but strug-
has distributed gle to restore dignified lives or hope for better futures. This book has focused
to persons
of concern on that gap in outcomes, and the changes needed to close it. There is signif-
throughout Latin icant work ahead to ensure that the Tigrayan refugee in eastern Sudan, and
America and the
Middle East. so many like him, have opportunities to become self-reliant, contribute to the
© UNHCR/ community and invest in the future. His ambition was simple, but fulfilling
Eugenia Paz
it is not easy.
A significant shift in policy orientation is needed. For many years, most
governments receiving large numbers of forcibly displaced persons have viewed
their arrival as a security issue, and a temporary phenomenon which needs to
PART V / BRIDGING THE GAP 283
be contained until the people leave. Camps have been erected and other restric-
tions have prohibited social and economic inclusion with host communities.
Humanitarian agencies have adapted to these situations. Facing short-term
and limited funding, agencies do what they can to ensure people are safe and
their basic subsistence needs are met. Their development counterparts, focused
on more sustainable development-oriented responses, are engaging more in
forced displacement contexts. But they often arrive after the initial architecture
has been established, which is difficult to dislodge.
Mihret
Gerezgiher, 25,
fled from Ethiopia
and is a trained
construction
engineer
The 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (1951 Conven- and teacher,
volunteers
tion) was written with a view to refugees having agency over their futures. The with UNHCR
Global Compact on Refugees seeks to realize this. To improve self-reliance in Sudan’s
Tunaydbah
in displacement, the full support of host governments is definitive. They need camp in 2021,
evidence that changing the decades-old approach of containment will benefit overseeing
construction and
their communities. helping other
This requires deep and context-specific analysis. It needs to cover the likeli- refugees access
medical care.
hood of displacement being protracted, the socioeconomic status of displaced © UNHCR/
and host communities, as well as the economic impact on different members Ahmed Kwarte
of affected communities. It should outline the opportunities if the right policy
frameworks are in place.
In Part V, we look at some of the factors necessary for this change. Financing
needs to be much more robust, predictable and broader based. Improvements

are needed in data, evidence and analysis. Better use should be made of the
comparative advantages of the wider group of stakeholders that are now
engaged. Part V ends by looking at accountability, another important aspect
of improving responses to forced displacement.
Financing
Meeting the needs of forcibly displaced people requires significant financial
resources for both humanitarian assistance and development support. They
have different objectives yet are complementary.
Humanitarian assistance sets out to “save lives, alleviate suffering and main-
tain dignity during and in the aftermath of man-made crises and natural disas-
ters”.2 It helps to meet immediate needs, such as safety, food, water, shelter,
and health care. Increasingly, it has been relied on to support lives and welfare
over protracted periods of time. Long durations have strained its reach and
effectiveness. It is not designed to provide medium- and longer-term support
for forcibly displaced persons or the communities in which they live. Neither
is it sufficient for it.
The level of humanitarian funding has increased in the last decade, but
so too has the global level of humanitarian needs. United Nations entities
and their partners often make requests to donors for humanitarian funds
jointly, through consolidated humanitarian appeals. These grew by 300 per
cent between 2011 and 2020, from just under $10 billion to close to $39
billion. Contributions also rose but never by enough: On average, 60 per cent
of consolidated humanitarian appeals were funded from 2011 to 2019, falling
to 52 per cent in 2020 with the emergence of COVID-19.3
Over 95 per cent of humanitarian funding for a number of years has come
from 20 donors, and three of them contributed over half of the total.4 The need
for additional high-income States to contribute more remains a pressing one.
More positively, humanitarian financing from private sources has increased
in recent years. Individuals, businesses and philanthropic foundations are
becoming strong partners in supporting relief efforts. As of 2019, 22 per cent
of international humanitarian funding was from private sources.5 Over two
thirds of this came from individuals, with 14 per cent provided by corporations
and trusts.6 These sources of funding are expected to grow.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, an additional 19 million more people
were in need of humanitarian assistance in 2020, but funding did not keep
pace.7 The financial repercussions of COVID-19 will continue. This makes the
shift away from a heavy dependance on humanitarian assistance towards more
sustainable development responses more urgent.
Development support focuses on reducing the poverty among forcibly
displaced persons and their host communities. Development financing aims
to advance sustainable socioeconomic improvements in lives over the medium
and long term. This work includes advising host countries on policy options for
inclusive development. Development financing can support reforms necessary
to: foster economic growth and job creation; invest in infrastructure; strengthen
service delivery and skills training; and support measures to help offset the risks
that can be an obstacle to greater private sector engagement.
Forced displacement crises tend to require complementary humanitarian
and development approaches, because they are rarely short in duration. Yet,
their funding is typically dominated by humanitarian interventions. The move
towards using a development approach has gained traction only in recent years,
after decades of advocacy.
There are several reasons for the traditional reliance on short-term human-
itarian funding. For many years, forced displacement situations were regarded
as temporary. Refugees were expected to return to their countries. Many host
countries and donors were reluctant to acknowledge the protracted nature of
displacement and the need to shift to longer-term funding.
Additionally, development financing is oriented towards sustain-
able approaches, including support for forcibly displaced persons to become
economically self-reliant. Many host countries have legal impediments to
refugee self-reliance, including restrictions on their right to move freely and/or
to work. Given the acute needs of their own citizens, low- and middle-income
countries often are reluctant to support the inclusion of refugees in develop-
ment programmes. They have also been concerned that refugee employment
will come at the expense of locals and will discourage refugees from returning
home, as discussed in Part IV.
As a consequence, the costs of forced displacement have been largely calcu-
lated on the basis of what was needed to meet short-term humanitarian needs.
The full costs to host States of protracted displacement were not systematically
captured.8 The cost to refugees and their home countries, in terms of their
human development losses, was neglected.
This began to change in 2015, with the Syria situation, and the increased
refugee arrivals in Europe. It was then that the exceptional scale and costs of
a major refugee emergency became more fully visible. The financial architec-
ture for forced displacement began to shift in a meaningful way. This section
looks at this potentially transformative change, shown by the rapid growth of
financing instruments, new partnerships and approaches.
Increased humanitarian and development funding is crucial to improve
responses to forced displacement. So too is using resources effectively and effi-
ciently. Both are priorities within the Global Compact on Refugees.9
Humanitarian Financing
The need to expand humanitarian funding and diversify funding sources was
a central focus of the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit, convened by then
United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon. The aim of the Summit was
to improve international humanitarian action for people caught in crises and to
improve the financial architecture. Nearly all United Nations member States
participated along with some 9,000 delegates. It resulted in the Agenda for
Humanity, including a Platform for Action and some 3,500 commitments.10
By this time the High-Level Panel on Humanitarian Financing, appointed
by the Secretary-General in 2015, had issued its report and recommendations.
Although it focused on humanitarian funding, it also acknowledged the need
for deeper use of development approaches.
The Panel called for a “Grand Bargain” between donors and humanitarian
organizations, a term which found resonance. Donors agreed in principle to
provide more predictable, multi-year and unearmarked humanitarian fund-
ing, with reduced reporting burdens. In exchange, humanitarian organizations
agreed to cut duplication and management costs and work more closely with
development partners. They would also enhance the capacity of local partners
while making greater space for them. Humanitarian organizations agreed to
improve joint and impartial needs assessments and to be more transparent on
funding received.11
The Panel predicted that these reforms would lead to greater efficiencies,
eliminating certain costs and freeing significant resources for frontline delivery.
The New York Declaration of 2016 reflected the Grand Bargain’s ambition of
ensuring adequate, flexible, predictable financing for the immediate humani-
tarian response and longer-term development needs.12 It was picked up again
in the Global Compact on Refugees of 2018.13
To date, the $1 billion in projected savings from the Grand Bargain have not
been realized.14 Annual independent reports on progress reveal that ownership
and accountability for the commitments have varied among signatories. The
bulk of engagement has been driven by a core group, although the latest report
indicates that, in some areas, more signatories have increased their efforts.15
On the donor side, humanitarian funding remains unpredictable,16 although
there has been some progress in increasing multi-year financing and reducing
the restrictions or “earmarks” placed on financing.17 A simplified reporting
template has been agreed, but it is not used by most donor signatories.18 There
has also been little progress in securing new bilateral donors.19
Humanitarian organizations have expanded the use of a method widely
recognized as cost-efficient: multipurpose cash-based programming. As well,
implementation has increasingly been delegated to local partners, although at
levels below the original goal for the overall share of funds.20 There has been
greater transparency for the funding received by humanitarian entities, and
they have improved the quality and frequency of joint needs assessments, eli-
minating duplication and helping align priorities.21 Independent reviews also
point to the need to further build the capacities of local implementers and to
reduce duplication and management costs.22
Financing for Development
International development assistance to low-income countries is provided on

“concessional terms”, through grants and low-interest loans to State and local
government actors. Funding largely comes through international financial insti-
tutions (IFIs), including multilateral and regional development banks,23 and
bilaterally from high-income countries. It is negotiated through a lengthy process
of assessment and dialogue with recipient countries, with a multi-year imple-
mentation time frame. It aims to support interventions to sustainably alleviate
poverty, generate economic growth and reduce reliance on external aid.
The World Bank has helped to lead the shift to increased development
support to forced displacement situations. In 2009, it established a Global
Program on Forced Displacement (GPFD) Trust Fund which, for several
years, focused on how to bring development approaches to forced displace-
ment contexts. In 2017, it published Forcibly Displaced: Toward a Development
Approach Supporting Refugees, the Internally Displaced, and Their Hosts.24 This
was the first comprehensive articulation of specific challenges faced by these
communities as well as a guide on how development actors can support policies
and interventions to overcome them. In step with its publication, the World
Bank opened a new financing mechanism for that purpose.
International Development Association (IDA) specific mechanisms

The new mechanism is part of the International Development Association
(IDA). Through the IDA, the World Bank provides grants and low-interest
loans to the world’s poorest countries. The loans have an extended repayment
period of 30–40 years. It is one of the largest sources of development assistance
of its kind. In recent years, annual commitments averaged over $29 billion in
the past three years.25 IDA priorities include support to policy and institutional
reform, investment in human capital in the areas of education, health, water
and sanitation, as well as infrastructure to help economic growth, job creation,
poverty reduction and better living conditions.26
IDA has been in operation since 1960. A new IDA mechanism, IDA18
Regional Sub-window for Refugees and Host communities, is a means to
provide additional support to low-income countries hosting large numbers of
refugees. The funding is on top of IDA regular allocations and is designed to
create medium- and long-term development opportunities for both refugees
and hosts. Through it, the World Bank provides $2 billion in concessional
development financing.27 A second, IDA19 Window for Host Communities
and Refugees, will finance up to $2.2 billion in operational support, close to
half of which will address the impacts of COVID-19.28 These mechanisms also
have facilities to encourage private sector investments in concert with other
institutions of the World Bank Group (WBG).29
The funding is contingent on countries adhering to an adequate framework
of protection for refugees and agreeing to take concrete steps to advance solu-
tions of benefit to them and the communities in which they live. This includes
efforts to facilitate the socioeconomic inclusion of refugees.
So far, 14 countries have benefited from the first mechanism for
refugees and host communities.30 In Ethiopia, as discussed later in this Part, it is
supporting the Government’s new policy towards greater socioeconomic inclu-
sion of refugees.31 It has similarly been supportive in the development and
implementation of the Strategic Plan for Refugees in Rwanda which includes
increased access to services and economic opportunities. In several other coun-
tries, such as Cameroon, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Mauritania, Niger,
and Uganda, the financing supports the inclusion of refugees in various national
health, education and social protection progammes.32
IDA funding is not available to middle-income countries. Yet, as the last
decade has illustrated, they too have been hard hit by displacement crises.
In 2016, some 58 per cent of refugees and asylum-seekers were in middle-
income countries.33
Global Concessional Financing Facility

To assist these countries, in 2016, the United Nations, the Islamic Devel-
opment Bank (IsDB) and the World Bank created the Global Conces-
sional Financing Facility (GCFF).34 It provides low cost, long-term loans to
middle-income-countries hosting large numbers of refugees. It achieves this
by mobilizing grants from donors and then uses the financing to provide loans
at rates that are lower than normal for middle-income countries. In this way,
every $1 in grants can unlock $3–4 in low-interest loans. The Facility now has
The Soto family

from Venezuela
on World
Refugee Day in
2021 in Ecuador
nine supporting country donors and the European Commission. The imple- as the announced
regularization
mentation is supported by four multilateral development banks (MDBs) and of an estimated
the United Nations.35 At the end of 2020, the facility had disbursed close to 300,000
Venezuelans is
$660 million in funding, unlocking $4.8 billion in concessional support for about to make
projects in Colombia, Ecuador, Jordan and Lebanon.36 their stay official.
© UNHCR/
The financing focuses on improving infrastructure, job creation and service Santiago
delivery for the benefit of host communities and refugees. It was a source Escobar-
Jaramillo
of financing for the Jordan Compact, discussed in Part IV, which helped
to improve education, employment and entrepreneurial opportunities for
Syrian refugees while supporting the Jordanian Government in the process.37
In Colombia, the financing helped to support the Government’s adapta-
tion of policies towards displaced Venezuelans. In 2021, Colombia initiated
the granting of 10-year Temporary Protection Status (TPS) and a path to per-
manent residency, with attendant rights to work, as well as access to school
and health services.38 Similar positive results have accompanied the funding to
Ecuador. It has provided budget support across several ministries for inclusive
service provision as Ecuador too revises its policies to regularize Venezuelans
and for their economic integration and labour market access.39
Multilateral Development Bank Coordination Platform

Another significant milestone was the 2018 launch of the Multilateral Devel-
opment Bank Coordination Platform on Economic Migration and Forced
Displacement. Its members include six major regional MDBs and the World
Bank. At the 2019 Global Refugee Forum, they endorsed the vision of the
Global Compact on Refugees for additional development financing in support
of inclusive socioeconomic growth of refugees and host communities.40
Members pledged to increase financing that benefits forcibly displaced
and host communities, with a focus on resilience and social cohesion, provide
financial support more rapidly and foster the engagement of the private
sector in situations of forced displacement.41 Among the priority areas for the
Coordination Platform are: a common framework for engagement; sharing of
data, evidence and knowledge; and strategic coordination with governments,
United Nations agencies and other partners.42
OECD International Network on Conflict and Fragility (INCAF)

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
was founded in 1961. It is an inter-governmental organization and forum for
policy dialogue and the sharing of promising practices. Its stated ambition is
to support resilient, inclusive sustainable growth and economic progress world-
wide.43 It currently has 38 members, mostly high-income countries.
Within the OECD, the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) is
the leading international forum for aid and development policy.44 For the first
time, in 2019, a network of DAC members adopted a Common Position on
supporting comprehensive responses in refugee situations. It contains several
principles, including to: promote the inclusion of refugees in national and/
or local service delivery and development strategies; support interventions
of benefit to host communities and refugees tailored to specific contexts; and
expand flexible financing mechanisms for timely and sustainable responses.
The Common Position acknowledges the benefits of blending humanitarian,
development and peace interventions early on as a crisis unfolds.45 The
collective adoption of these principles forms a basis to launch coordinated

action with the aim to put them in practice.
These efforts are a significant signal of how major development donors
have recognized their comparative advantage and relevance in forced displace-
ment contexts. Before this, their involvement was episodic. Now it is expected
that they will engage governments and partners more systematically, providing
guidance and operational support in a coordinated manner.
Application
In addition to the World Bank, other multilateral development banks
are demonstrating their commitment in tangible ways. For example, the
In Aysaita in
the Afar region
of Ethiopia,
refugees and
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) focuses host community
members
on private sector growth. It has invested €268 million in Jordan, Lebanon live and farm
and Turkey and mobilized €160 million of grants to support projects that together as part
of an agricultural
benefit refugees and host communities.46 This too complements additional project.
development support from bilateral and MDB donors.47 © UNHCR/Helle
Degn
The benefits of these cooperative efforts are also evident in Ethiopia.
In 2016, the Government signed the “Jobs Compact” with a number of
bilateral donors, notably the United Kingdom, the European Union, the
European Investment Bank (EIB) and the World Bank Group.The Jobs Compact
aims to generate 100,000 sustainable jobs and economic opportunities for
Ethiopians and refugees.48 Under the Compact, the Ethiopian Government

agrees to make policy changes to permit refugees to work, improve their access
to legal documentation, social services and freedom of movement.
For their part, donors have approved $500 million in financing. Of this, the
World Bank and the United Kingdom have committed nearly $300 million
in concessional financing available through the Ethiopia Economic Oppor-
tunities Program to improve the business environment, increase productivity
and enhance the sustainability of industrial parks. Disbursements are contin-
gent on several targets being met, such as the number of refugees with access
to economic opportunities.49
In 2019, the Ethiopian Government passed a new refugee law, which
permits refugees to: obtain work permits; access primary education, health and
banking services; transfer property, register births, deaths and marriages in civil
registries; and obtain drivers’ licenses.50 Supplementary legislation and admin-
istrative measures to advance these provisions are under development. The
new policy is a major shift to inclusivity after decades of camp-based policies.
In 2019, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) announced
the provision of $100 million non-reimbursable resources from its Grant
Facility to support countries receiving large and sudden inflows of refugees and/
or migrants.51 The funds are to help receiving countries provide better access
to security and public services and improve infrastructure, such as clean water,
sanitation and housing. The funds will be combined with a regular IADB loan
of $800 million.
In announcing the financing, the IADB noted the need to ensure necessary
policy frameworks are in place to help mitigate the negative impacts that a
sudden large influx can have on services, infrastructure and fiscal budgets. The
funding aims to support local and national governments to implement compre-
hensive development programmes, facilitating the social integration of refu-
gees and migrants benefiting them and the communities in which they live.52
The IADB’s work also includes expanding the evidence base through
research, sharing experiences and promising practice, and engaging in train-
ing to strengthen public sector capacities to integrate migrants and refugees
into their host communities.53
The African Development Bank (AfDB) set up a Transition Support Facil-
ity (TSF) to assist member countries in “fragile settings or in transition”. It
aims to strengthen institutions and economies and to consolidate peace.54
Support to forced displacement situations has been limited but with potential
for growth.55 According to an independent evaluation of the Facility, further
growth may depend on a number of factors including adjusting criteria and

deepening its resource base.56
Multilateral development banks and bilateral donors rely on different means
for providing funds. The most common mechanism in forced displacement
situations entails grants and low-interest loans to finance specific activities –
investment project financing. Another means is to provide funds directly to the
host government – budget support, to improve a particular sector or national
policies. It is a common form of general development funding for countries
that have the required level of financial management capacity. This mechanism
is being used by the World Bank in programmes to support the Jordanian
energy and water sectors, which face increased demand due to the presence
of Syrian refugees, and to facilitate job creation and economic growth in
Colombia, Ecuador, Jordan and Lebanon.57
Another mechanism that is becoming more common is outcome funding. As
the name suggests, funding is provided when certain targets are reached. For
example, in a number of the concessional financing agreements between the
World Bank and refugee-hosting governments, the latter agree to implement
programmes through their own systems, like health, education and employ-
ment, and funding is provided when certain agreed targets on refugee inclu-
sion are met. These can include increased access to health services, improved
access and quality of education and enhanced employment and entrepreneur-
ship opportunities. This is the funding mechanism used, for example, in the
Ethiopia Economic Opportunities Program.58
Private Sector Investments
In recent years, there has been increased interest in the role that private, profit-
driven enterprises can play in contributing to economic growth and job creation
in forced displacement contexts and, by extension, in promoting the self-
reliance of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). The private sector
can complement, but not replace, indispensable public sector interventions and/
or humanitarian assistance targeting displaced and host communities alike.
Its potential for improving the lives of forcibly displaced and host commu-
nities is recognized in the Global Compact on Refugees as well as the report
of the High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement. Areas noted include:
job creation and job placement; mentorship; expanding access to financial
products; infrastructure improvements; improving internet access; enhan-
cing data collection and use; financing; mentorship and solutions strategies.59
In 2019, the International Chamber of Commerce published the

Charter of Good Practice on the Role of the Private Sector in Economic
Integration of Refugees. Recognizing the importance of empowering refugees
as economic agents, the Charter sets out standards and guidelines to facili-
tate their economic integration, including expanding financial inclusion for
refugees and host communities.
The Charter was co-sponsored by the World Bank Group, the European
Investment Bank and the Confederation of Danish Industry. It grew via an
international meeting of hundreds of practitioners, with participation from
the International Chamber of Commerce, UNHCR and the World Economic
Forum, and draws on their collective experience.60 Its principles support entre-
preneurship, employment and investment and highlight enabling factors, such
as legal frameworks, technical advice, financing, skills development, market
viability and financing.
Another initiative with broad application is the Humanitarian and Resi-
lience Investing (HRI) Initiative. It was launched in 2019 at the World
Economic Forum and seeks to leverage private capital in support of vulne-
rable individuals and fragile communities.61 This includes investing in oppor-
tunities that improve resilience and self-reliance. It promotes collaboration
among donors, development banks, development finance institutions and
humanitarian-development organizations to share knowledge, build expertise
and promote feasible projects to improve resilience. It also aims to mitigate
uncertainty for prospective investors through the provision of guarantees and
other risk financing.62
Application of these guidelines and principles are in the early stages. Many
private sector job creation initiatives in forced displacement contexts have only
recently come on stream. They have tended to be of relatively small size.63 A
number are part of broader, multilateral job creation efforts.64 Although it is
too soon to discern long-term impact, these initiatives are providing lessons.
Chief among them is that context matters. In some situations, there are
significant obstacles to increased private sector investments. Many host coun-
tries rank in the lower half of the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business index.65
Their regulatory frameworks may not be conducive to establishing businesses,
enforcing contracts or registering property. Tax laws may not be favourable and
cross-border trade can be challenging. Political instability or relatively high
security threats can also dampen investor confidence.
Forcibly displaced populations are often located in remote and under-
developed areas, with limited transportation, access to water, electricity and the
internet. This increases the cost of doing business and makes access to larger
markets difficult. For example, successful Nairobi entrepreneurs cited poor
transportation routes as the reason for their lack of investment in Kakuma
and Kalobeyei refugee camps in the remote Turkana County.66 Ensuring links
with markets is a key determinant of success for livelihood interventions, as is
long-term planning for their sustainability in the design phase.67
To stimulate inclusive economic development, forcibly displaced persons
must be able to benefit from employment or entrepreneurial opportunities. Yet,
often, refugees are not able to work legally, or employment is restricted to only
a few sectors. Companies seeking access to camps may need a special permit
to operate there, a further disincentive.68
Restrictions on the right to move freely or to access financial services can
prevent refugees from starting their own enterprises. If confined to camps,
refugee-owned businesses are reliant on paid intermediaries to source supplies
from outside. This increases costs to refugee business owners and can lead to
higher prices. It also means that refugee owners cannot ensure the safe trans-
port or quality of products.69
Refugees who do not have government-issued identification, or who are
by law prohibited from opening a bank account or accessing other financial
services, are often unable to grow their businesses.70 Other restrictions, like
prohibitions on owning property or entering contracts, are further limiting. To
bypass these barriers, refugees may partner with local businesses but, without
enforceable rights, they are vulnerable to exploitation.71
In some cases, the qualifications of refugees and internally displaced persons
can be limiting factors. Many have had their education interrupted or have been
unable to maintain their skills due to protracted periods of unemployment.
Businesses that rely on qualified or skilled workers may not see displacement
areas as being able to meet their labour needs.72
Further, commercial enterprises may not be aware of the business oppor-
tunities in large forced displacement contexts. This is another reason data,
evidence and analysis are so important.
Market studies
Development actors are undertaking more studies in forced displacement
contexts to help bridge the knowledge gap. Among them is the International
Finance Corporation (IFC).
The IFC is one of the five institutions that form the World Bank Group.73
Started around the same time as UNHCR, the IFC is the largest global
development institution focused on the private sector. The IFC invests in

private enterprises that contribute to development, promotes investment
opportunities to investors, and stimulates private capital flows. In tandem with
the creation of the new World Bank financing mechanisms for host commu-
nities and refugees, the IFC has also focused part of its work on how private
investment can improve lives in forced displacement situations.
In 2018, the IFC published Kakuma as a Market Place74, which analysed
revenues, consumption patterns, consumer preferences and financial trans-
actions in the refugee camp and neighbouring town. It was the first compre-
hensive study of its kind aimed at examining the potential for greater private
sector engagement in a refugee context.
The study found that there was potential to attract new private sector
players to the area, expand existing firms and support local entrepreneurs.
Expected positive impacts included increased employment opportunities for
hosts and refugees, reduced prices, improved services and general advancement
in regional development.
Banks, microfinance institutions, telecommunications companies, and
small- and medium-sized enterprises were all identified as potential bene-
ficiaries of operating there. The study also pointed to the opportunities for
social enterprise75 as well as for local host and refugee entrepreneurs. Among
its recommendations were: vocational skills training for refugees and hosts;
expanded business services and microfinance; and technical assistance, seed
capital and de-risking support to encourage commercial firms, social enter-
prises and local entrepreneurs.76
In Rwanda, a market study in 2018 identified significant opportunities for
financial service providers in refugee areas.77 The following year, UNHCR and
the International Labour Organization (ILO) published a report on a market
analysis conducted in Dadaab refugee camp. It identified job creation and
private sector business opportunities in vegetable and fruit production, waste
management and recycling. To realize the potential, the study highlighted that
initial financial or technical support from development actors will be required,
and legal and policy restrictions on freedom of movement and access to land
would need to be eased.78
In 2018, another study in Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh, revealed a range
of business opportunities in areas as diverse as clean energy, seafood, non-
timber forestry products (such as honey or fruits) and handicrafts. These
opportunities could be better realized with policy reforms enabling refugees
to become self-reliant and measures to improve the business environment.79
These studies have all shown that removing existing obstacles to private
sector engagement has the potential to provide economic benefits to refugees
and host communities.
Application
An investment from the IKEA Foundation in the Dollo Ado refugee camps
in Ethiopia revealed both the opportunities and challenges of market-based
initiatives in isolated areas. The camps accommodate some 200,000 Somali
refugees.80 Between 2012 and 2018, the IKEA Foundation provided nearly
$100 million in grants, including over $37 million prioritized investments in
education and incomes for refugees and host communities.81 Income generation
focused on improving irrigation to expand agricultural production, commer-
cially developing the livestock sector, expanding access to renewable energy,
and providing microfinance support.82 Most interventions involved setting up
cooperatives consisting of refugees and members of the host community.83
Among the positive outcomes, incomes increased alongside consumption.
However, the gains were unequal, links to wider markets remained a challenge,
and most refugees continued to depend on humanitarian aid. The project
showed that access to larger markets is important in ensuring the viability of
efforts to achieve self-reliance.84
Vodacom is an African company that provides connectivity and digital
and financial services. Over 60 per cent of its shares are owned by the United
Kingdom’s multinational Vodafone. Both have been active in forced displace-
ment contexts. In 2016, Vodacom erected a 3G tower to bring cell phone connec-
tion to the Nyarugusu refugee camp in Tanzania,85 where around 130,000
refugees reside.86 Within months, the tower operated at full capacity. The
evident demand and proven economic viability of the tower led other mobile
network operators to invest in the area.87
Turkcell has also benefited from increased subscribers due to the Syrian
influx in Turkey. It developed a mobile app, which provides users with speech
translation from Arabic to Turkish and information on public services, bus
stops and automated teller machines (ATMs), as well as a newsfeed. Turkcell
reports around 2 million Syrian customers.88
Finance leveraging mechanisms

A number of financing mechanisms are being used to help attract private
sector investments in viable enterprises in forced displacement contexts. They
include the following.
Blended financing is a way to help mitigate some of the risks often associated
with investing in fragile and conflict-affected settings. The World Bank’s IDA
programme, discussed earlier, incorporates this type of financing, working with
the IFC and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).89 The
use of relatively small amounts of concessional donor funds can help mitigate
specific investment risks for pioneering investments that might be otherwise
unable to proceed on strictly commercial terms. It can offer a means to de-risk
private sector investments in forced displacement contexts and help leverage
third-party financial resources for new projects that target refugees.90
A Dutch Development Bank, FMO,91 also works in this area. FMO seeks
to maximize the development impact of private sector investments, focusing
on supporting job and income generation through long-term financing for
projects in countries where commercial investors are unlikely to invest. One of
its programmes, NASIRA, prioritizes projects which empower young, female
and COVID-19 affected entrepreneurs, including refugees and internally
displaced persons. By utilizing “risk-sharing”, NASIRA reduces the perceived
and real risks of lending to vulnerable and underserved parts of the population.
It does this by guaranteeing loans provided by local lenders to these popula-
tions to support micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, including those
owned by Syrian refugees in Jordan.92
Risk insurance: The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency is one
of the five institutions that make up the World Bank Group. It was estab-
lished in 1988 to encourage private sector investment in low- and middle-
income countries by providing risk guarantees on cross-border investments93
that advance development and meet high social and environmental standards.
MIGA insures against political risks, such as expropriation, war, terrorism, civil
disturbance, breach of contract by the host government, or inability to convert
local currency into hard currency or transfer hard currency out of the coun-
try.94 The coverage extends to equity and debt up to a limit of $250 million per
project for up to 15 years.
Matching: In 2018, the World Bank Group launched a Refugee Invest-
ment and Matchmaking Platform (RIMP) with support from the United
Kingdom. The Platform matches private sector investors with opportunities
in refugees-hosting areas to promote the growth of small- and medium-sized
enterprises.
The Platform’s work in Jordan has shown early promise. It introduced 267
businesses registered in Jordan to over 480 global businesses and investors. This
has helped attract over $64 million in investments in Jordan-based businesses,
owned by both Jordanians and refugees. Related sales reached $115 million,
with the creation of close to 2,000 new jobs of which 17 per cent were occupied
by refugees. It has also helped strengthen Jordanian institutions through the
creation of Jordan Exports ( JE). JE connects Jordanian exporters with market
opportunities abroad, and facilitates the formation of partnerships between JE,
the Jordan Investment Commission and the Jordan Enterprise Development
Corporation.95 The Platform is taking this approach to Djibouti and Iraq.96
Trade preferences: Trade preferences are part of the Jordan Compact, aimed
at supporting Jordan’s economic development and increasing economic
opportunities for Syrian refugees. The European Union agreed to ease the
access of Jordanian exports to the European market for Jordanian firms located
in special economic zones whose workforce included at least 15 per cent Syrian
refugees. The Jordan Compact has proved to be an important initiative, both
for what it has achieved and lessons learned that can be applied to other, simi-
lar efforts. It has provided needed support for Jordan and led to some 200,000
work permits provided to Syrians, allowing them to enter the formal labour
market and work legally.97
It has also pointed to the importance of ensuring initiatives span a signif-
icant period of time, are attractive to businesses for new or scaled-up invest-
ments, and will improve their competitiveness in the longer term. To be of
benefit to refugees, they should also focus on sectors where refugees have
the necessary skills, and are located in accessible geographic areas with work-
ing conditions that are favourable to their participation. Another important
observation from the Jordan Compact is the need for governments to ease
work permit regulations or employment quotas that impede progress against
agreed objectives.98
Other Innovative Financing
Zakat is one of the five pillars of Islam. It is an obligation to donate a proportion

of individual wealth to those in need. UNHCR estimates that Zakat dona-
tions have the potential to reach $350 billion globally,99 and has encouraged a
greater proportion of Zakat to be allocated to forced displacement responses,
given displaced persons meet several eligibility criteria and an estimated 60
per cent of all forcibly displaced persons are Muslim.100
In 2018, some $76 million of Zakat was donated globally. In 2019, a dedi-
cated Zakat Fund was established for forcibly displaced persons.101 Although its
global target has not been reached, close to $62 million was contributed to the
Fund in 2020, benefiting 2 million forcibly displaced persons in 13 countries.102

Crowdfunding involves raising modest sums from a large number of indi-
viduals, usually over the internet, for projects, charities and businesses. The
crowdfunding market is estimated to be approximately $17 billion,103 mostly
concentrated in North America and Europe. It is expected to double by
2026.104 It has been used to finance a variety of COVID-19 responses105 and
is an emerging potential source for increased funding in forced displacement
contexts.
One crowdfunder, Kiva, has helped expand financial access to underserved
communities, including forcibly displaced persons and their hosts.106 It uses
crowdfunding to provide small loans to borrowers, and has reportedly provided
$14 million in loans to nearly 18,000 refugees and internally displaced persons.
The largest number of borrowers were in Colombia, Lebanon and Palestine.
Kiva reports a 95.5 per cent repayment rate, which is consistent with non-
displacement settings.107 It aims to expand its work further through the launch
of its Refugee Investment Fund, to reach up to 200,000 borrowers.108
Other financing mechanisms could perhaps provide new sources of fund-
ing for forced displacement responses, although further study may be needed
to assess their costs and benefits. For example, taxes and levies have been
suggested as a potential new source of additional financing.109 They have been
used to raise money for climate and health initiatives. In 2005, France initiated
a “solidarity levy” on airline tickets to raise funds in support of international
efforts for the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, and to support global
immunization programmes. Other countries have also followed.110 It has been
a significant source of funding for Unitaid, a global health agency working
on disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment in low- and middle-income
countries.111
The frozen assets of States and individuals responsible for forced displace-
ment may be a potential source of funds for humanitarian relief, according to
some scholars.112 The Security Council can call for collective economic sanctions
under Article 41 of the United Nations Charter, including for the protection of
civilians. Currently, there are 14 Security Council sanctions regimes.113 It also
has the authority to set up compensation funds, as was done after Iraq occupied
Kuwait. It required Iraq to pay a percentage of its oil revenues to the fund. In
the event that Iraq failed to do so, the Council authorized States holding Iraqi
funds from petroleum sales to transfer them to a United Nations account.114
Outside the Security Council, national jurisdictions have also enacted
laws which permit the imposition of sanctions, including asset freezes, against
foreigners accused of serious human rights violations and/or corruption. They

are often referred to as Magnitsky laws, after Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian
financial auditor who uncovered extensive theft and corruption implicating
members of the Russian police, judiciary, tax officials as well as politicians
and members of organized crime. Arrested in 2009 and held in worsening
conditions in a Moscow prison for nearly a year, Magnitsky died from depri-
vation and injuries inflicted on him while incarcerated. His death was widely
condemned and led the United States Congress to pass sanctions against
Russian officials claimed to be implicated.
Since then, the mechanism in the United States has been broadened beyond
the circumstances of the Magnitsky case.115 Similar legislation has been enacted
by the European Union and by countries and territories, such as Canada,
Estonia, Gibraltar, Jersey, Latvia, Lithuania, and the United Kingdom.116
Corresponding legislation is under consideration in Australia.117
So far, most have focused on asset seizure, but some commentators see a
potential use for seized assets to fund humanitarian relief. Switzerland has
returned seized assets to the country of origin. Since the 1980s, it has seized and
confiscated assets of political figures believed to have been illicitly stolen from
their countries. It has returned some $2 billion dollars to Angola, Kazakhstan,
Nigeria, Peru and the Philippines, among others, for the purpose of improving
living conditions and strengthening the rule of law.118
Impact bonds typically involve private investors funding projects designed to
provide positive social outcomes, such as improved social services. They oper-
ate over a defined period and the rate of return to investors depends on the
programme outcome achieved. If the project meets its objectives, traditional
donors, including both government and private entities, pay the investors at a
pre-determined rate of return. If the project does not meet its objectives, the
investors can lose some or all of their investment.119 They can be structured so
that the implementing agency pays some of the cost if the project fails, thereby
incentivizing results.120 Their use has grown in recent years, although largely
outside humanitarian settings.121
In 2017, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) launched
a five-year humanitarian impact bond aiming to raise 26 million Swiss
francs (approximately $27.3 million) to fund medical centres in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Mali and Nigeria for people wounded in conflict.122
In 2021, a United Kingdom-funded evaluation of the projects showed the
potential of impact bonds in humanitarian settings, as well as their possible
drawbacks.
On the positive side, because impact bonds pay returns based on programme
outcomes, this creates an incentive for improved monitoring and performance
management, as well as accountability from implementors. They attract new
sources of philanthropic capital focused on paying for results, while sharing the
risk of unsuccessful outcomes with investors. They also incentivize innovation
to achieve intended goals.123
Further study may be needed to determine the wider potential of impact
bonds in forced displacement settings, as they tend to be relatively complex to
set up and the legal, monitoring and advisory services are costly. It is not yet
clear whether they could be more effective and cost-efficient compared with
other alternative mechanisms.124
In the meantime, Kois, an impact investing firm, is developing impact
bonds to finance organizations working to improve education and employment
outcomes for Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. The IKEA Foundation
has pledged to be one of the outcome funders.125 This provides a further oppor-
tunity to test the practicality of impact bonds in forced displacement settings.
Perspectives
Improving financing for people forced to flee means increasing the number
of contributors, enlarging the volume of funds available, expanding the use
of development approaches and ensuring an efficient and effective use of
resources.
Increasing volume and donor base: When the OECD was established in 1961,
the question of how much high-income economies should spend on foreign aid
had circulated for decades. In 1969, the Pearson Commission on International
Development proposed a target for donors that stuck: 0.7 per cent of Gross
National Product (GNP). The aim for this Official Development Assistance
(ODA) target was for it to be reached between 1975 and 1980;126 since then,
it has been revised to 0.7 per cent of Gross National Income (GNI). It was
passed in a United Nations resolution and taken up by the OECD’s Develop-
ment Assistance Committee (DAC).127
The target was reached by just four donor countries by 1980. Only a hand-
ful more achieved it in subsequent years, and then only temporarily.128 Never-
theless, the ambition was again endorsed at the 2005 United Nations World
Summit.129 That same year, European Union members agreed to reach the
target, this time by 2015.130
Combined humanitarian and development assistance has not come close
to the 0.7 per cent target for most members of the OECD. In 2020, only six
DAC members reached or exceeded the 0.7 per cent ODA target (Denmark,
Germany, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom).131 The
United Kingdom has since announced its intention to reduce 2021 ODA
funding to 0.5 per cent of GNI, a reduction of some £4.5 billion (approxi-
mately $6.2 billion).132
The target set in the 1960s and endorsed in the new millennium, therefore,
remains aspirational. But, given the number of times States have endorsed it,
it should be achievable. For years, the largest contributions of foreign aid have
been made by a relatively small group of high-income countries; this funding
base needs to be more diverse.133
Systematic and comparable data: There is also a need for improved mechanisms
to more accurately capture funding that is provided to forced displacement
contexts. Currently, available information on humanitarian and development
funding towards forced displacement responses is neither comprehensive nor
comparable. ODA indicators are available for humanitarian and development
financing globally, including but not restricted to forced displacement contexts.
They are also not inclusive of all donors.134
There is also no comparable means to measure what host countries
spend on responses to forced displacement. High-income countries have
provided estimates through the DAC, based on their agreed methodology
of their in-country spending on refugees and asylum-seekers.135 Turkey has
done the same. However, there is no universally agreed methodology.
Important efforts are underway to remedy this gap. The OECD has under-
taken two surveys: one of DAC members; and another of non-DAC members
and multilateral development banks.136 These have shed light on spending
on refugee situations. To ensure relevant data is systematically captured, the
OECD has adapted its tracking systems to identify support to refugee situa-
tions specifically for reporting against Global Compact on Refugees indica-
tors.137 This work is furthering an OECD pledge made at the 2019 Global
Refugee Forum and will help to measure progress against financial commit-
ments made in support of the Compact. 138
Yet, gaps remain, including in tracking funding to situations of internal
displacement. Also, most developing countries, home to the vast majority of
forcibly displaced persons, do not have the capacity to track spending asso-
ciated with forced displacement across ministries. Efforts to agree on a common
methodology are ongoing.139 And while the new OECD tracking mechanism
has the potential to be expanded in this manner, no firm plans are yet in place.
Potential of private sector: The last several years have seen the potential of
private sector funding and income generation in forced displacement contexts.
Private giving now accounts for close to 22 per cent of international humanita-
rian funding.140 And new partnerships are developing to bring more sustainable
livelihood opportunities to forcibly displaced and host communities. Partner-
ships between the private sector, national and local governments and business
organizations can help to foster the needed policy and regulatory reforms for
inclusive economic development.
New financial instruments, that include concessional financing and de-
risking mechanisms to encourage private sector investments, are positive
developments. So too is the work underway by investors, multinational
companies, business associations, and humanitarian and development organi-
zations to provide enterprise support to small- and medium-sized enterprises,
including those owned by refugees.
Focus on development: The expansion of development-centred approaches to
forced displacement contexts has been the most significant change, rewarding
long years of advocacy. And it has gathered speed. The change over the past
several years is astonishing. Large donors are linking their humanitarian and
development efforts. International financial institutions have developed and
are applying new financing models in support of socioeconomic development
for forcibly displaced persons and their hosts. They are deepening the analytics
used to inform policy recommendations, and incentivizing host countries to
take a more inclusive approach through the provision of additional develop-
ment funding.
These shifts are potentially transformational if sustained and supported
through sound and effective programme implementation. They also need to
be supported with good data and analytics, subjects to which we now turn.
Enhancing the Evidence Base

Data, evidence and analysis play a key role in responding to forced displace-
ment. In addition to helping to measure progress related to financing, data also
provides necessary information on the size of displacement situations. Data and
analysis illuminates the needs and capacities of forcibly displaced persons, and
their impact on host communities. They provide the foundation for designing
effective programmes, assessing their impact over time, and measuring progress
towards solutions. Well-analysed data is essential to understand the impact of
conflict and displacement on local communities, as well as how government

policies can mitigate losses and capitalize on opportunities associated with
receiving large numbers of forcibly displaced persons.
For these reasons, improving data collection, quality, and interoperability
is a primary aim of the Global Compact on Refugees. The Compact makes
frequent mention of the need for improved data, including to enhance the
socioeconomic conditions of refugees and host communities, assess impact
and plan and realize solutions.141
Improving lives during displacement and preparing and sustaining solu-
tions rests in part on addressing key data and knowledge gaps, and strength-
ening the capacity of host governments to collect, securely store and utilize
data pertaining to forcibly displaced populations.
Content and Collection
Population data
The public face of forced displacement is generally large numbers of individuals
being forced to flee their homes in dangerous circumstances and across peril-
ous routes. Individual stories help to shed light on the very human challenges
and tragedies of these movements.
The scale of displacement is often communicated in aggregate terms and
measured using different collection methods.142 Aggregate figures, however,
tell only part of the story. Personal and household data is also critical to ensure
individuals are protected and assisted and that efforts are made to resolve their
displacement.
Individual biodata
As non-citizens, refugees must often establish their right to be in the host
country. Individual registration is a first step. Many middle- and low-income
countries request UNHCR to register refugees, which it does on an individual
and confidential basis.143 It includes the recording of basic information: name;
age; gender; place of origin; address; and reasons for flight. Registration by
UNHCR and generally by States144 is accompanied by a document attesting
to the fact that the person has claimed asylum or is recognized as a refugee.
This document helps to protect the person from being arrested, detained or
returned to potential harm.
Registration also provides an opportunity to determine an individual’s
specific protection and assistance needs, help locate family members, and keep
track of the services provided and interventions made on the individual’s behalf.
In most refugee contexts, registration is done with biometric technology, such
as iris scans or fingerprints, preventing the person’s identity from being stolen
and fraudulently re-used.145
There is no single international institution responsible for registering inter-
nally displaced persons, as most are citizens of the country in which they are
displaced and fall within national systems. Many States lack capacity or are
not willing to identify and meet the needs of internally displaced persons.146
Two-month-old
Syrian refugee
Mohammad
is registered
at UNHCR
Khalda Refugee
Registration The task of identifying internally displaced persons and ascertaining their
Centre in Amman needs often falls on international and national partners. The absence of system-
in 2018.
© UNHCR/Annie atic coordination and consistent use of agreed methodologies can make it
Sakkab difficult to arrive at a consistent and comprehensive picture.147 There is also
a definitional challenge, including determining when internal displacement
ends and whether it is passed on to successive generations.148
Socioeconomic data
Socioeconomic data includes information on education, skills and specific
needs, as well as living conditions, consumption levels, sources of income
and assistance, and access to basic services.149 It is collected at the individ-
ual or household level and also through representational surveys.150 When
the collection includes both forcibly displaced and host communities, it has
multiple important uses.
It helps to assess the relative poverty and vulnerabilities of forcibly
displaced persons and host communities to ensure assistance and develop-
ment programmes are designed and implemented equitably. Socioeconomic
data also helps to assess the degree to which forcibly displaced persons are
integrated into communities and to identify any obstacles to inclusion and to
the realization of solutions. Such data is important for evaluating the impact
of programmes on forcibly displaced and affected communities.151
Collecting more than basic biographical data is rarely considered in emer-
gency situations for several reasons. For example, when many thousands of
individuals are fleeing into an area daily, the imperative is to register individuals
as quickly as possible in order to gain an understanding of overall numbers and
immediate needs. Adding time to that process, by collecting additional infor-
mation, can seem unnecessary and too resource-intensive when basic survival
needs have not yet been met.152
However, adding a few more questions to the data collection – notably in
the fields of education, health and employment – can be informative for more
targeted interventions later on. And there may be few further opportunities
to reach the same individuals in as short a period of time. On balance, invest-
ing in expanded data collection at the outset of an influx is merited, helping
to design household surveys more rapidly. These are important for identifying
where measures are most needed to alleviate household poverty and promote
inclusion in education and health services.153
Harmonized collection
Despite some improvements in certain regional and country operations,154 signi-
ficant parts of the current data collection landscape remain in need of attention.
Humanitarian agencies collect individual data on displaced populations to
inform their protection and assistance programmes.155 But this is not always
undertaken in a coordinated manner or systematically using agreed standard
indicators. There is also often an absence of longitudinal data,156 which tracks
the situation of individuals or households over time. This data is important to
understand how situations may or may not have changed over a specific period.
A lack of coordination can lead to the same data being gathered multiple times,
using different methodologies for collection, and employing dissimilar analytical
tools.157 This can be frustrating for the persons surveyed, who are asked similar
questions multiple times by different agencies with no discernable impact on their
situations. Also importantly, results may be neither consistent nor comparable.

Joint needs assessments were a key commitment of States and humanitarian
agencies made during the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit.158 And, they
are a means to overcome disjointed practice and provide consolidated inform-
ation that governments need in making their policies.159
In recent years, several joint socioeconomic assessments of displaced and
host communities have helped demonstrate their value. Examples included
studies conducted across Ethiopia, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan,
which examined the socioeconomic conditions of forcibly displaced persons
and host communities, as seen in Part III.160
The studies identified common and distinct vulnerabilities among both
communities and also shed light on the extent to which forcibly displaced
persons were integrated into host communities, the obstacles to integration
and the prospects for overcoming them, taking into account prevailing political,
social and economic conditions. Importantly, these studies were conducted in
consultation with government authorities and other stakeholders, enhancing
the opportunity to influence policy and practice.161
Uganda presents another interesting example. In 2018, the Govern-
ment partnered with the World Bank to conduct a joint household survey
of refugees and host communities, to better inform government policies.
The report and recommendations were published the following year.
The survey found that food insecurity was high for both refugees and hosts
in the Southwest and West Nile regions of the country and, thus, maintaining
poverty reduction and food security measures in these regions was important.
Refugees had relatively larger rates of unemployment but had the potential
to benefit the local economy with additional investment in agricultural and
non-agricultural skills training.162
In some areas, refugees had relatively better access to health services. There-
fore, eliminating existing gaps in access to services by strengthening institu-
tional capacity and providing financial support was critical. The results of the
study are material to the World Bank’s subsequent allocation of additional
financing to support the socioeconomic development of refugees and host
communities.163
Strengthening Capacities
Ideally, data on forcibly displaced populations would be integrated into national

data collection systems, including those at the level of ministries, such as those
responsible for education and health. Official statistics provide the basis for
informing decision-making processes, determining priorities and establishing
budgets at the national and sub-national levels. This data informs government
development plans and implementation.
Official statistics are also relied on by development organizations in their
analysis and investment decisions.164 However, data on forcibly displaced
populations is often not integrated into these systems, and refugees and inter-
nally displaced persons are not systematically included in efforts to achieve the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).165
In 2018, the World Bank and WHO reported that over 100 develop-
ing countries have deficient civil registration and vital statistics systems.166
There are several reasons for this. These countries face many other develop-
ment challenges, meaning improving data systems is often not prioritized.
National systems often lack adequate funding and administrative capacity.
Civil registries, health and education information management mechanisms
and vital statistics are often not linked. This leads to different sets of data
being stored in various locations with insufficient technical capacity to maintain
and integrate them.167 Given these constraints, it is not surprising that
specific data on forcibly displaced persons is often not integrated into national
systems.
The Expert Group on Refugee and Internally Displaced Persons Statistics
(EGRIS) is a multi-stakeholder group with membership from United Nations
and non-governmental specialized agencies, national statistical offices, regional
bodies and international financial institutions.168 It was formed in 2016 by
the United Nations Statistical Commission to improve the quality and use of
statistics on forced displacement by national and non-State partners.
Since 2018, it has published two sets of detailed guidance for States and
non-State actors to improve the quality of refugee and internal displacement
statistics and build the capacity of national statistical offices and services. The
guidance relates to data collection methodologies, disaggregation, coordina-
tion and reporting.169
In parallel, the World Bank and UNHCR established the Joint Data Center
on Forced Displacement ( Joint Data Center) in 2019 to improve the avail-
ability and accessibility of high-quality socioeconomic data on those affected
by forced displacement. It collaborates with EGRIS as well as with host coun-
try governments, affected populations, other international organizations, civil
society, academia and the private sector.170
A number of States are also taking important steps towards including
internally displaced persons and refugees in their national systems.171 These are
important initiatives; yet funding to strengthen State capacities has not appre-
ciably increased, despite international commitments, notably in the Sustainable
Development Goals.172
While the aim is for more inclusive national data systems, in the interim,
there are other opportunities to include forcibly displaced persons in govern-
ment data initiatives, such as through planned census or survey activities. These
can be supported with initial seed funding and technical support to ensure the
inclusion of samples of displaced populations.173
Accessibility
There is growing consensus around the benefits of making population and
socioeconomic microdata on displaced and host communities more acces-
sible to policymakers, humanitarian and development partners, academics
and researchers. At the same time, there is also a need to protect individuals
from the release of certain personal data that could jeopardize their safety.
This is particularly the case in forced displacement contexts, where indi-
vidual or group persecution and violence has not only provoked flight but
prohibits their safe return. Their security depends on their personal data not
being accessible to those intending to harm them or others seeking to exploit
their vulnerabilities.
Removing individual identifiers from microdata – anonymizing data – is a
means to share it in a safe manner. Secure platforms for collecting, safely stor-
ing and disseminating data are also required. Important steps are being made
in this regard, although some challenges in achieving full buy-in among agen-
cies still need to be overcome. There can be competition among them, which
can hinder full collaboration and be a disincentive to investing in anonymizing
and disseminating relevant datasets.174
The World Bank has an open Microdata Library and UNHCR has recently
adopted its own.175 Prior to this, UNHCR shared aggregate socioeconomic
and microdata only in specific contexts and subject to bilateral agreements.
Through its new Microdata Library, it can securely store diverse anonymized
microdata collected by UNHCR and its partners for others to use. Both micro-
data libraries are important resources of information to inform policy, design
humanitarian and development interventions and assess their impact.
The work of the Joint Data Center is also centred on encouraging safe
dissemination and analysis of microdata and facilitating broad collabora-
tion in academic research and policy design. In addition to country-specific
efforts, the Joint Data Center publishes regular literature reviews and convenes
conferences and workshops on the application of microdata and evidence
accumulated across various fields, including economics, education, health and
integration.
The High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, appointed by the Secre-
tary-General in 2019, has provided policy recommendations for improved data
collection, analysis and use relevant to internal displacement.176 These include
calling on governments to put in place processes and systems to securely collect,
analyse and manage internal displacement data, and for international donors
to provide financial assistance where necessary for this purpose. In recognition
of the importance of data for the programmes of international and national
partners, the Panel also recommends that governments provide the space for
them to collect and analyse data relevant to their operations.177
Impact Evaluations
Designing a programme based on sound data is important. Equally critical is

knowing that the programme is being implemented efficiently and is targeted
to the needs it was designed to address, and that it results in the desired impact.
In humanitarian contexts, monitoring and evaluation are important aspects
of programme design and implementation. Traditionally, these have focused
on whether programmes were implemented as planned, how well they were
delivered, whether recipients received what was intended and if objectives
were met. These focused exercises are important in ensuring the integrity of
programmes and learning lessons for further work.
Impact evaluations probe further. They seek to determine the impact of
a policy, project or progamme by considering what the outcome would have
been had the intervention not occurred. This is achieved by comparing the
circumstances of those who received it with those of similar characteristics
who did not.178
Widely used in the development field, impact evaluations in low- and
middle-income countries have proved extremely useful and have positively
shaped policy and practice beyond the specific intervention reviewed.179 For
example, in the area of education, deworming programmes in Kenya were
found to improve school attendance of children who received deworming
medication as well as classmates who did not, by decreasing infection rates
overall.180 This was a significant finding, given the relative low cost of the
programme, its impact, and its relevance beyond Kenya.181
In the health sector, impact evaluations established that the free provision
of insecticide treated bed nets increased their use substantially. This resolved
an ongoing debate on whether it is preferable to freely distribute bed nets or
require co-payment. These findings reportedly led many organizations globally
to adjust their policies and practice.182
Efforts to improve self-reliance, including through cash transfers, micro-
credit lending and skills and vocational training, have been subject to extensive
impact evaluations. They have illustrated what has and has not been effective
and what has yielded positive impact combined with other interventions.183
The results have profoundly informed the design and application of these
programmes.184
There were over 2,000 impact studies published between 2000 and 2012,
primarily in the areas of health, education, social protection and agriculture in
low- and middle-income countries.185 In contrast, a very small proportion focus
specifically on programmes for forcibly displaced persons, with fewer than 25
related randomized impact evaluations published between 2001 and 2019.186
There are a number of reasons for this. Humanitarians often work with short
time frames and limited budgets, neither of which is easily adapted to impact
evaluations, which take time and money to execute. Programmes are often
initiated at an early stage of a crisis and when generally only basic biodata on
the displaced populations is collected and is insufficient to support an impact
assessment or comparison with host communities. Also, highly volatile situ-
ations, from which displaced populations are likely to move, can also make
impact evaluations more difficult to carry out, as such evaluations entail mea-
suring impact on the same group of individuals over time.187
However, the demonstrated usefulness of impact evaluations is helping to
expand their application in forced displacement contexts. Major donors are
supporting their implementation, and some have made them a condition of
funding agreements. In addition, new financial instruments are increasingly
linking funding to achievement of the desired impact.188 And, a growing
number of international humanitarian agencies are investing more in them to
evaluate their progammes for forcibly displaced persons.
UNHCR, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World
Food Programme (WFP) and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) are
among the organizations that are increasing their technical capacity in this area.
They also partner with multilateral development institutions and specialized
agencies engaged in impact evaluations in forced displacement contexts.189
The results are clear. At the end of 2020, there were 40 documented
randomized impact evaluations taking place in forced displacement contexts,

close to double the number published over the past 20 years.190 These
include evaluations of the engagement of refugees in productive activities in
Bangladesh, health and education support programmes in the Horn of Africa,
cash reintegration assistance for returning Afghan refugees, teacher training
efforts in Lebanon, pedagogical and socio-behavioural programmes for youth
in Jordan, food distribution programmes in Iraq, an entrepreneurship support
programme in Niger and programmes to reduce gender-based violence in
Cameroon.191
This number continues to grow, a significant development itself.
The Global Compact on Refugees seeks to mobilize timely, predictable,
adequate and sustainable public and private funding. It also emphasizes the
importance of “maximizing the effective and efficient use of resources”.192
Improving the quality, collection and comparability of data are important steps
in this direction. So too are efforts to better assess the impact of programmes
delivered.
Together, they should improve the effectiveness of interventions for forci-
bly displaced persons and host communities. And, in meeting expectations
for greater efficiency, transparency and optimal resource use, they should also
help spur greater public and private financing called for in the Global Compact
on Refugees.
Partnerships
The challenges to improving the futures of forcibly displaced persons and host
communities may seem insurmountable. Yet, today, more than ever before,
individuals and groups across a broad and needed spectrum of expertise are
firmly engaged in overcoming them.
The Global Compact on Refugees recognizes this. It has set out a blue-
print for more sustainable, inclusive responses that take a “whole-of-society”
approach, engaging a wide range of stakeholders. It acknowledges their added
value, informed by contributions they have already made, some for many
decades.
This section tracks that evolution and the impact that different partners are
having in advancing responses to forced displacement. It also looks at where
efforts are needed to make multi-stakeholder approaches more meaningful
and systematic.
Forcibly Displaced People
Most major humanitarian initiatives over the past 20 years have called for the
greater engagement of refugees and internally displaced persons in the design
of programmes that affect their lives.193 And, most would say that this call has
only been partially met. Generally, policies are set and programmes are designed
and delivered “on behalf ” of forcibly displaced persons, without their regular
and active engagement.
This has not always been the case. There have been periods in history where
refugees had much greater agency than they do today, as discussed in Part I.
In Ancient Greece as well as in Europe from as far back as the 13th century,
various refugee groups were able to negotiate the terms of their settlement
and were accorded autonomy to provide for themselves and their families and
to contribute to the broader community. In later periods, as States enacted
immigration legislation, refugees who met selection criteria were admitted as
immigrants and expected to integrate and contribute to the growth of their
adopted countries.194
The Great Wars of the 20th century led to a new dynamic. Significant inter-
national relief efforts were mobilized to respond to the needs of the massive
number of people displaced by war. And as we saw in Part III, at the conclu-
sion of the conflicts, solutions for refugees who had no State to safely return
to, were part of the negotiations between nations.
Refugees and those with lived refugee experiences played important roles
in relief operations,195 and some were engaged in the drafting of pivotal inter-
national agreements, notably the 1951 Convention.196 Yet overall, most refu-
gees then and now have had limited opportunities to set their own futures.
Local integration opportunities have been limited, return often not possible,
and resettlement determined through the application of selective criteria set
by receiving States.
Today’s emphasis on moving from humanitarian to more development-
focused responses is intended to depart from the decades-old approach that
inhibited refugees from becoming self-reliant and being able to forge better
futures for themselves. The response must be accompanied by improved
engagement with those it seeks to serve.
It has long been known that consulting with refugees and internally
displaced persons on programmes to meet their needs will result in interven-
tions that better address their priorities and are implemented in ways that
are likely to have the most impact. Forcibly displaced persons are also
calling for greater room to implement programmes and set policy priorities.
While important initiatives have tried to make consultation more system-
atic, participatory and accommodating to those of different ages, genders
and diversity, these are neither widespread nor systematic.197 Engaging
refugees and internally displaced persons in policy and programme imple-
mentation remains largely aspirational. Consistent engagement with forcibly
displaced communities in programme design, implementation and assessment
is not standard practice among service agencies.
The High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement found, in its survey of
Syrian refugees
Ahmad, 29, and
his wife, Lazmiah,
18, UNHCR
volunteers in
Tripoli, Lebanon,
2014. Ahmad
lost his legs due
to a bomb blast
in Syria. Since
recovering,
Ahmad helps
other refugees.
He says that
affected communities across 22 countries, that many internally displaced when refugees
see him
persons and host community members do not feel heard by their governments continuing to
nor often by response organizations.198 Several refugee-led consultations and work despite his
injury, “it gives
surveys have reached similar conclusions. Common observations are that them strength
forcibly displaced persons are consulted on an ad hoc basis, generally excluded and hope and
that makes a
from the prioritization of interventions, and often not involved in their imple- difference.”
mentation or assessments of their effectiveness.199 As Najeeba Wazefadost, a © UNHCR/
Andrew
former refugee from Afghanistan observed, refugees want to be involved in the McConnell
design, implementation and evaluation of programmes in their own commu-
nities “because”, she asks rhetorically, “who knows better than them?”200
We looked at some inter-agency efforts to reverse this trend in Part III. Socio -
economic household surveys and assessments that include forcibly displaced
and host communities in the design and surveying process are valuable for
designing inclusion strategies. They have a greater chance of influencing policy
outcomes if they are collaborative throughout the process, from the beginning
to end. For example, in addition to engaging humanitarian and development
partners and donors, it is also vital to involve local and State authorities, as well
Marwan, a
Syrian refugee
and engineer,
works as a
robotics trainer
and computer as forcibly displaced and affected communities.201 This can be key to achieving
programming
teacher helping
a consensus on methodology, findings and policy prescriptions.202
young people in Much still needs to be done, including in efforts to launch innovative
the Innovation
Lab in Za’atari
approaches and new technologies in forced displacement responses. Strength-
Camp, Jordan in ening innovation has gained prominence in the past decade and is often
2021.
© UNHCR/
included in the strategic priorities of organizations working in the field.203
Shawkat Collaboration between agencies, civil society and private sector partners has
Alharfoush
helped bolster innovation. However, as Dragana Kaurin, a former refugee and
founder of Localization Lab,204 has observed, there is a lack of systematic
involvement of forcibly displaced “end-users”. This means that many inno-
vations fail to solve the problems intended or are not useful to those they are
meant to serve.205
Involving forcibly displaced persons in the design, development and testing
of new approaches and projects can help to ensure that they are user-friendly,
accessible and secure. Efforts to support the transition from the use of fire-
wood for cookstoves in forced displacement settings provide telling examples.
The burning of firewood for fuel often has adverse environmental and
respiratory effects and exposes women and girls to serious risks of gender-
based violence in collecting it.206 Over the years, alternatives to firewood,
including solar-powered cookstoves, have been introduced in various settle-
ments and many have not been successful. Some observers attribute this to a
lack of sufficient community engagement. They note the positive results that
have been achieved in addressing the same problem through more meaningful
community participation.207
Beyond programme design, better engagement of forcibly displaced
communities in implementing programmes also helps to support more sustain-
able responses. National, regional and global networks of refugees are bringing
greater attention to the work of refugee organizations in forced displacement
situations and the contributions they are making, as well as their need for more
recognition and support to continue and expand upon their work.
Refugee and internally displaced persons organizations208 are both formal
and informal groups created by forcibly displaced persons to advocate for and
serve their communities. The support they provide is varied and can include:
psychosocial, education and legal assistance; language and skills training; sports
and artistic endeavours; and mentorship. A number also provide services for
members of host communities, helping not only to address their needs but also
to foster good community relations. There is no comprehensive registry but,
as of 2019, there were 130 groups known to be active in refugee displacement
situations around the world. 209
Organizations by and for forcibly displaced persons have the advantage
of being intimately aware of their community needs and being known and
trusted by them. They can, and do, disseminate public information messages,
serve as community health care workers, help monitor programme deliv-
ery and impact, and help address harmful behaviours through dialogue and
engagement.
The work and added value of these organizations became more visible
in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. As lockdowns prevented many
humanitarian agencies from moving freely, community-based organizations
were active in delivering food, rental assistance, medicines and other support
to vulnerable forcibly displaced and host families.210 They also helped dissemi-
nate messages in languages spoken by their communities through social media
and radio broadcasts on risk mitigation and updates on lockdown and quaran-
tine regulations. Some also provided education materials and remote learning
during school closures.211
Most refugee organizations are informal, because of the legal and/or bureau-
cratic barriers to registering as non-governmental organizations (NGOs).212
Such restrictions prevent them from being relied upon by humanitarian agen-
cies to implement programmes. But even in situations where they can formally
operate, lack of training or demonstrated capacity in financial, audit, perfor-
mance and programme management can be additional barriers that prevent
them from accessing international funding.213 Mechanisms to ensure compli-
ance in these areas are often part of donor grant agreements. Investments in
strengthening capacities in these areas are warranted.214
Other suggestions that have been made for improvement include the devel-
opment of policies to guide humanitarian agencies in increasing the involve-
ment of refugee and internally displaced persons organizations. This could
include updated knowledge of which ones are active in a specific situation to
identify possible areas of partnership, capacity-building, and selection mea-
sures to ensure the fair and impartial delivery of services.215
Refugee experience positively influenced the drafting of the 1951 Refugee
Convention. Specific provisions, now understood as foundational for refugee
protection, were introduced and promoted by former refugees who knew first-
hand what helps achieve safety.216 The importance of experience on policy is
no less significant today.
It is why the Global Refugee-led Network has called on governments,
donors and hosts alike to see lived refugee experience as among the desirable
employment qualifications for policy positions within relevant departments
and ministries. Equally, it has called on service providers to do the same. It
is another element to effect a “systemic transformation” for more meaningful
participation and better informed policies.217
Local Actors and Authorities
Centuries before the creation of the first intergovernmental humanitarian

agencies, civil society groups welcomed, protected, assisted and led advocacy
and fundraising efforts for forcibly displaced persons, as noted in Part I. Often
organized on the basis of religious, national or ethnic affiliation, they also
were involved in the discussions that shaped the modern refugee protection
regime.218
There is no established definition of civil society, although they are

commonly considered to be self-governed, non-profit groups that are neither
set up nor affiliated with a State. 219 Today, there are thousands of civil soci-
ety organizations that work in whole or in part to benefit forcibly displaced
persons. They include civic, cultural and sports organizations, legal advocates
and faith-based groups. They work variously to advance protection, assistance
and solutions for refugees and internally displaced persons and are recognized
as essential partners in the Global Compact on Refugees.220
Venezuelan
conductor
Simón Arias
leads the Music
for Integration
Some civil society groups operate internationally, others are nationally or Foundation
Orchestra at an
locally based. And while this section focuses on the latter, it is important to auditorium in
acknowledge the deep and long-standing engagement of many international Santiago, Chile,
in 2019.
civil society partners. These have been instrumental in advocacy, policy design © UNHCR/
and implementation of programmes for refugees and internally displaced Eduardo Beyer
persons around the world. Many international humanitarian non-govern-

mental organizations implement a large proportion of in-country programmes
either independent of the United Nations, and/or as its implementing partners.
They have also formed global networks and participate actively in international
and national fora on forced displacement issues.221
The range of local civil society partners is broad. Some are long-standing;
others are organized to respond to an influx. They too have set up networks
to foster regional and international engagement on policies and programmes
related to forced displacement.222 Their contributions can vary, with some
specializing in certain areas, like legal and social protection, health, education,
skills development and livelihoods support. Many also engage in advocacy.
They know their communities and countries well, and their perspectives
may carry particular weight with government counterparts compared with
international partners, which may be seen as outsiders. Conversely, local
civil society actors can also be more susceptible to intimidation by the State.223
A mother at
work in Yemen
in 2021 helping
displaced people
weave coverings
for shelters with Local authorities are centrally engaged in forced displacement responses, and
local materials. their involvement predates – by many centuries – the creation of the modern
She earns a daily
wage for her State system.224 Today, they continue to play a vital role as approximately four
work. out of five forcibly displaced persons live in local communities, two thirds of
© UNHCR/Shadi
Abusneida which are in urban areas.225 Yet local authorities have often been overlooked
by humanitarian actors.226 And central authorities do not always provide
sufficient financial support to them to manage the increased demands placed
upon them.227
Local authorities face significant challenges with the arrival of large
numbers of forcibly displaced persons. New arrivals can add pressure to
housing, sanitation, health, education, policing and energy services, often
without additional funding from national budgets.228 And efforts to integrate
newcomers through language and skills training frequently fall on local

authorities.229
Humanitarian funding, which accounts for most financing for respond-
ing to forced displacement, goes largely to international organizations and
international non-governmental organizations that have grown steadily over
the decades.230 They have become professionalized, with processes in place to
meet the administrative, programmatic, financial and ethical standards set by
the United Nations as well as required by the donors that fund them. But this
growth has also overshadowed the role of local actors, government and national
non-governmental organizations in responding to humanitarian crises taking
place within their own countries.
Local partners can have significant comparative advantages.231 These
include language skills, familiarity and understanding of local politics, eco-
nomies, cultural values and communities. They may have greater acceptance
among local society and can often access areas where international organiza-
tions and agencies may be prevented from going, either by law or their own
security regulations. Local authorities and organizations can have legal stand-
ing in cases brought before national courts. Their operations are often smaller
and less costly to run than international organizations.232
This does not mean that they are perfect substitutes for international orga-
nizations.233 The latter bring global experience, established operational
practices, and programme, fiscal and accountability management systems
accepted and trusted by donors. They can also mobilize quickly, at scale and
over protracted periods, which is often beyond the ability of local actors.
In certain circumstances, they can be perceived by refugees and internally
displaced persons as more independent, especially in contexts where there is
great mistrust between displaced and local communities.
The issue is one of understanding where international organizations bring
the most added value and where their role should be reduced in favour of local
responders. This was a consideration of the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit,
where there was widespread agreement that the heavy reliance on international
agencies was not always justified and often not optimal, particularly from a
cost and sustainability perspective.234
Implementation through local partners

That conclusion was shared by the High-Level Panel on Humanitarian Finan-
cing in its 2016 report to the Secretary-General. It observed that only 0.2 per
cent of reported humanitarian funding was channelled directly to national and
local partners who complained of being treated as sub-contractors rather than

equal partners by international organizations. It advised that the preparedness
and response be more centred at the national and local levels: “putting respon-
sibility in the hands of people most affected by crisis”.235 This would not only
be more efficient but would “promote local ownership, strengthen local civil
society more generally, and increase that society’s capacity to manage future
shocks”.236
Recommendations in this regard included strengthening capacities to
“manage funds and navigate the complexities of the humanitarian system” and
putting in place a shared system of certification so that, if a local partner is certi-
fied by an international agency, the certification would be accepted by others
as well.237 The move to what is now known as “localization” is included in the
Grand Bargain, as discussed earlier. Signatories agreed to improve engagement
with local and national responders, strengthen their institutional capacity and,
by 2020, achieve a global, aggregated target of “at least 25 per cent of human-
itarian funding” going to them “as directly as possible”.238
Five years on, the results are mixed, according to an independent review
commissioned by the Facilitator Group responsible for steering progress on
the Grand Bargain commitments. The reviewers acknowledged that important
actions had been taken, including the development of comprehensive guid-
ance239 and more strategic engagement by and with local actors. In addition,
a number of signatories had made significant efforts to support institutional
development and make funding available to local and national responders.240
But, in all of these areas, it was found that significant ongoing work was
required to bring about the desired level of transformational change.
For example, just 13 of the 53 grant-giving signatories reported meeting
the target of at least 25 per cent of humanitarian funding being allocated to
local and national responders and, globally, this had reached only 4.7 per cent
of humanitarian funds.241 Donor reluctance to fund more through local part-
ners had not been overcome and the strengthening of local capacities has not
been undertaken systematically.242 This is due, in part, to the fact that enhan-
cing capacities incurs overhead costs and there is no standardized agreement
as to how these should be incorporated into funding instruments.243 The inde-
pendent review advised narrowing this gap.244
Establishing the capacity of local responders means more than involving
them in policy dialogue and funding them to implement programmes. It also
means recognizing their leadership. Here too the review found much work was
required. Policy dialogue at headquarters and in the field had improved, but
empowering local leadership lagged. The review pointed out that local non-
governmental organizations were leading or co-leading just 8 per cent of inter-
agency coordination mechanisms at national and sub-national levels. It welcomed
the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) efforts to develop formal
guidance on this.245
Network of cities
Cities have mobilized their own networks to ensure their voices are heard in
global and national policies and that this translates into action on the ground.
Syrian refugee
chef Nadeem
Khadem Al Jamie
prepares dishes
from home in the
The Mayors Migration Council is reflective of this change. Today, it repre- kitchen of Hôtel
d’Angleterre in
sents close to 100 cities around the world, including most major urban centres, Geneva for the
accounting for over 700 million people. Refugee Food
Festival in 2017.
At its December 2018 launch, it issued the Mayors Declaration in © UNHCR/Mark
Marrakech. This is a clear and detailed declaration of its members’ commit- Henley
ment to advance the objectives of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and
Regular Migration and the Global Compact on Refugees. The Declaration also
called on the international community to consider the expertise and priori-
ties of the cities in policymaking, to learn from their expertise, implement
local or joint programmes, and create mechanisms to secure funding for cities
and regional governments.246 The work of the Mayors Migration Council
has gained momentum, engaging in extensive knowledge exchange between

member cities and on global advocacy.
The Cities Alliance, formed over 20 years ago, is another global network
of cities that works to address migration and forced displacement challenges
in urban areas. The Alliance operates around the world and provides technical
support and funding for policy development, city planning and the strength-
ening of institutions for universal access to essential services. It is expanding
research to advance inclusive development and share promising practices in
relation to urban responses to migration and forced displacement.247
United Cities and Local Governments too is a large global alliance of cities
and local, regional and metropolitan governments working to address global
challenges. Among its priorities is “reshaping the narrative” on migrants and
refugees including highlighting their contributions to local communities.248
Regionally, over 200 cities across Europe have formed their own network
that also seeks to foster inclusive sustainable urban development through
advocacy, knowledge exchange and training. Its work includes promoting and
sharing promising practices in welcoming, receiving and integrating refugees
into European communities.249 The recent European Commission Action Plan
on Integration and Inclusion 2021–2027 recognizes the role of local actors and
the importance of their having access to funding for integration.250
Global and regional acknowledgements of the importance of local authori-
ties and actors in forced displacement responses need to be matched by a tangi-
ble shift in how programmes are delivered in their communities. There is still a
long way to go. Emergency international humanitarian capacity may be needed
at the outset of a large influx but, for most situations, there should be a much
clearer transition point to more locally delivered and sustainable responses. In
the coming years, success will be measured by the extent that local capacities
are strengthened and funding channeled to enable local implementation of
inclusive and sustainable responses.
Private Sector
The role of the private sector in contributing to economic growth and job crea-
tion in forced displacement contexts was discussed in the financing section
earlier in this Part. There are many other areas of private sector engagement in
forced displacement responses.
Here, we look at: the importance of private sector partnerships for the
provision of goods and services; inclusive hiring practices, mentoring of
entrepreneurs; investments in skills development; and support to innovation

and advocacy.251 While the importance of private sector business partnerships
in humanitarian settings has been promoted for some time, the global displace-
ment crises of recent years have accelerated the calls for it.252
The 2016 World Humanitarian Summit recognized the need for innova-
tive partnerships with the private sector in emergency humanitarian responses,
as well as for preparedness, risk reduction and longer-term recovery.253 The
New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants254 of that same year has no
less than 12 references to the importance of the private sector. Similarly, the
private sector is noted many times as a critical stakeholder throughout both
the Global Compact on Refugees255 and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly
and Regular Migration.256
The private sector has responded to these calls. At the 2019 Global
Refugee Forum, private sector organizations made pledges worth more than
$250 million and included commitments for job creation, support to entrepre-
neurs, innovations, advocacy, and the provision of pro-bono legal support.257
In 2016, the founder and CEO of the United States food company
Chobani, Hamdi Ulukaya, established the Tent Partnership for Refugees. It
is a non-profit organization with over 170 major companies committed to the
integration of refugees in host communities. Together, they have pledged to
hire at least 39,000 refugees, support 5,000 or more refugee entrepreneurs and
tailor products and services, such as financial services to refugees.258
Tent also engages and supports policy research, including country- and
industry-specific studies and produces guidance for companies wishing to
engage with refugees.259 One of its studies of European consumers showed
that many consumers, particularly millennials, are more likely to purchase
from companies that hire refugees, invest in refugee enterprises, and deliver
services to refugees.260
Among Tent’s recently announced achievements were the employment
of over 2,000 refugees in Colombia, support to around 200 refugee entrepre-
neurs in Europe, and the identification of temporary accommodations for over
20,000 refugees through Airbnb’s Open Homes programme.261 In 2021, some
Tent members also committed to help address root causes of displacement in
the countries of northern Central America by enhancing income generation,
including through access to financial services, the internet and entrepreneur-
ial support.262
Regional and local business coalitions have also been formed to support the
objectives of the Global Compact on Refugees. And, each year at the annual
meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, there are dedi-
cated discussions on the means and partnerships needed for more sustainable
and resilient responses to forced displacement.263 Many non-governmental
organizations and United Nations organizations have private sector engage-
ment strategies and dedicated departments or divisions to advance them.264
Research shows that investors and consumers are increasingly interested in
the social and environmental commitments of businesses and corporations.265
As interest in forced displacement has increased, more businesses and corpo-
rations have become involved in responses to forced displacement as a part of
their core business activities.266
Areas of operational engagement

The private sector has always been a major supplier of goods and services in
forced displacement settings. This includes food, fuel, vehicles, agricultural
implements, construction materials, hygiene and medical supplies, commu-
nications equipment, and security, freight, transport, property and financial
services. In 2020, UNHCR purchased over $1.37 billion in goods and services,
comprising close to 30 per cent of its overall expenditures.267
While this aspect of private sector engagement has remained steady over the
decades, other areas have increased. Corporations are working with humani-
tarian partners in bringing their skills and expertise to address specific prob-
lems and improve human capital in forced displacement contexts. Education
has been one key area of focus.
For example, UNHCR has partnered with Vodafone Foundation in six
countries across Africa to introduce Instant Network Schools. These provide
access to digital learning content and the internet. They are benefiting over
125,000 refugee and local students and their teachers. By 2025, Vodafone
Foundation and UNHCR aim to expand access to quality digital education
to reach 500,000 refugees and host community children.268
The LEGO Foundation, in partnership with a number of leading develop-
ment and environmental actors, has committed hundreds of millions of dollars
towards learning through play initiatives.269 Adversity causes stress and anxiety
and can affect the brain’s development in young children. Play-based learn-
ing is a means to help develop cognitive and socio-emotional skills needed to
mitigate the harm and improve learning.
The Mastercard Foundation is also supporting education through a Scholars
Program that provides over 15,000 higher education scholarships, 70 per cent
for young women. It has committed to award one quarter of these to refugees
and forcibly displaced youth.270 In 2020, the Foundation provided support to

local partners to help medium- and small-sized enterprises in Rwanda recover
from the COVID-19 pandemic. One thousand entrepreneurs in refugee
communities were included in the support.271
Various corporate and business coalitions have also supported refugee
skills development and entrepreneurship in recent years. In 2015, the German
Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) and the Federal Ministry
for Economic Affairs and Energy initiated a network of companies across
Students learn
at the Instant
Network School
in Maratane
Refugee
Germany to facilitate the integration of refugees into the workforce.272 As Settlement in
Mozambique in
of mid-2021, over 2,700 companies formed part of the network to build and 2021.
share information and experiences on employing refugees and expanding Photo courtesy
of Vodafone
opportunities for them.273 Foundation
In 2016, another network of German companies was established to help © UNHCR/
Vodafone
integrate the large number of refugees that had arrived in Germany. Starting Foundation/Sala
with 36 companies, the network grew to over 230 companies and reported Lewis
the successful integration of more than 33,000 refugees in the German labour
market at the closure of its activities in 2019. Some of Germany’s largest corpo-
rations played a part.274
The Tent Partnership for Refugees has also created guides for employers
on how to hire, mentor and foster the integration of refugees.275 And refugee
job training and language skills development are offered by the Ingka Group,
of which the majority of IKEA stores are a part.276
Improving energy sources in forced displacement contexts is also attract-
ing business and corporate engagement. The Clean Energy Challenge was
launched at the 2019 Global Refugee Forum and attracted many commitments
to bring affordable, reliable and sustainable energy to forced displacement situ-
ations by 2030. Over 200 partners are working towards this goal, including
companies such as Deloitte, Schneider Electric, IKEA Foundation, Accenture
and Kube Energy.277
Companies have also introduced important technologies that are improv-
ing the delivery of assistance. One of them is a biometric iris scan software,
developed by IrisGuard, which is being used in displacement situations in
the Middle East.278 This as well as other biometric identity software, such as
fingerprints and facial scans, mitigate the risk of corruption and identity theft
compromising assistance delivery. They have facilitated the secure delivery
of services, food, medicine and cash-based assistance and remittances to the
individuals intended.
As of 1 July 2021, UNHCR had biometrically enrolled more than 9.3
million individuals across 79 country operations. This represents more than
seven in every 10 refugees over 5 years of age currently registered by UNHCR.
Advocacy
Many businesses and corporations have stepped up efforts to advocate on
behalf of refugees and counter negative narratives. They have done this through
their online platforms, in-store awareness-raising, and the sponsorship of
discussions, conferences, campaigns, as well as through their business networks,
including the World Economic Forum and the International Chamber of
Commerce.
One particularly visible effort was IKEA’s Brighter Lives for Refugees
campaign (2014–2015) which, in addition to raising over €30.8 million from
the sale of light bulbs and lamps, brought the needs of refugees directly to
IKEA’s considerable consumer base.279 The campaign funded the construc-
tion of a solar farm in Azraq refugee camp in Jordan. This brought stable,
sustainable power generation and light to the camp. Among the valued bene-
fits is that it enabled food refrigeration, and lighting at night that enabled
children and youth to read and study and gave added protection to women
and girls. In the words of Asmahan, a Syrian refugee and mother of four, the
transition was like moving from ancient times into the modern century.280
Other companies have also launched fundraising and awareness campaigns

for forced displacement, including TikTok, UNIQLO, Careem, Twitter and
H&M Foundation.281 In Colombia, private sector partners are supporting
the Somos Panas (We are Friends) campaign designed to promote solidarity
between Colombians and Venezuelans through radio, digital ads, social media,
print communications, public events and workshops for journalists.282
Opening up more immigration channels for refugees and migrants are
among the elements of the Global Compact on Refugees and the Global
Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. Education and labour
complementary pathways are two areas where private sector advocacy
and engagement are important and needed to bring current programmes to
scale.283
These are just a sample of private sector initiatives aimed to generate public
support for forcibly displaced persons, improve the delivery of humanitarian
programmes, and support the education and skills development of forcibly
displaced persons.
Most major humanitarian partners have dedicated microsites on their
web pages highlighting areas where they are working in partnership with the
private sector. 284 There is fertile ground for further study and analysis on how
the numerous initiatives cumulatively impact the lives of forcibly displaced
persons and how they are shaping the wider response.285
Academics
Prior to 2000, academic literature on forced displacement was focused primar-

ily on the fields of anthropology, sociology, health and legal studies.286 Begin-
ning in 2000, additional disciplines began to engage more, including in the
fields of political science, geography, urban studies, economics and education.
In the last decade, there has been a significant upsurge in publications concern-
ing forced displacement across nearly all disciplines.
The number of published economics papers on forced displacement grew
sixfold in the period, those in the health field nearly tripled and those in the
field of education more than doubled.287 Cumulatively, between 2000 and 2019,
over 7,000 papers on forced displacement were published across economics,
sociology, health and legal studies. This represents a more than 50 per cent
increase from the previous decade.288
The publications have largely originated in high-income countries. Not
surprisingly, the focus has mainly been on forced displacement affecting
low- and middle-income countries, given that this is where the vast majority
of the world’s forcibly displaced persons reside. However, beginning in 2015,
corresponding to the European refugee influx, the proportion of papers focused
on refugees in high-income countries increased.289
Economic studies can be particularly relevant in the design and imple-
mentation of policy and operational responses across all forced displacement
contexts. There has been a stream of studies examining the effects of refugee
employment on the wages and jobs of host communities, as outlined in Part
IV. Generally, these have pointed to positive gains for both over time while
also recognizing that some people may not benefit equally, thus necessitating
measures to mitigate or compensate for losses.
Similarly, there has been an increase in studies on the local context of forc-
ibly displaced situations, including the structure of the economy, related laws
and policies, economic trends, household welfare and potential for growth. This
evidence and analysis is critical for effective humanitarian and development
interventions. It can highlight the costs and benefits of various policy interven-
tions available to the government and help in promoting social and economic
policies that are inclusive of forcibly displaced persons. Detailed socioeconomic
studies inform the design of programmes to support those who have suffered
losses, strengthen the delivery of public services, and facilitate self-reliance for
displaced and local communities.
This work is ongoing and needs to be continued. Additionally, it will be
important in the coming years to understand how cities are managing to cope
with larger numbers of forcibly displaced populations and the elements of
effective strategies designed to support them. The Refugees in Towns initi-
ative at the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University has started to
explore this.
Since 2017, it has completed 34 case studies by local researchers, many of
whom have been forcibly displaced or are members of the host communities.
The objective is to create a global database to better understand the integra-
tion process of refugees and migrants in the cities where they live. They illus-
trate both the differences and the similarities in the factors that can enable or
impede integration.290
For many years, legal studies have focused largely on the extent to which
States have met their obligations under international, regional and national
frameworks and whether those frameworks are sufficient. The discussion in Part
II draws heavily on this significant body of work. In recent years, there has also
been a marked increase in efforts to better understand, document, and respond
to internal forced displacement. This is vital, given the growing number of

internally displaced persons, the need to ensure more predictable, comprehen-
sive responses and the importance of resolving unsettled issues, such as how
best to determine when internal displacement ends.291
There has also been a growing focus in legal, political science and socio-
logical literature on the ongoing problems encountered when refugees and
migrants move together along unsafe routes, generally facilitated by smugglers
and traffickers.292 Potent images of refugees and migrants abandoned at sea,
wading across rivers, scaling walls and fences are prevalent in the media. But
the deeper issues of addressing root causes, creating safe pathways, acknowl-
edging the obligations of States along transit routes, and recognizing the
rights of refugees and migrants require further analysis.
Both the Global Compact on Refugees and the Global Compact for Safe,
Orderly and Regular Migration sparked considerable academic commentary
on their relevance and potential. We can expect the academic literature of the
future to take stock of how well their aims are being achieved.
Social media is now ubiquitous. It can be an important information medium,
helping forcibly displaced persons access safety and assistance. However, it also
has been used in exploitative ways and as a platform to spread false narratives
that can endanger security. Greater study of the role of social media and how
to mitigate its harmful impact on refugees and internally displaced persons
would be of value.
The voices and perspectives of forcibly displaced persons, and the actual and
potential contributions they make to their own communities and host coun-
tries, are more prominently reflected in academic work. Their involvement has
been shown to be of significant importance in shaping policies and programmes
that affect them. More studies documenting this impact and providing action-
able recommendations for their systematic engagement would be worthwhile.
Health studies concerning forced displacement have been largely
concerned with refugees living in refugee camps, where health data is more
readily accessible.293 There is comparatively less on refugees outside camp
contexts and even less on internally displaced persons. COVID-19 has
attracted attention to pandemic-related issues, such as mitigating its trans-
mission in forced displacement contexts and ensuring equitable access to
treatment and vaccines.
Given the large and increasing number of internally displaced persons,
much more research is needed to understand their health conditions and
necessary interventions. And academic support and guidance is needed
on how best to meet the health needs of displaced people through existing
national systems in specific contexts as well as how to systematically engage
effectively with them and host communities in improving services and health
outcomes.
Published academic studies concerning education in forced displacement
contexts have grown considerably, although the studies are predominantly
concentrated on emergency responses and other situations where education is
provided outside national systems. Areas canvassed include the legal and prac-
tical obstacles to accessing education, the completion rates of those enrolled
in school, and the factors that help enable refugees and internally displaced
persons to remain in school. There also has been work on the legal and prac-
tical barriers that limit refugee access to public schools and on the finances
required to support inclusive education for refugees from preschool through
grade 12. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, articles have also addressed the
impact of the pandemic on refugee learning and efforts that have been made
to mitigate losses.294
There remain large areas in need of further inquiry to improve education
responses in forced displacement contexts. While there is growing consen-
sus on the value of including refugees in national systems, there is relatively
little context-specific analysis on how this may impact host communities. Nor
is there much commentary on what will contribute to positive impacts for
forcibly displaced and host communities alike.295
Similarly, there is a limited number of qualitative studies on difficulties that
forcibly displaced students face in host community schools, including discrimi-
nation, bullying and physical violence. More work is needed to understand how
widespread this behaviour is to inform measures to prevent and mitigate it.296
While we know what helps and hinders access to school, there is relatively
little evidence on literacy and numeracy among forcibly displaced children and
youth. Addressing this gap is hugely important, as is greater evidence on the
effectiveness of interventions aimed to improve learning.
For example, there have been some studies on the use of technology for
learning, such as tablets and smart phones, but these tend to be focused on
specific projects. There is a need to broaden and deepen this work so that
the impact of technology can be isolated from other influences on learning
outcomes. Moreover, the effect of trauma on learning and social and emotional
skills is important. Studies of it have largely occurred outside forced displace-
ment contexts.297
Dropout rates are particularly pronounced when forcibly displaced
students transition from primary to secondary school and when they move
on to colleges and universities. Operational responses would also be strength-
ened with studies that can help determine the causes underlying low reten-
tion rates.
Building Evidence on Forced Displacement is a research partnership estab-
lished in 2016 by the United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth and Devel-
opment Office (FCDO), the World Bank and UNHCR. It is focused on
expanding high-quality and policy-relevant research, principally in the areas of
poverty, education, social protection, health, jobs, social cohesion and gender.
To date, it has undertaken seven global studies, with over 50 background
papers, 15 impact evaluations, over 10 focus papers, and research support to
over 24 scholars.298
Similar collaboration is taking place to address an imbalance whereby
most such studies originate in the better-resourced academic centres of
high-income countries, which are more remote from areas of forced displace-
ment.299 Efforts include improved financing of research studies by academ-
ics working in countries most affected by forced displacement and creating
stronger linkages between institutions across all regions. Many established
academic networks and specialist centres covering refugee and migration
issues are involved.
There is also a need for more robust interchange between academics and
those delivering programmes on the ground. The Global Compacts on refugees
and migration have helped encourage this, and more interdisciplinary work is
underway. But there is considerable potential for this to be improved.300
It requires both a practical shift and a change in attitudes. An apprecia-
tion by academics of political and operational realities can help ensure that
their studies are of greater practical benefit. Likewise, operational agencies
need to overcome their perceived and occasional tendency to assume they
know best. They must be open to the expertise that academics in relevant
fields can provide.
Efforts by humanitarian organizations are heading in the right direction
in recent years, including moves to partner with academics and specialized
institutions on context analysis, surveys and impact evaluations. So too are
greater efforts to centrally engage forcibly displaced populations in this work.
Academics are also teachers and educators of those who may be involved in
setting policies, delivering operations and contributing financing to forced
displacement responses in the future – a further motivation to reinforce
collaboration today.
Accountability
International Criminal Prosecution
Lidia Yusupova survived two Chechen wars between 1994 and 2009 but
witnessed great brutality and experienced the loss of family and friends. It
marked her and motivated her to become a human rights advocate working
to bring perpetrators of human rights abuses to justice.
In describing the importance of the work, her sentiments are similar to
many who have survived atrocities and are willing to come forward as witnesses.
Giving up is not an option: “There is still our conscience, there is still the
memory of the victims… there is still our duty to prevent further bloodshed.”301
This call to end impunity, and many others like it, have gained greater
resonance in recent years. As forced displacement numbers soared in the last
decade, there has been a significant increase in efforts to hold accountable those
directly responsible for the serious crimes they have committed.
This section focuses on criminal prosecutions of individuals accused of
serious human rights violations.302 It traces the historic path of post-World
War II (WWII) international criminal prosecutions and increasing national
ones. The record is patchy and often disappointing. But there is clear move-
ment towards greater accountability and justice for survivors.
It is also important to keep in mind that those who have perpetrated the
human rights violations causing flight cannot benefit from international protec-
tion. The 1951 Convention explicitly does not protect those suspected of grave
international crimes, serious non-political crimes or acts contrary to the prin-
ciples of the United Nations.303
International and national efforts to criminally prosecute those responsi-
ble for the abuses that often lead to mass flight can be part of broader tran-
sitional justice measures in countries emerging from periods of conflict or
serious repression. These can include efforts to establish accountable institu-
tions, ensure access to justice, sustain peace and promote reconciliation, such
as through truth and reconciliation commissions.304
International Military Tribunals

“The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malig-
nant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored,
because it cannot survive their being repeated.” 305
These were the words of Robert H. Jackson, Chief Prosecutor for the United
States at the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg. It was

established by the Allies in December 1945 to criminally prosecute leaders of
the Nazi regime.306 A similar entity was set up several months later in Tokyo,
for the trial of Japanese military and other leaders: the International Military
Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE).307
While the kind of wrongs to which Jackson referred would be repeated,
these international tribunals marked a powerful turning point in international
law: holding leaders and other officials specifically to account for causing
egregious and widespread harm. They provided a detailed record of atroci-
ties committed by the Axis powers, as well as recognition and retribution for
survivors. Significantly, they recognized the international crimes that would
collectively come to be known as “atrocity crimes” – war crimes, crimes against
peace and crimes against humanity.308
The Charters establishing the tribunals defined crimes against peace as
the planning, preparation, initiation or waging of war in violation of interna-
tional treaties, agreements or assurances. War crimes are violations of the laws
or customs of war. Crimes against humanity include murder, extermination,
enslavement, deportation, inhumane acts against the civilian population before
or during war, and/or persecution on political, racial, or religious grounds.309
In October 1946, the International Military Tribunal convicted 19 defen-
dants and acquitted three.310 The International Military Tribunal for the
Far East concluded in 1948 with 25 convictions.311 Those convicted by both
tribunals received sentences ranging from death to long-term imprisonment.
They represented military leaders and prominent members of the political,
diplomatic and economic establishments.312
At the time the tribunals were created, the United Nations General Assem-
bly passed a resolution recommending that States take all necessary measures to
arrest suspected war criminals and return them to countries where their alleged
crimes were committed for prosecution.313 And on 11 December 1946, within
months of the Nuremberg verdicts, the United Nations General Assembly
passed a resolution recognizing genocide as an international crime, defining it as
the denial of an entire group’s right to exist.314 It called on the Economic and
Social Council to draft a convention to prevent it and to punish the perpetrators.
Nearly two years later to the day, the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) was unani-
mously adopted by United Nations member States. It confirmed that genocide,
whether committed in times of peace or in times of war, is a crime under interna-
tional law which the signatory States undertake to prevent and punish. It defines
the offence, and it obliges all signatories to enact legislation to implement the
Convention and to prosecute perpetrators be they constitutional rulers, officials
or individuals. It also provides for trials by competent national tribunals of the
State where the act was committed, or by an international penal tribunal.315
The following year, a further set of four treaties was signed in Geneva. They
set out standards of conduct during armed conflict and laid the foundations for
the investigation and prosecution of those violating them. Known collectively
as the Geneva Conventions, along with their Additional Protocols, they form
the major components of international humanitarian law. Serious violations
of them constitute war crimes.316 They govern the treatment of civilians, medi-
cal and religious personnel, aid workers and troops no longer participating in
hostilities during times of war.317
The first three concern the treatment of sick or wounded combatants in
the field or at sea, and of prisoners of war, respectively. The fourth covers the
protection of civilians.318 International humanitarian law also contains specific
provisions for the protection of refugees in the territory of a party to an inter-
national armed conflict.319
Thus, within several years of the conclusion of WWII, major officials
were tried and convicted of atrocity crimes, the Genocide Convention was
passed, the Geneva Conventions consolidated international humanitarian law
treaties, and jurisprudence regarding war crimes and crimes against human-
ity was developed. In addition, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
was ratified in 1948, and the 1951 Convention established an international
refugee protection regime.320
It was a strong start. But the hopes raised for a permanent international
tribunal dedicated to the prosecution of genocide and other international
crimes was a long way from being realized.321 For several decades thereafter,
not a single person was internationally held to account for war crimes or crimes
against humanity. It took until the 1990s for the next international judicial
response, after the atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia322 and in
Rwanda. This time it was by international criminal tribunals set up under the
auspices of the United Nations, and not military tribunals of the victors over
the vanquished.323
Ad hoc international criminal tribunals
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was
created by a Security Council resolution in 1993 to prosecute war crimes

and specifically: genocide; crimes against humanity; and breaches of laws
or customs of war, including the Geneva Conventions.324 It was located in
The Hague, the Netherlands. Among the accused was Slobodan Milošević,
President of Serbia, and the first serving head of State to be indicted in an
international prosecution for war crimes.325
During its 24 years of operation, the ICTY indicted 161 individuals, mostly
Serbs and Bosnian Serbs as well as Croats, Bosnian Muslims and Kosovo
Albanians. It secured 90 convictions.326 Among its many findings was that:
the mass murder of over 7,000 men and boys in Srebrenica was a genocide;
rape was used as an instrument of terror; and massive and “hellish” persecution
was inflicted on those detained in the camps in northwestern Bosnia.327 The
judgments of the tribunal furthered the jurisprudence on genocide, war crimes
and crimes against humanity.
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

Shortly after the ICTY was set up, the United Nations Security Council estab-
lished the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), mandated to
prosecute those responsible for genocide and other serious violations of inter-
national law committed in Rwanda and neighbouring States in 1994.328 The
Tribunal was located in Arusha, Tanzania with offices in Kigali, Rwanda and its
appeal chamber in The Hague. Its specific focus was on the killing of approx-
imately 800,000 to 1 million persons, most within a 100-day period in 1994.
The work of the ICTR extended over 21 years. It indicted 93 individuals,
of whom 62 were convicted, including high-ranking military and government
officials, politicians and businessmen, as well as religious militia and military
leaders.329 It too furthered the jurisprudence on genocide, crimes against
humanity and war crimes, and was the first international tribunal to convict
individuals for the crime of genocide, as established in the 1948 Genocide
Convention. It also found that rape was a means of perpetrating genocide.
Among the other precedents it established was that members of the media
could be prosecuted and convicted of incitement to commit genocide.330
The remaining cases of the Yugoslavia and Rwanda tribunals were
eventually transferred to the International Residual Mechanism for
Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT). Created by the Security Council in 2010, the
IRMCT was established to assume several functions of the former Tribunals,
including hearing appeals and prosecuting the remaining fugitives from
justice.331
International Criminal Court
From the end of WWII, advocates called for the creation of a permanent
international criminal court. The road to its realization, however, was long. In
1947, the United Nations General Assembly requested that the International
Law Commission (ILC)332 write a Draft Code of Offences Against the Peace and
Security of Mankind. In parallel, the United Nations General Assembly also
established a committee to prepare a draft statute for an international criminal
court. Within a few years, both a draft code and draft statute were submitted
to the General Assembly333 but were not acted upon, due to a lack of political
consensus aggravated by the Cold War.334
It would take several decades before progress towards a permanent interna-
tional criminal court gained traction. In 1989, the General Assembly requested
the International Law Commission to draft a statute for such a court, which
it subsequently presented in 1994.335 It was then considered by an Ad Hoc
Committee, followed by a Preparatory Committee both established by the
General Assembly.336
The Preparatory Committee consulted widely within and outside the
United Nations system. Among those active in the work was the Coalition
for the International Criminal Court (CICC) whose members included legal
human rights and international justice organizations from around the world.337
The result of these efforts culminated in the Rome Statute on the Inter-
national Criminal Court (the Rome Statute), adopted by 120 countries in
1998.338 The treaty came into effect in 2002. Currently, 123 countries are party
to it, including most countries in Africa, Europe and Latin America. Three
Security Council members, China, Russia and the United States are not party
to it.339 Many countries in Asia and the Middle East are also not signatories.
The International Criminal Court is an independent permanent tribunal. Its
jurisdiction extends to crimes committed after 2002 and over war crimes, crimes
against humanity and genocide. It can also prosecute those who interfere with
the administration of justice, for example, by giving false testimony, tampering
with a witness, or improperly interfering in the duties of Court officials.340
The International Criminal Court may only exercise jurisdiction where
national legal systems fail to do so, including when they purport to act but do
not genuinely carry out proceedings. This is known as the principle of comple-
mentarity. The rationale is both to respect the primary jurisdiction of States
and to serve the interests of efficiency and effectiveness since States are often
best placed to access evidence and witnesses.341
Genocide is defined in the Rome Statute as in the Genocide Convention.

It includes acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
ethnical, racial or religious group. To establish the crime, it must be proved
that the perpetrator intended to destroy the group in whole or in part.342
The Rome Statute also provides a detailed and precise definition of crimes
against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression.
Crimes against humanity are those “committed as part of a widespread or
systematic attack directed against any civilian population” and executed as part
of a State or organizational plan or policy. They include murder, extermination,
enslavement, deportation and forcible transfer, torture, severe sexual violence,
persecution, apartheid, enforced disappearance and “other inhumane acts of
a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to
body or to mental or physical health”.343 Perpetrators need not have knowledge
“of all characteristics of the attack or the precise details of the plan or policy”.
Intent is satisfied “if the perpetrator intended to further such an attack”.344
War crimes under the Rome Statute include grave breaches of the Geneva
Conventions and other serious violations of international law applicable in
international armed conflict. They include the killing of civilians, torture,
inhumane treatment, willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to
body or health. Also included is militarily unnecessary and wanton destruc-
tion of property. Other actions that can be so severe as to constitute war crimes
include forced recruitment of prisoners of war or civilians into hostile forces,
denial of a fair trial, unlawful deportation or transfer, unlawful confinement
or hostage-taking.345
The crime of aggression refers to the planning, preparation, initiation or
execution of an act of aggression which, by its character, gravity and scale,
constitutes a manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations. Culpa-
bility extends to any person in a position to exercise control or to direct the
political or military action of a State. It includes acts by armed forces of a State
against the territory of another State, such as military occupation, bombard-
ment, blockade of the ports or coasts, attacks by land, sea or air, and the use of
armed groups to carry out grave acts against another State.346
The International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction is limited to situations
where the alleged perpetrator is a national of a State Party or where the crime
was committed in the territory of a State Party. The only exceptions to these
two criteria are if the Security Council refers the case to the Court, or the rele-
vant non-State signatory consents to the Court’s jurisdiction.347 Of note is the
2019 decision of the Court, that its remit can extend to situations engaging
a non-State party to the Court, if at least part of the criminal conduct takes
place within the territory of a State party.348
This decision was in regard to the Prosecutor’s request to authorize an inves-
tigation into the deportations, acts of persecution and other inhumane acts
committed against the Rohingya population of Myanmar (non-State Party),
which has precipitated the flight of close to 700,000 Rohingya refugees to
Bangladesh (State Party) since 2016. The decision is of import as the reasoning
could be applied in other situations of significant forced displacement, provided
one of the receiving States is a party to the Rome Statute.349
The International Criminal Court also has the power to issue reparations to
the victims, including monetary compensation, return of property, rehabilitation
or symbolic measures, such as apologies or memorials. A Trust Fund for Victims
has been established to raise the funds necessary to comply with an order for
reparations if the convicted person does not have sufficient resources to do so.350
Since it was established in 2002, the Court has brought charges against 46
individuals, of which 10 have been convicted.351 Five persons were convicted
for administration of justice offences, such as witness tampering.352 Of the
five convicted of atrocity crimes, three involve leaders of armed groups in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo. Thomas Lubanga was convicted by the
Court in 2012 of the war crimes of enlisting and conscripting children under
15 years of age and sentenced to 14 years imprisonment.353 In 2014, Germain
Katanga was found guilty of murder, attacking a civilian population, destruc-
tion of property and pillaging, and sentenced to 12 years in prison.354 Five years
later, the Court found Bosco Ntaganda guilty of 18 counts of war crimes and
crimes against humanity and sentenced him to 30 years in prison.355
The fourth convicted war criminal is Ahmed Al-Mahdi, a Tuareg militia
member who pled guilty to destroying historical and religious monuments in
Timbuktu, Mali. He received a nine-year prison sentence.356 And, in 2021,
Dominic Ongwen, a commander in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) was
found guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes, committed in North-
ern Uganda between 1 July 2002 and 31 December 2005. He was sentenced
to 25 years imprisonment.357
As of October 2021, the Internal Criminal Court was carrying out 15 inves-
tigations, 10 of which are in Africa. Close to all are situations that have involved
mass forced displacement.358 There were three trials underway and one appeal
in process.359 Thirteen accused remain at large and their trials pending.360
The Court has faced criticism over the years, including that it has been
partial in the selection of situations to investigate and cases to pursue.361
Situations in Africa have largely been the focus of the Court’s attention. More
cases have been brought against rebel leaders than serving government officials
and commanders of government troops. Notable exceptions include the 2009
and 2011 indictments of the former President of Sudan, Omar Al-Bashir, and
the then Kenyan Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, respectively.
African leaders’ frustrations with the Court led the 2015 Summit of the
African Union to pass a conclusion that serving heads of State should not be
put on trial. This is among the reasons why Omar Al-Bashir remained at large
after the warrant for his arrest.362 Kenyatta, however, surrendered himself to
the Court, and denied the charges, which were eventually dropped amid diffi-
culties in obtaining evidence due to a lack of cooperation from witnesses and
concerns of witness tampering.363
Disappointment with the Court has been broad, even reaching within the
Court itself and its strongest backers. As one commentator noted in 2012,
the International Criminal Court is a Court of “unfulfilled aspirations”.364 It
took seven years for it to begin its first trial, and it consistently failed to meet
its own strategic targets. Dissatisfaction over the small number of convictions,
time-consuming prosecutions, and lack of cooperation by some States led the
President of the Court, in 2019, to request an independent review.
States parties to the Rome Statute mandated a group of nine independent
experts to undertake the review.365 In September 2020, they issued their final
report: close to 350 pages of detailed findings and recommendations.366
While emphasizing the commitment of most of the Court’s personnel
and the important role of the Court, the experts found serious failings in the
work culture and observed that cumbersome bureaucratic processes, a lack
of strategic planning, and delayed judgments contributed to inefficiencies.
The experts prioritized their recommendations, and States parties have since
created a mechanism for follow-up.367 The work is ongoing. The relevance of
the International Criminal Court will no doubt depend on how well and how
fast it moves on the implementation.
Other international tribunals
Special Court for Sierra Leone

At the time the International Criminal Court was established, another ad hoc
international criminal tribunal was created in a forced displacement context.
The Special Court for Sierra Leone was established in 2002, following the
conclusion of the 11-year civil war in which tens of thousands were killed,
and over 1 million forcibly displaced at the peak of the crisis.368 Wide-
spread atrocities were committed, including mass murder, mutilation, rape,
forced marriage, sexual slavery, and extensive and brutal forced recruitment
of children.369
The Court was set up by a treaty agreement between the United Nations
and the Government of Sierra Leone, and endorsed by the Security Coun-
cil.370 It included judges and prosecutors from Sierra Leone and the interna-
tional community. Unlike the international criminal tribunals for the former
Charles Taylor’s
trial for war
crimes and
crimes against
humanity is
televised from Yugoslavia and Rwanda, which were funded by the United Nations, the Special
the Hague in Court for Sierra Leone relied on voluntary contributions. Its jurisdiction
2012. The former
president of was limited to prosecuting those “bearing the greatest responsibility” for war
Liberia was found crimes, crimes against humanity, or serious violations of international human-
guilty of all 11
charges and itarian law or Sierra Leonean law.371 It was based in the country’s capital,
sentenced to 50 Freetown.
years in prison.
© Lee Karen Within its 11 years of operation, 10 people were tried for atrocity crimes,
Stow/Alamy and all were convicted, with the exception of one who died before the end of the
proceedings.372 The last judgment was issued in 2013 by the Appeals Chamber,
upholding the conviction of the former President of Liberia, Charles Taylor,
whose forces were engaged in the war.
He was the first sitting head of State to be convicted of war crimes by an
international tribunal since the Nuremberg trials.373 The Special Court for
Sierra Leone set a series of other precedents. It found that forced marriage
was a war crime, attacks against United Nations peacekeepers were war crimes,
and crimes against humanity included the recruitment, enlistment and use of
child soldiers.374
The War Crimes Chamber in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The 1995 General Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also
known as the Dayton Accords provided for an international High Repre-
sentative to oversee the civilian implementation of the agreement. The High
Representative maintains broad powers, including to enact laws.375
In 2000, the High Representative issued a proclamation for the creation
of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was subsequently established
through an Act of Parliament in 2002. The War Crimes Chamber forms part
of the Court. It is accountable for prosecuting persons responsible for seri-
ous violations of international humanitarian law committed in the former
Yugoslavia since 1991, including genocide, crimes against humanity, war
crimes, and violations of the laws and practices of war.376 It began its work in
2005, and international judges and personnel formed part of the Court as a
transitional means to strengthen national capacity.
Between 2005 and 2020, the Chamber concluded over 240 cases and
convicted 269 individuals who received a range of sentences, with 12 years
imprisonment being the average length of incarceration imposed.377 Capac-
ity issues have led to some difficulties, including in strategic planning, which
has meant that many cases have been pursued but the most important have
not been prioritized.
Delays have been incurred due to procedural errors that had to be reme-
died before indictments could proceed. These are among the reasons why the
Chamber is behind in meeting its 2023 case completion target.378 Observers
have noted that, notwithstanding some deficiencies, fairness has largely been
observed in the judicial process and rulings issued.379
National Criminal Prosecution
There have been significant prosecutions of atrocity crimes in national courts.

The following examples concern situations where the criminal acts have also
been responsible for significant forced displacement. They illustrate difficul-
ties often encountered in ensuring timely, fair and independent proceedings.
Cambodia
Justice was delayed for the victims of the Cambodian genocide committed
during the Khmer Rouge regime between 1975 and 1979. It was not until 2001
that the Cambodian National Assembly created the Extraordinary Chambers
in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) to prosecute senior leaders and those
most responsible for grave violations of national and international law during
the Khmer Rouge period.380
During the four years that the Khmer Rouge were in power under Pol Pot,
1.5 to 2 million people are estimated to have died from starvation, torture,
executions and forced labour.381 More than 2 million were forcibly displaced
within the country and close to 200,000 fled to neighbouring countries.382
Following their ouster from power, the Khmer Rouge continued an insurgency
that lasted until the late 1990s.
The Cambodian law establishing the Extraordinary Chambers provided for
both national and international personnel and was supported by the United
Nations through a special agreement.383 Because of the support received from
the United Nations and the fact that it engages a mix of international judges
and prosecutors, the Chambers is sometimes characterized as a “hybrid” inter-
national tribunal. But, since it was created and can be dissolved by the law of
Cambodia, it is a national tribunal.384
The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia commenced
work in 2006. The Court has indicted nine individuals and, by mid-2021, had
convicted three. In 2010, Kaing Guek Eav was found guilty of crimes against
humanity and war crimes for his actions while leading a special branch of the
Khmer Rouge security and operating prison. In 2014, two other high officials,
Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea were found guilty of crimes against humanity.
Khieu Samphan was a high official in the Khmer Rouge who eventually
succeeded Pol Pot as President of the State Presidium. Nuon Chea was the party’s
chief ideologist, Deputy Secretary of the Party, and President of the National
Assembly. In 2018, both men were also convicted of genocide. Among the acts
that formed the basis of their convictions was the forced displacement of over 2
million people, enforced disappearances and attacks against human dignity.385
Among the other cases before the Extraordinary Chambers, one accused
person died during the proceedings. One case was dismissed because of the
mental health of the accused.386 The prosecution of four others did not proceed
beyond the pre-trial phase due to disagreements between the Cambodian and
international judges on whether the cases should go to trial.387 In August 2020,
one of the cases was terminated due to a lack of an enforceable indictment.388
The decade-long deadlock has been attributed to political pressure on the

Cambodian judges.389
The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia is considered to
have mixed results. Positively, it has delivered a degree of accountability and
justice for the atrocities committed under the Khmer Rouge and provided
victims with stronger participatory rights than comparable courts and tribu-
nals. But its reputation has been tarnished amid reports of political pressure,
alleged corruption of some court officials, and failure to adhere systematically
to due process.390 Also, while it did provide a greater measure of victim parti-
Nuon Chea
during the Trial
Chamber hearing
in Case 002.
ECCC Handout/
cipation, the practice has been uneven.391 And, because the Government took Nhet Sok Heng/
so long to pursue prosecutions, many perpetrators lived freely for years, and Wikimedia
Commons
some either died or were too infirm to be tried.
Bangladesh
Bangladesh’s prosecution of atrocity crimes has also received mixed reactions.
One year following the creation of Bangladesh in 1972, legislation was passed
to prosecute and punish persons “responsible for committing genocide, crimes
against humanity, war crimes and other crimes under international law”.392
However, immediate post-war efforts to hold perpetrators to account were
quickly abandoned, and it was only in 2010 that Bangladesh’s International
Crimes Tribunal was established, based on a revised version of the 1973 law.393
Special tribunals were constituted and indictments issued, including of leaders
of the Jamaat-e-Islami, accused of genocide and other international crimes
arising from the events in 1971.394
By 2020, several had been convicted and received sentences ranging from
death to life imprisonment.395 While the creation of the national tribu-
nal was viewed positively,396 legal scholars and human rights groups have
since registered concern over the proceedings. Some have observed that the
Bangladesh Constitution has been interpreted to deny constitutional protec-
tions to those detained or charged of international crimes. In addition, provi-
sions in the enabling legislation of the International Crimes Tribunal are seen
as undermining the rights of the accused and the independence and fairness
of the proceedings.397
Guatemala
In Guatemala, prosecution for gross human rights abuses during the country’s
civil war from the 1960s through the 1990s was also delayed. It was not until
2012 that José Efraín Ríos Montt, former President of Guatemala and previ-
ous high official in the armed forces, was arrested. Montt was charged with
genocide against Ixil indigenous communities and crimes against humanity
committed during the 36-year civil war from 1960 to 1996.
As a member of Congress until 2012, he had been protected by legislative
immunity. In 2013, he was found guilty of genocide and crimes against human-
ity. Only days later, the conviction was overturned by the Constitutional Court
of Guatemala on the grounds that he had been denied a fair trial. He died in
2018 before his retrial was completed.398
Chad
Chad took a long time to prosecute senior officials for atrocity crimes, which
took place during the eight-year Presidency of Hissène Habré, between 1982
and 1990. Following his ouster by Idriss Déby in 1990, Habré fled to Senegal.
Chad did not seek to extradite him. It also waited many years before prose-
cuting members of his regime.
It was not until 2013, after close to 25 years of victims’ advocacy, that arrest
warrants were issued against his former officials.399 In 2015, a Chadian criminal
court convicted 21 men of serious offences, including crimes against humanity.
Seven of them received life imprisonment. Among them were Saleh Younous,
the former director of the political police, and Mahamat Djibrine, chief
of police charged with illegal detention, torture and “acts of barbarism”.400

Some of the above cases reveal how political reluctance can mean perpe-
trators are not prosecuted in their national courts. This may be motivated by
an intention to leave the past behind and move forward, and/or not to bring
to light evidence that could implicate current office holders.
There are other reasons preventing domestic courts from hearing cases of
international crimes. Prosecutions are often complex, necessitating detailed
evidence gathering, and multiple layers of processing, requiring a level of
resources and judicial infrastructure that many countries lack. So, even if a
country is willing to prosecute, it may lack the means to do so.401
Universal Jurisdiction
The principle of universal jurisdiction applies to the offences that are so seri-
ous that States may prosecute them under national legislation, even when the
crimes are not committed on their territory or by their citizens.402 In 1961,
Israel relied on universal jurisdiction to convict Adolf Eichmann of offences
including crimes against humanity and war crimes.403 Eichmann’s status
as a senior German officer of the Third Reich established his responsibility
for the forced deportation of Jews and other detainees to extermination
camps.
Augusto Pinochet was the first former head of State to be indicted for
crimes against humanity under universal jurisdiction. In 1973, he led the mili-
tary coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador
Allende. His dictatorship lasted until 1990 and is known for its brutal repres-
sion of suspected leftists, activists and political opponents. More than 3,000 are
known to have been killed or disappeared during his regime, some 40,000 are
estimated to have survived torture and political imprisonment,404 and many
thousands of persons fled the country.405
In 1998, Pinochet was arrested in London, under an international arrest
warrant issued by Spain. The charges included torture and other international
crimes. Pinochet fought his extradition to Spain, claiming that, as a former
head of State, he was immune from prosecution. His claim was rejected by
the House of Lords, then the highest court of appeal406 on the grounds that
Chile was a party to the Convention Against Torture (CAT) and the CAT is
clear that no immunity can be claimed for the crime of torture.407 Pinochet,
therefore, could be extradited to Spain.408
However, the United Kingdom’s Home Secretary decided not to extradite
Pinochet on the grounds that he was in ill health. Pinochet was returned to
Chile. After several Court rulings there on his capacity to stand trial, he was
eventually criminally charged under Chilean law, but died before the trial
commenced.409
Pinochet was not held accountable for his crimes. But the decision of the
United Kingdom House of Lords to refuse him immunity and recognize
universal jurisdiction is regarded as important. From that point, use of universal
jurisdiction began to increase, supported by persistent advocacy and casework
by victims’ groups, and human rights and legal advocates.
Senegal’s prosecution of Hissène Habré, the former President of Chad, is
an example. Although Chad did not prosecute him, Senegal was willing to do
so and, in 2014, passed a Statute of the Extraordinary African Chambers to
prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture commit-
ted in Chad during his government. It was the first application of universal
jurisdiction in Africa.410 The Court was supported by the African Union and
had a mix of Senegalese and international judges.
Accusations against Habré included targeted killings of civilian populations
and suspected political opponents, mass arrests and systematic use of torture
by State security and armed forces under Habré’s command. The Court found
him responsible for mass sexual slavery and for ordering the killing of 40,000
people. In 2016, he was convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced
to life in prison.411 He was the first former head of State convicted under
universal jurisdiction for atrocity crimes, making Habré’s high-profile case a
landmark conviction.
The last decade has seen an increase in universal jurisdiction cases, the
majority concerning events beyond Africa.412 Between 2008 and 2017, there
were over 800 new universal jurisdiction cases globally, a 60 per cent increase
over the previous decade.413 Twenty-nine universal jurisdiction cases were
completed between 2010 and 2017, close to the same number completed over
the previous 49 years.414
As of April 2021, estimates suggest that 144 persons were reported under
investigation or charged with a serious international crime in universal juris-
diction proceedings globally. Thirty trials were underway in 18 countries. The
cases involved crimes committed in 21 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin
America and the Middle East.415
Several reasons have been advanced for the increased number of universal
jurisdiction cases. One is that countries have passed domestic legislation recog-
nizing crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide, and authorizing their
prosecution. According to Amnesty International, 147 United Nations member
States have provided for universal jurisdiction over one or more of the interna-
tional crimes of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and torture.416
Several countries have also established special units within their national
institutions for the investigation and prosecution of international crimes.417
This has not only brought specialized expertise to the task but has also helped
ensure that links are in place with other national law enforcement, immigra-
tion and intelligence branches of government.418
Countries have gained experience in exercising universal jurisdiction, which
has helped in effectively selecting, investigating and conducting prosecutions.
The same is true for non-governmental organizations and legal advocates who
have been instrumental in documenting and advocating for the prosecution of
international crimes. They provide legal assistance to victims, litigation support,
and training on evidence gathering and strengthening local capacity.419
Technology has also helped. It has made the collection of evidence easier,
not least when carried out far away from the prosecuting State, and it has
lowered costs. The widespread use and sharing of audio and visual materials
have helped document atrocity crimes and provide evidence. Sharing platforms
are available to governments and non-governmental organizations. The publi-
cation of evidence of gross human rights violations is believed to contribute to
increased public support and demand for accountability.420
Forcibly displaced people themselves have played an important role in the
growing use of universal jurisdiction. The rise in cases over the past decade
coincided with the increased arrivals of refugees from Syria and Iraq in Western
Europe, where the majority of universal jurisdiction cases have been lodged.421
In some cases, individuals who have claimed asylum have been investigated
for serious international crimes.422 At times, asylum-seekers and refugees have
reported people suspected of serious crimes to authorities.
Independent Fact-Finding
Collecting evidence to support prosecutions is generally very difficult

and time-consuming. It often involves gathering evidence in remote and
insecure areas, locating and protecting witnesses, and tracking down suspects.
Each step is long and complex, and the process can be costly, especially given
the distance between the location of the alleged crimes and the country of
prosecution.423 Successful prosecutions are often hard-won, given these chal-
lenges.424 In recognition, various United Nations mechanisms have been
increasingly relied upon to investigate possible atrocity crimes.
In 2016, the General Assembly created the International, Impartial and

Independent Mechanism on Syria (IIIM).425 It was sponsored by over 50
States reportedly frustrated by the deadlock in the Security Council in regard
to the conflict in Syria. The mandate of the Mechanism is to assist in the
investigation and prosecution of those responsible for the most serious crimes
under international law committed in Syria since March 2011. It collects,
consolidates, analyses and preserves evidence to facilitate independent crim-
inal proceedings in national, regional or international courts.426 In its annual
report to the General Assembly in 2021, the Mechanism noted it had received
close to 100 requests for assistance from 11 jurisdictions and supported 36
domestic investigations.427
In parallel, the Human Rights Council (HRC) also mandates fact-finding
missions, commissions of inquiry and independent investigations into serious
human rights abuses and related crimes, with a view to avoid impunity and
ensure accountability.428 Since 2015, these have included investigations and
fact-finding into situations in Belarus, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the
Congo, Lake Chad Basin, Libya, Myanmar, Palestine/Israel, South Sudan,
Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.429
In 2018, the HRC showed a willingness to link investigations directly
to prosecutions. It came as it established the Independent Investigative
Mechanism for Myanmar. Its mandate provides for the collection of evidence
of the most serious international crimes and violations of international law
and preparation of files for criminal prosecution.430
The Security Council also has the authority to mandate investigations into
serious international crimes. It has used it sparingly. The Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights documents just five such Security Council
authorizations since 1963, four of which were prior to 2000.
However, in 2017, unanimity was reached in regard to a request by Iraq for
the United Nations’ assistance in holding the Islamic State in Iraq and the
Levant (ISIL) accountable for atrocities committed when it was in control of
large parts of Iraq (2014–2017). The Council established UNITAD, the
Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh/
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. It is mandated to work with Iraqi autho-
rities and other stakeholders in the collection, preservation and storage of evidence in
Iraq of acts that might amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and
genocide.431
In his 2021 Annual Report to the Security Council, Karim A. A. Khan, the
Special Adviser who then led the work of the Investigative Team, reported that
it had identified close to 1,500 potential ISIL perpetrators of attacks against

Yazidis. It completed core investigations into two of the most prominent
attacks prioritized in its mandate.432 It confirmed the repeated deployment of
chemical weapons by ISIL against civilian populations. Khan also reported on
advances in evidence-gathering, including the innovations in digital platforms,
artificial intelligence and data analysis. Ongoing capacity-building of the Iraqi
authorities to collect, store and preserve evidence and establish a legislative
framework for future prosecutions was ongoing.433
UNITAD also works closely with survivors and, in 2021, supported the
return of the remains of those killed by ISIL and buried in mass graves of
Kocho. Nadia Mourad, Nobel Laureate and Yazidi survivor of sexual slavery
under ISIL, spoke to the Security Council of the deep significance that event
had on her community as part of the work to press ahead in holding ISIL
accountable.
She reminded the Council that 200,000 Yazidis remain in displacement
camps, a few hours from their homes “hoping for justice and restoration”, while
2,800 women and children are still captives of ISIL.434 She urged the Coun-
cil to create a special international tribunal or refer the situation to the Inter-
national Criminal Court for the prosecution of ISIL. To do less, she warned,
denies hundreds of thousands of Yazidis justice and invites future groups to
commit such crimes.435
Ongoing international efforts to strengthen the prosecution capacities of
national and regional institutions may also help further accountability for inter-
national crimes.436 They not only could expand the number of fora in which
accountability can be pursued and allow for proceedings to take place closer
to affected communities and in languages more accessible to them. They could
help provide real and perceived impartiality in the adjudication of what are
often highly politicized cases.437
There are countless testimonials from those who have survived atrocity
crimes of the importance of criminal prosecution of their perpetrators. In his
evidence before the Extraordinary African Chambers in Senegal, Souleymane
Guengueng described his imprisonment, the cries of fellow detainees being
tortured, and the disappearance and death of other prisoners.
He also spoke of the promise he made to himself during that dismal time
that was being realized in the courtroom in which he now sat:
“From the depths of my soul, from the depths of that madness, I took an
oath before God that if I got out alive, I would fight for justice.”
He did, and we should do no less.
CON C LUSION
Reflecting Back
and
Facing Forward
DAccullenis ent
veraes estia sequid
ut erit qui blatur
sitem es quae
volest laborec
esequia
Reflecting Back
and Facing Forward
The history of responding to forced displacement has a positive overall trajec-

tory, but one that has always been uneven.
From the earliest periods of civilization, people forced to flee have found
Previous page: protection and even longer-term solutions to their plight from others. Although
Some of the
thousands these responses were typically ad hoc and localized, they reflected broader
of Rohingya values of safety, solidarity and self-reliance. The 1951 Convention relating to
refugees crossing
the border into the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol gave them global reach.
Bangladesh from In its 70 years, the 1951 Convention has been central to successful efforts
Myanmar in 2017.
© UNHCR/Roger to improve the lives of some of the world’s most vulnerable people. Millions
Arnold of refugees have been protected and realized solutions to their displacement.
The Convention has also helped inspire international protection responses for
internally displaced persons, as well as for those displaced due to the adverse
effects of climate change and disasters.
But history also reveals how often national and international responses have
fallen short. This book shows how that pattern persists. Lasting solutions have
remained elusive for millions of people forced to flee. The absence of conditions
CONCLUSION / REFLECTING BACK AND FACING FORWARD 357
that enable safe and sustainable return has contributed to increasing protracted
displacement. Resettlement has only ever been provided to a small proportion
of refugees. And forcibly displaced people often face significant obstacles to
sustainable local integration.
Countries hosting the vast majority of forcibly displaced persons have been
left without sufficient support to address the impact of conflict and forced
displacement on their institutions, infrastructure and economies. And too
few efforts have been made to strengthen human capital in displacement –
the skills, knowledge and experience that enable individuals to realize their
potential as productive members of society. This has left many forcibly displaced
persons unable to overcome the initial vulnerabilities of their displacement.
Loss of assets, poor health and trauma linger when restrictions leave people
unable to move freely and they lack access to education, health services and
employment. Many are unable to provide for themselves, or to prepare or even
hope for a better future. In the words of one Syrian refugee mother, asked what
keeps her family going in their greatly diminished circumstances, “we live for
lack of death”.1
Her words came as her chances of returning to Syria receded, her savings
were depleted, her children remained out of school and her family was
prevented from working legally. It is a scenario replicated millions of times
over. It is one that the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees seeks to remedy,
with polices designed to ease pressures on host countries, and promote new
avenues for dignified living and solutions to displacement.
This long-awaited approach is as significant as the challenges it aims to
address. It recognizes that supporting host countries and helping forcibly
displaced people is a development imperative as well as a humanitarian concern.
The call for integrated development and humanitarian responses to forced
displacement is many decades old. But earlier development efforts did not take
root. These were neither widespread nor sufficient in the specific situations to
which they were applied. Much more development support was, and continues
to be, needed to help host governments cope with the challenges of receiv-
ing large numbers of forcibly displaced persons. In the last decade alone, the
global number of forcibly displaced persons has more than doubled to over 82
million. Over 90 per cent are in middle- and low-income countries. Pressure
on limited humanitarian financing has mounted.
The increased arrival of refugees to Europe in 2015 was a catalyst for change.
It exposed the fact that humanitarian funding was insufficient to combat
deepening poverty in protracted forced displacement contexts. And it gave
greater visibility to the reality that most of the world’s forcibly displaced
populations fled from, and reside in, countries deeply affected by fragility,
conflict and violence, with limited capacities to respond.2 The impacts of
climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic have also added to the pressing
need for more effective and sustainable responses.
Development approaches have expanded in forced displacement contexts
and seek to support host countries and displaced populations based on a shared
vision of inclusive development. They provide support to host countries and
communities to address the challenges involved in receiving large numbers
of forcibly displaced persons, and to seize the economic opportunities these
movements provide. Development approaches depend on national agreement
and ownership supported by enabling legislation and policy frameworks, and
commitment to strengthen institutions, accountability and governance.
These conditions are not always present, especially in situations where
conflict is ongoing or unstable conditions undermine economic growth, or
where there is a lack of national ownership. New or renewed conflict can be
disruptive, leaving commitments only partially executed. In these situations,
reliance on humanitarian programmes may be needed for the foreseeable
future.
Even so, we have a better appreciation today of how humanitarian pro-
grammes can be designed to help lay the groundwork for more development-
focused responses, not least by strengthening the human capital of both the
forcibly displaced and host communities.
Boosting their health, education and skills improves lives during displace-
ment. Improved social and economic capital also helps sustain solutions.
Advocacy is also needed for recognition of the range of rights that enable
people to live in dignity: legal status; freedom to move; civil registration; right
to work; access to education; health; justice and financial services without
discrimination. Humanitarian programmes need to be designed in a manner
that reduces competition in access to services between refugees, internally
displaced persons and hosts. Effective humanitarian responses support commu-
nity relations through local mediation and conflict resolution mechanisms to
de-escalate intra- and inter-communal conflicts.
Traditionally, responses to new crises have been met with the immedi-
ate deployment of emergency humanitarian assistance to save lives. This is
critical in the first weeks and months. But those early days are also impor-
tant for setting up a more sustainable response. This requires timely engage-
ment with development partners and plans for such a transition to take place.
Donors can help by writing these expectations into their financing agreements.
Where more development-focused responses are suitable, humanitarian
and development actors need to recognize how they complement each other
and identify how their work can be mutually reinforcing. This is not always as
simple as it may sound. There are long traditions of working in parallel. Objec-
tives may be shared, but funding mechanisms, operational expertise and focus
are often different.
Development actors have extensive socioeconomic analytical capacities.
They liaise across government ministries, including those responsible for
economic and financial policy. They can provide significant medium-term
funding to governments to improve their capacities, help which is often crucial
to support change. Humanitarian actors have a large and diverse field presence,
which affords direct access to and knowledge of forcibly displaced communi-
ties. They have well-developed emergency response capacities and expertise
in understanding protection risks and how they can be mitigated through law
and practice.
The need to bridge the humanitarian-development divide is now one of
the strategic priorities of the main responders to forced displacement. And, as
documented throughout this book, it has taken root in an increasing number of
places, many of them situations of protracted displacement. This has supported
changes in government policies for inclusive development, which should bring
benefits to displaced people and the communities in which they live.
These positive steps need predictable and sustainable financing. This is crit-
ical. The expansion of such funding instruments is among the most remark-
able changes in recent years. Their focus on the socioeconomic development
of displaced and host communities comes with methodologies that support
the design and implementation of sustainable programmes. They have helped
shine more light on the importance of government-led processes, a shared
approach to context and risk analysis, the value of better data and the impor-
tance of evaluation and impact assessments.3
High-income countries need to demonstrate greater solidarity. There should
be tangible improvements in the sharing of burdens and responsibilities with
other nations, an area where progress consistently falls short. This requires more
than increasing humanitarian and development support to countries most
affected by forced displacement crises. Honouring international commitments
to protect refugees who arrive at their borders is also necessary.
This means improving reception and asylum systems, rather than restrict-
ing access to them. The current practice to deter, resist and push back displaced
people undermines the foundations of the international protection regime.

Resettlement opportunities require meaningful expansion. Safe and orderly
alternative pathways for refugees and migrants to high-income countries need
to be widened. Repeated expressions of solidarity with countries of much
scarcer resources that host most of the world’s forcibly displaced populations
are not enough.
History teaches us that patience and perseverance is needed for progress-
ive shifts to take hold. We will need both, as the world turns towards more
sustainable responses to forced displacement. Situations can change and so too
can political commitment. Development, by definition, takes time and many
years can pass before outcomes improve and achievements become visible.
Similarly, institutional change does not occur overnight. Accounting for
the different perspectives and approaches of development

and humanitarian partners, private and civil society actors is
challenging. Engaging forcibly displaced people to contribute
meaningfully to policy and implementation also needs more
effort.
But the grounds for cautious optimism are clear. They appear
in the firmer links being made between humanitarian and
development programming and funding streams in support
of them. They are evident in the gradual widening of inclusive
government responses. They are there in the greater global will-
ingness to hold criminally liable individuals whose actions are
at the root of so much forced displacement.
There is also a broader base of committed and active stakehold-
ers seeking improved responses to forced displacement than at
any other time. This brings more comparative expertise to help
improve lives and realize solutions. It includes forcibly displaced
persons themselves, who continue to show, including during
the COVID-19 pandemic, how quickly and effectively they
can mobilize support for their own and for host communities.
As we saw at the beginning of this book, this “whole-of-
society” approach was emblematic of the first Global Refugee
Forum of 2019. Hafsar Tameesuddin, a Rohingya human rights Deng Awuol,
activist and former refugee who attended it, was asked if it met 76, first fled his
home around
her expectations. She replied that she anticipated more visibil- 1969, during
ity for refugees and more say in the decisions that affect their the First Sudan
War. He did so
lives: “We are the ones who know what we have experienced again during the
and what we need to move forward with our lives.”4 Second Sudan
War, which
She was not yet confident that the voices of forcibly displaced persons would started in 1983.
be properly heard when it really matters. Nonetheless, she was reassured by the He was then
displaced again
fact that there were so many people engaged in the issue, representing many and is pictured
different constituencies. here with his
grandchild in
“I never knew there were so many people who cared so much and stood Mingkaman,
ready to make a difference,” she said. South Sudan in
2014.
That number of people is growing, and with it the possibility of lasting © UNHCR/
positive change, which brings us back to how this book began. The ambition Andrew
McConnell
to provide safety, solidarity and solutions for people forced to flee is timeless.
The words of the Lebanese man offering help to his Syrian neighbours give it
greater resonance. It is both “a matter of history and a matter of heart”.
Endnotes All online sources referenced in this book were last accessed in September 2021
Introduction
1 UN General Assembly, Global Compact on Refugees (2 August 2018), UN Doc A/73/12 (Part II).
2 For more on these perspectives and other commentary on the GCR, see the special issue: ‘The 2018 Global
Compacts on Refugees and Migration’, The International Journal of Refugee Law 30, no. 4 (December
2018).
3 UNHCR, ‘Pledges & Contributions Dashboard’, The Global Compact on Refugees Digital Platform.
4 UNHCR, Outcomes of the Global Refugee Forum 2019, Conference Report, 2020. For more on the 2019
Global Forum, see: ‘2019 Global Refugee Forum’, UNHCR website.
5 UNHCR, ‘Pledges & Contributions Dashboard’.
6 UNHCR, ‘Mandate of the High Commissioner for Refugees and His Office: Executive Summary’, Document,
UNHCR website.
7 For example, statistics on internally displaced persons during the last century are sparse, improving steadily
from the 1990s. Refugee statistics are available since the 1950s and have been improved since the 1990s
through more disaggregation. In recognition that international attention to internal displacement has
been insufficient, and in response to a UN Member State’s request, the Secretary-General established a
High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement in 2019 to examine the matter. It issued its report in September
2021 with recommendations on how to better respond to internal displacement, in particular where it is
protracted, and achieve government-led durable solutions. UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on
Internal Displacement, Shining a Light on Internal Displacement: A Vision for the Future, Report (September
2021).
8 For the mandate of UNRWA, see: ‘Who We Are’, UNRWA website.
9 Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, The World’s Stateless: Deprivation of Nationality, Report (March
2020); Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, The World’s Stateless, Report (December 2014); Rosa-
Luxemburg-Stiftung, Atlas of the Stateless–Facts and figures about exclusion and displacement (Berlin:
Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, 2020).
ENDNOTES 365
...Introduction...
10 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (adopted 25 July 1951), UN Doc A/CONF.2/108.
11 In his closing speech to the Conference of Plenipotentiaries, where the 1951 Convention was negotiated and
approved, the President of the Conference, Mr. Larsen, noted that the outcome may not meet all the ‘wishes
and ideals’ of refugees but it also did not serve ‘only the interests of States’. But, he said, it did establish ‘a
fairly good legal standard and legal status’ for refugees. He also predicted it would be the object of study,
examination and also criticism. ‘Closing Speech of Mr Larson, President of the Conference Plenipotentiaries
on the Status of Refugees’ made at the 35th meeting, July 1951, UNHCR Archives, ‘Conference of
Plenipotentiaries on Draft Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951’, 4/1/1-G1/12/1/10. For more
on the conference, see: ‘Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Status of Refugees and Stateless Persons:
Summary Record of the Thirty-Fifth Meeting’, UN Doc A/CONF.2/SR.35 (3 December 1951).
12 UNGA, Agenda for Protection (26 June 2002), UN Doc A/AC.96/965/Add.1; UNGA, ‘World Humanitarian
Summit 2005 Outcome’ (24 October 2005), UN Doc A/RES/60/1; UNGA, ‘Outcome of the World
Humanitarian Summit 2016: Report of the Secretary-General’ (23 August 2016), UN Doc A/71/353; UNGA,
New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants (3 October 2016), UN Doc A/RES/71/1; UNGA, Global
Compact on Refugees (2018).
13 This includes: 48 million IDPs; 20.7 million refugees under UNHCR’s mandate; 5.7 million Palestine refugees
under the mandate of UNRWA; 4.1 million asylum-seekers; and 3.9 million Venezuelans displaced abroad.
UNHCR, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2020, Annual Report (2021), p. 2.
14 Ibid., pp. 7, 24.
15 Ibid., p. 20; UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
16 UN Security Council, ‘Thirteenth report of the Secretary-General on the threat posed by ISIL (Da’esh) to
international peace and security and the range of United Nations efforts in support of Member States in
countering the threat’ (27 July 2021), UN Doc S/2021/682.
17 For updates on global terrorism and measures to address it, see: the United Nations Counter-Terrorism
Strategy and other documents available on the websites of the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism
as well as that of the United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee.
18 ‘Forced displacement growing in Colombia despite peace agreement’, Briefing, UNHCR News (10 March
2017); David James Cantor, Returns of Internally Displaced Persons during Armed Conflict: International
Law and Its Application in Colombia (Leiden: Brill Nijhoff, 2018), pp. 186–192.
19 Amelia Cheatham, ‘Central America’s Turbulent Northern Triangle’, Article, Council on Foreign Relations
website (1 July 2021); David James Cantor, ‘As deadly as armed conflict? Gang violence and forced
displacement in the Northern Triangle of Central America’, Agenda Internacional 23, no. 34 (September
2016): pp. 79–89.
20 Many donors now include counter-terrorism clauses in their funding documents to prevent their funding
from supporting, even indirectly, terrorist groups. Financial institutions have sought to minimize their
...Introduction...
risks by refusing to provide financial services to humanitarian agencies operating in areas where terrorist
organizations are active. For a review of the legal regime, the tension in the application of counter-terrorism
law vis-à-vis international humanitarian law and the dilemmas this poses for humanitarian action, see:
David McKeever, ‘International Humanitarian Law and Counter-terrorism: Fundamental Values, Conflicting
Obligations’, International & Comparative Law Quarterly 69, no. 1 (January 2020): pp. 43–78.
21 ‘Counter-terrorism measures must not restrict impartial humanitarian organizations from delivering aid’,
Statement, International Committee of the Red Cross website (12 January 2021); InterAction, ‘Detrimental
Impacts: How Counter-Terrorism Measures Impede Humanitarian Action’, Review (April 2021); Fionnuala Ní
Aoláin, Special Rapporteur, ‘Promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while
countering terrorism’ (3 September 2020), UN Doc A/75/337.
22 UNSC, Res. 2462 (28 March 2019), UN Doc S/RES/2462 (2019); UNSC, Res. 2482 (19 July 2019), UN Doc
S/RES/2482 (2019).
23 IPCC, ‘Summary for Policymakers’, in Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5ºC (2018), p. 17.
24 Janani Vivekananda et al., Shoring up Stability: Addressing Climate and Fragility Risks in the Lake Chad
Region, Report, (Adelphi, May 2019); Saheed Babajide Owonikoko and Jude A. Momodu, ‘Environmental
degradation, livelihood, and the stability of Chad Basin Region’, Small Wars & Insurgencies 31, no. 6 (August
2020): pp. 1295–1322.
25 Robert Malley, ‘Climate Change Is Shaping the Future of Conflict’, Speech, UN Security Council’s virtual Arria
session on climate and security risks (22 April 2020); Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim (ICC), ‘Role of climate change
in Central Sahel’s conflicts: not so clear’, The Africa Report website (24 April 2020).
26 See discussion in Part II on Climate, conflict and sustaining peace. David G. Timberman, Violent Extremism
and Insurgency in the Philippines: A Risk Assessment, Report, USAID, (January 2013); Karolina Eklöw, and
Florian Krampe, Climate-related security risks and peacebuilding in Somalia, Policy Paper, Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) (October 2019); International Crisis Group, The Insurgency in
Afghanistan’s Heartland, Asia Report no. 207 (June 2011); Vivekananda et al., Shoring up Stability.
27 Peter Tinti and Tuesday Reitano, Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Saviour (London: C. Hurst & Co, 2016),
pp. 5–6, 264.
28 Julia Litzkow, Bram Frouws, and Roberto Forin, Smuggling and mixed migration: Insights and key messages
drawn from a decade of MMC research and 4Mi data collection, Briefing Paper (Mixed Migration Centre, June
2021); Philippe Fargues and Marzia Rango, Migration in West and North Africa and across the Mediterranean:
Trends, risks, development and governance (Geneva: International Organization for Migration (IOM), 2020).
29 Tinti and Reitano, Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Saviour, p. 273.
30 UNGA, Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (19 December 2018), UN Doc A/RES/73/195;
Duncan Breen, ‘On This Journey, No One Cares If You Live or Die’ Abuse, protection, and justice along
routes between East and West Africa and Africa’s Mediterranean coast’, Report, UNHCR and MMC (2020).
ENDNOTES 367
...Introduction...
31 UNHCR, ‘Temporary Measures and Impact on Protection’, COVID-19 Platform website (2020).
32 UNHCR, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2020, pp. 5, 47. Arrivals of refugees and asylum-seekers
were reduced by an estimated 1.5 million, and only 34,400 refugees out of an estimated 1.4 million in need
of resettlement were resettled.
33 Over 4.6 million deaths reported to the World Health Organization as of 16 September 2021.
34 World Bank Group, Global Economic Prospects: June 2021, Flagship Report (2021), p. 5. ‘Global Recovery
Strong but Uneven as Many Developing Countries Struggle with the Pandemic’s Lasting Effects’, Press
Release, World Bank News (8 June 2021).
35 World Bank Group, Global Economic Prospects: June 2021, p. 30.
36 Ibid., p. 28.
37 Ibid., p. 6.
38 Ibid.; ‘Data points to negative impacts of COVID-19 for forcibly displaced women and children’, UNHCR
News (5 June 2021).
39 ‘United to Reform’, UN website.
40 UNGA and UNSC, ‘Peacebuilding and sustaining peace: Report of the Secretary-General’ (30 July 2020),
UN Docs A/74/976, S/2020/773; UNGA, ‘Review of the implementation of the peace and security reform:
Report of the Secretary-General’ (20 July 2020), UN Doc A/75/202; Secretary-General’s Peacebuilding Fund,
Investing in Peacebuilding Leadership: Strategic Plan Results 2017–2019, 3 Year Report, (February 2021);
UN and World Bank, Partnership in Crisis-Affected Situations: 2020 UN-WB Partnership Monitoring Report
(February 2021). In addition, the Peacebuilding Commission also reports annually. It is an intergovernmental
body, established in 2005 by resolutions of the General Assembly and the Security Council (UN Docs
A/RES/60/180 and S/RES/1645(2005)) of December 2005 to advise on integrated strategies for post-conflict
peacebuilding and recovery. UNGA and UNSC, ‘Report of the Peacebuilding Commission on its fourteenth
Session’ (12 January 2021), UN Docs A/75/747, S/2021/139; IPCC, Climate Change 2021: The Physical
Science Basis, Report (August 2021); UN Economic and Social Council, ‘Progress towards the Sustainable
Development Goals – Report of the Secretary-General’ (30 April 2021), UN Doc E/2021/58. See also the
Secretary-General’s recent report including how to address root causes of displacement: UN, Our Common
Agenda, Report (2021), p. 41.
41 UNGA, Global Compact on Refugees (2018), paras. 17–19.
42 To be attended by senior government officials and senior representatives of key stakeholder groups, including:
international organizations; humanitarian and development actors; international and regional financial
institutions; regional organizations; local authorities; civil society, including faith-based organizations;
academics and other experts; the private sector; media; host community members and refugees. See:
UNHCR, ‘What is the High-Level Officials Meeting?’, website.
PART I: The Roots of Asylum
1 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted 10 December 1948), UN General Assembly Resolution
217(III), Article 14(1). UN Doc A/RES/217(III).
2 Russell Howard Tuttle, ‘Human Evolution’, Encyclopædia Britannica online (3 February 2020); Yuval Noah
Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (NY: HarperCollins, 2015), pp. 21–22.
3 W. Hilton Johnson, ‘Pleistocene Epoch: Pleistocene fauna and flora’, Encyclopædia Britannica online
(30 July 2018).
4 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing
Climate (September 2019). The range depends in part on greenhouse gas emissions. The lower rise is if
greenhouse gases are sharply reduced and global warming limited to below 2°C, and the larger rise if they
continue to increase. IPPC, ‘Choices made now are critical for the future of our ocean and cryosphere’,
Press Release (25 September 2019).
5 Preslav Peev et al., ‘Bulgaria: Sea-Level Change and Submerged Settlements on the Black Sea’, in Geoff
Bailey et al. (eds.), The Archaeology of Europe’s Drowned Landscapes vol. 35 (Cham: Springer, 2020),
pp. 393–412; Cynthia Stokes Brown, Big History; From the Big Bang to the Present (New York: The New
Press, 2012), p. 66. She notes that “this astonishing flood became seared in the memory of its survivors as
the myth of the world flood; accounts of floods are included in about 500 of the world’s mythologies”.
6 Anne H. Osborne et al., ‘A humid corridor across the Sahara for the migration of early modern humans out of
Africa 120,000 years ago’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
105, no. 43 (October 2008): pp. 16444–16447; Cynthia Stokes Brown, Big History, p. 66.
7 See: Mark Allen, and Terry Jones (eds.), Violence and Warfare among Hunter-Gatherers (Abingdon, UK:
Routledge, 2014).
8 Harari, Sapiens. Harari notes that empires have been “the world’s most common form of political organization
for the last 2,500 years” and that maintaining them has “usually required the vicious slaughter of large
populations and the brutal oppression of everyone who was eft”, pp. 191, 193.
9 Linda Rabben, Sanctuary and Asylum: A Social and Political History (WA: University of Washington Press,
2016), p. 32; Philip Marfleet, ‘Understanding “Sanctuary”: Faith and Traditions of Asylum’, Journal of Refugee
Studies 24, no. 3 (July 2011): p. 443; Jan Hallebeek, ‘Church Asylum in Late Antiquity, Concession by the
Emperor or Competence of the Church?’, in E. C. Coppens (ed.), Secundum Ius. Opstellen aangeboden aan
prof. mr. P.L. Nève (Nijmegen: Gerard Noodt Instituut, 2005), pp. 167, 172–174.
10 For example, churches and religious organizations in Kenya worked with UNHCR and the Red Cross to
provide safe spaces for internally displaced persons during the violence following the Kenyan elections
ENDNOTES 369
...PART I: The Roots of Asylum...
2007–2008. See: Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs, Refugees in Kenya: Role of Faith
(November 2015), p. 34. Churches in Europe have been offering sanctuary from deportation to asylum-
seekers in recent years, most famously the Bethel Church in The Hague, Netherlands which held a service
for 96 days to protect a family from deportation. Patrick Kingsley, ‘96 Days Later, Nonstop Church Service
to Protect Refugees Finally Ends’, The New York Times (30 January 2019).
11 Trevor Bryce, Kingdom of the Hittites (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 263–265.
12 Westbrook notes that the granting of asylum did not always guarantee a person’s safety, as illustrated in the
case of the Mittani chariot commander who in the 14th century BCE received asylum from the Babylonian
King who later tried to assassinate him. Raymond Westbrook, ‘Personal Exile in the Ancient Near East’,
Journal of the American Oriental Society 128, no. 2 (2008): pp. 317–323.
13 Westbrook, ‘Personal Exile in the Ancient Near East’: pp. 318–319.
14 Garrett Galvin, Egypt as a Place of Refuge (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011).
15 Benjamin Gray, ‘Exile, Refuge and the Greek Polis: Between Justice and Humanity’, Journal of Refugee
Studies 30, no. 2 (June 2017): p. 190. Gray notes that refugees from beyond the Greek world, although
sympathetically portrayed in Greek myths, likely “slipped relatively invisibly into the subordinate categories
of metics (resident, registered foreigners) or even slaves in their host Greek cities, without leaving many
marks on the historical record”. Benjamin Gray, ‘Citizenship as Barrier and Opportunity for Ancient Greek
and Modern Refugees’, Humanities 7, no. 3 (September 2018): p. 3.
16 Gray, ‘Exile, Refuge and the Greek Polis’: p. 191.
17 Ibid.: pp. 205, 207.
18 Ibid.: pp. 209–211.
19 For example, Acarnanian refugees fled to Athens in the mid-4th century BCE and were afforded the rights
to own property, be exempt from foreigner taxes, bring legal suits and, otherwise, generally were protected
by the Athenian State. P.J. Rhodes and Robin Osbourne (eds.), Greek Historical Inscriptions 404–323 BC
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 382–383; Gray, ‘Exile, Refuge and the Greek Polis: Between
Justice and Humanity’: p. 197. The practice in Athens was not unique but also apparent in many other city-
states of the period, see: Gray, ‘Exile, Refuge and the Greek Polis: Between Justice and Humanity’ and Gray,
‘Citizenship as Barrier and Opportunity’.
20 Ibid.: pp. 8–9.
21 Gray, ‘Exile, Refuge and the Greek Polis’: p. 202.
22 Ibid.: pp. 193–194. This was a morality play reflecting ideological issues discussed at the time, and other
parts of the play reflect additional issues related to asylum debated at that time. In practice, women could
be compelled to marry the person chosen by their guardians.
23 Peter J. Heather, ‘Refugees and the Roman Empire’, Journal of Refugee Studies 30, no. 2 (June 2017):
pp. 220–242. According to Heather, Imperial Rome received tens of thousands of refugees. Bernard
S. Bachrach, ‘The Barbarian Hordes That Never Were’, Journal of Military History 74, no. 3 (July 2010):
pp. 901–904.
24 Heather, ‘Refugees and the Roman Empire’. Heather examines patterns from the 4th to the 5th centuries
describing evidence in the latter period of formal agreements Rome made with refugee groups (which
themselves could be multi-ethnic) for settlement in large blocks “with overall political and military leaders
intact” (p. 233). These advantageous terms reflected the relative military strength of the refugees, and the
Roman motivation to forge alliances on Roman soil.
25 Yuval Noah Harari contends that polytheistic societies, which dominated the ancient world, expected and
demanded their gods be venerated but did not require subjected people to give up their own. He contrasts
this with the emergence of monotheistic societies more inclined to violently suppress other faiths. Harari,
Sapiens, pp. 215–216.
26 Scholars do not agree on the number. Jane S. Gerber puts the number at 175,000 in Gerber, Jews of Spain:
A History of the Sephardic Experience (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1994), p. 140; Jonathan S. Ray suggests the
number was closer to 80,000 in Ray, After Expulsion: 1492 and the Making of Sephardic Jewry (NY: New York
University Press, 2013), p. 39; Henry Kamen suggests it was 40,000–50,000 in Kamen, ‘The Mediterranean
and the Expulsion of Spanish Jews’, Past & Present 119, no. 1 (May 1988): p. 1. Susanne Lachenicht notes that
Jews were persecuted and expelled from many parts of Europe from the 11th century onward. Lachenicht,
‘Refugees and Refugee Protection in the Early Modern Period’, Journal of Refugee Studies 30, no. 2 (2016):
p. 263.
27 Benjamin J. Kaplan, Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern
Europe (Cambridge, MA: Bellknap Press, 2007), p. 310. Kaplan states that over 300,000 Muslims were
expelled between 1609–1614. Lachenicht, ‘Refugees and Refugee Protection’: p. 263.
28 This was from a combination of hunger, disease, and violence. For more on this period, see: Philipp Ther,
The Outsiders (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019), pp. 28–35.
29 Concessions granted by King Henry IV in 1598 and revoked by the Edict of Fontainebleau of 1685. Ibid.,
p. 28.
30 Aristide R. Zolberg, Astri Suhrke, and Sergio Aguayo, Escape from Violence: Conflict and the Refugee Crisis
in the Developing World (NY: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 6.
31 Lachenicht, ‘Refugees and Refugee Protection’: p. 264.
32 Ibid.: p. 263.
33 Ther, The Outsiders, pp. 24–27.
34 Lachenicht, ‘Refugees and Refugee Protection’: pp. 266–269; Susanne Lachenicht, ‘Refugee “nations” and
Empire-Building in the Early Modern Period’, Journal of Early Modern Christianity 6, no. 1 (April 2019): p. 102.
ENDNOTES 371
In some cases, the privileges refugees enjoyed were commensurate not only with their perceived usefulness
but also improved the further distance they were from the capital region. Regarding Russia’s welcoming
of foreigners, see: Roger P. Bartlett, Human Capital: The Settlement of Foreigners in Russia 1762–1804,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 29, 97.
35 Susanne Lachenicht, ‘Refugee “nations” and Empire-Building’: p. 102; Lachenicht, ‘Refugees and Refugee
Protection’: p. 265. Ther, The Outsiders, p. 32, notes that many German states granted specific privileges for
Huguenots, such as citizenship, tax abatements and startup loans.
36 Francesca Bregoli and David B. Ruderman, Connecting Histories: Jews and Their Others in Early Modern
Europe, Jewish Culture and Contexts (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), p. 2; Carl
H. Nightingale, Segregation: A Global History of Divided Cities (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press,
2012), p. 36; Susanne Lachenicht, ‘Early modern German states and the settlement of Jews: Brandenburg—
Prussia and the Palatinate, sixteenth to nineteenth centuries’, Jewish Historical Studies 42 (2009): pp. 9–10.
37 Lachenicht, ‘Refugees and Refugee Protection’: p. 275. Ther also notes instances where they received
assistance, such as the support Burghers of Erlangen were compelled to provide to Huguenot refugees in
the late 17th century as well as the relief Swiss cantons and churches provided. Ther, The Outsiders, p. 32.
38 Lachenicht, ‘Refugees and Refugee Protection’: p. 265. See also: Ther, The Outsiders, pp. 35–36, who also
describes the concessions afforded to Sephardi Jews by the Ottomans, p. 32.
39 Lachenicht, ‘Refugees and Refugee Protection’: p. 267; Susanne Lachenicht, ‘Refugee “nations” and Empire-
Building’: pp. 99–109.
40 Ther writes that the “Sephardim were allowed to continue practicing their faith and operating their own
schools and courts”. They and many Christians were required to pay their taxes and remain loyal, and this
system “functioned well from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries”. Ther, The Outsiders, p. 24.
41 These include “Moravians in Sarepta, Mennonites on the river Volga, Salzburg Lutherans and Calvinists
in Transylvania, Jews in Russia, the Balkans and Galicia”, Lachenicht, ‘Refugees and Refugee Protection’:
pp. 268–269; Susanne Lachenicht, ‘Refugee “nations” and Empire-Building’: p. 102.
42 Philipp Blom, Nature’s Mutiny: How the Little Ice Age of the Long Seventeenth Century Transformed the
West and Shaped the Present (New York: Liveright, 2019), pp. 10–11. There is some controversy on how
long it lasted, although there is consensus that the most precipitous and sustained drop was from the late
16th through the late 17th century. While Blom’s book focuses on the effects in Europe, he notes that the
consequences were also felt across North America, China, India and the Ottoman Empire.
43 Lachenicht, ‘Refugees and Refugee Protection’: p. 266.
44 Geert Janssen, ‘The Republic of Refugees: Early Modern Migrations and the Dutch Experience’, The Historical
Journal 60, no. 1 (November 2016): pp. 1–20. Freedom of conscience and religion were guarantees written
into the Union Treaty of 1579, uniting the Dutch northern provinces. Full independence was secured in 1648
with the Treaty of Westphalia.
45 Janssen, ‘The Republic of Refugees’: p. 15. He also notes that between 30 and 40 per cent of the population
in Dutch urban areas were foreign-born.
46 Tamira Combrink and Matthias van Rossum, ‘Introduction: the impact of slavery on Europe – reopening
a debate’, Slavery & Abolition 42, no. 1 (2021): pp. 2–3; Filipa Ribeiro da Silva, Dutch and Portuguese in
Western Africa: Empires, Merchants and the Atlantic System, 1580–1674 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), ch. 6.
47 For a review of the British, French, Dutch and Portuguese slave trades, see: Richard B. Allen, ‘Satisfying the
“Want for Labouring People”: European Slave Trading in the Indian Ocean, 1500–1850’, Journal of World
History 21, no. 1 (March 2010): pp. 45–73. For genocides in German Africa, Australia, and North America,
see: Dirk Moses and Dan Stone, Colonialism and Genocide (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2007).
48 Discussed in Phil Orchard, ‘It’s Always Darkest before the Dawn: Displacement, Institutional Development
and the Normative Environment. The Case of the League of Nations and the United Nations’, paper presented
at the International Conference on Refugees and International Law, Oxford, 15–16 December 2006.
49 This was a motivation for many minority religious groups who settled in the United States and Canada in
the 17th to 19th centuries. See: Ninette Kelley and Michael Trebilcock, The Making of the Mosaic (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 2010); David A. Weir, Early New England: A Covenanted Society (Grand Rapids,
MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2005); Mark Häberlein, ‘German Migrants in Colonial Pennsylvania:
Resources, Opportunities, and Experience’, The William and Mary Quarterly 50, no. 3 (1993): pp. 555–574.
50 Coined by historian Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution: Europe: 1789–1848 (London: Weidenfeld &
Nicolson, 1962).
51 Maya Jasanoff, ‘The Other Side of Revolution: Loyalists in the British Empire’, The William and Mary Quarterly
65, no. 2 (2008): p. 208.
52 Jasanoff, ‘The Other Side of the Revolution’: p. 220.
53 Friedemann Pestel, ‘French Revolution and Migration after 1789’, European History Online (11 July 2017),
para. 1.
54 Ibid., para. 9.
55 Philip Laure and Juliette Reboul (eds.), French Emigrants in Revolutionised Europe: Connected Histories and
Memories, War, Culture and Society, 1750–1850 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), p. 208; Pestel, ‘French
Revolution and Migration after 1789’, paras. 12–4.
56 Pestel, ‘French Revolution and Migration after 1789’, para. 26.
57 Laure and Reboul, French Emigrants in Revolutionised Europe, p. 6.
58 Parliament of Great Britain, Aliens Act 1793, 33 Geo 3 c 4.

ENDNOTES 373
59 Phil Orchard, A Right to Flee: Refugees, States and the Construction of International Cooperation
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 83. Orchard also notes that refugees continued to be
“lumped within the broader aliens category”.
60 Congress of the United States of America, Naturalization Act; Aliens Act; Alien Enemies Act; Sedition Act
(1798), Sess. II, Ch. 58, Fifth Congress.
61 Aristide R. Zolberg, ‘The Roots of American Refugee Policy’, Social Research: An International Quarterly 55,
no. 4 (Winter 1988): pp. 649–650; R. R. Palmer and David Armitage, The Age of the Democratic Revolution:
A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014),
pp. 767–768; Ken Drexler, ‘Alien and Sedition Acts: Primary Documents in American History’, Research
Guide, Library of Congress website (27 September 2019); Orchard, A Right to Flee, pp. 94–95.
62 Congress of the United States, Aliens, Alien Enemies, Sedition and Naturalization Acts (1798).
63 Theophilus C. Prousis, ‘Russian Philorthodox Relief During The Greek War Of Independence’, History Faculty
Publications 17 (University of North Florida, 1985): pp. 33–52. Prousis also points out that while the Tzarist
regime did not wish to encourage rebellion, as the “protector of Orthodoxy”, there was considerable popular
clamoring for the Greeks to be assisted, p. 34.
64 For more on the Greek War of Independence as well as on the factors behind the engagement of regional
powers, see: William St Clair, That Greece Might Still Be Free: The Philhellenes in the War of Independence
(Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2008), pp. 29–34, 51–65, 312–317.
66 ‘“Great” Polish Political Emigration (1831–1870)’, in Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions online (19 October
2004).
68 According to Ther, this marked the end of an “almost sixty-year tradition as a country of exile”, ibid., p. 152.
69 Helena Toth, ‘“Out of Pure Patriotism I Have Taken up this Service”: Political Refugees in the American Civil
War’, Muster blog (14 July 2017).
70 Orchard, A Right to Flee, pp. 99–100.
71 Başak Kale, ‘Transforming an Empire: The Ottoman Empire’s Immigration and Settlement Policies in the
Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries’, Middle Eastern Studies 50, no. 2 (2014): p. 262.
72 György Csorba, ‘Hungarian Emigrants of 1848–49 in the Ottoman Empire’, in Hasan Celâl Güzel, C. Cem
Oguz, Osman Karatay (eds.), The Turks vol. 4 (Ankara: Yeni Türkiye, 2002), p. 225.
73 Orchard, A Right to Flee, p. 96. David FitzGerald notes as well that by the end of the 19th century, while
variable in law and practice, “an incipient principle of not returning people into the arms of their enslavers
was becoming established among the Western powers”. David FitzGerald, ‘Refugee Regimes’, in Marcelo
J. Borges and Madeline Y. Hsu (eds.), Cambridge History of Global Migrations vol. II (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, forthcoming).
74 Article 16 provides that “Political refugees shall be afforded an inviolable asylum; but it is the duty of the nation
of refuge to prevent asylees of this kind from committing within its territory any acts which may endanger
the public peace of the nation against which the offense was committed.” Treaty on International Penal
Law, adopted by the First South American Congress on Private International Law in Montevideo (23 January
1889), art. 16. For more on the treaty, see: Anders B. Johnsson, ‘Montevideo Treaty on International Penal
Law: 1889–1989 – 100 years of Treaty Making on Asylum Issues,’ International Journal of Refugee Law 1,
no. 4 (1989): pp. 554–574.
76 In the 18th century, non-Muslims were organized into three millets: Greek Orthodox; Armenian; and Jewish.
See: Efrat Aviv, ‘Millet System in the Ottoman Empire’, Oxford Bibliographies (28 November 2016).
77 Hakan Kirimli, ‘Emigrations from the Crimea to the Ottoman Empire during the Crimean War’, Middle Eastern
Studies 44, no. 5 (2008): p. 766; Kale, ‘Transforming an Empire’: p. 258. For more on the experience of
those who were displaced, see: Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky, ‘Circassian Refugees and the Making of Amman,
1878–1914’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 49, no. 4 (November 2017): p. 9.
78 Which could not be sold for 20 years. Kale, ‘Transforming an Empire’: p. 258.
79 Tax concessions could vary depending on whether one was Muslim and also by location of settlement.
Hamed-Troyansky, ‘Circassian Refugees’: pp. 608, 619; Kirimli, ‘Emigrations from the Crimea’: p. 766.
80 See: Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky, ‘Imperial Refuge: Resettlement of Muslims from Russia in the Ottoman
Empire, 1860–1914’, PhD Dissertation, Stanford University, 2018, pp. 14–16.
81 Nesim Şeker, ‘Forced Population Movements in the Ottoman Empire and the Early Turkish Republic: An
Attempt at Reassessment through Demographic Engineering’, European Journal of Turkish Studies 16 (2013):
pp. 4–5. Kemal H. Karpat, ‘Ottoman Population Records and the Census of 1881/82–1893’, International
Journal of Middle East Studies 9, no. 3 (1978): p. 246; Stanford Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw, History of the
Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 116. The treaty that
concluded the Russian-Turkish war redrew the map of the Balkans: It accorded independence to Romania,
Serbia and Montenegro, diminished Ottoman territory in Europe, expanded Austria-Hungary, and left many
of the participants with simmering grievances that contributed to further conflicts in the next century.
82 Kale, ‘Transforming an Empire’: p. 254.
83 Dawn Chatty, ‘Refugees, Exiles, and Other Forced Migrants in the Late Ottoman Empire’, Refugee Survey
Quarterly 32, no. 2 (June 2013): pp. 42–44. Prior to this time, the settlement of refugees was largely ad hoc
ENDNOTES 375
and left to the care of local authorities with assistance provided by local, social and religious associations.
Fuat Dündar, ‘How Migration Institutions “Think”?: The Ottoman-Turkish Case’, Anatoli 9 (2018): p. 169. Seker
describes how the Ottomans approached the settlement of these groups to meet their military, strategic
and political interests. Seker, ‘Forced Population Movements’: p. 5.
84 Kale, ‘Transforming an Empire’: p. 264. In his review of immigration/refugee institutions of the period,
Dündar argues that they were often inefficient in part because they were erected and disbanded frequently
(leading to instability), heavily dependent on charismatic leaders, and insufficiently equipped. At the same
time, he acknowledges that they helped the Empire receive newcomers on a massive scale and contributed
to the building of the modern State. See: Dündar, ‘How Migration Institutions “Think”?’: pp. 169–182. Violent
clashes between refugees and local communities perpetrated by both sides were not infrequent.
85 Dündar, ‘How Migration Institutions “Think”?’: pp. 171–174, 177–178; Kale, ‘Transforming an Empire’: p. 265;
Chatty, ‘Refugees, Exiles, and Other Forced Migrants’: p. 44.
86 Hamed-Troyansky’s study reveals how refugees in the Ottoman Empire utilized the 1858 Land Code and
that it generated market opportunities. He notes that: “The allotment of land to refugees unfolded within the
framework of the 1858 Ottoman Land Code, which provided an updated and centralized system governing
land ownership.” Hamed-Troyansky, ‘Circassian Refugees’: p. 608. Dündar, ‘How Migration Institutions
“Think”?’: p. 170–172.
87 Dündar, ‘How Migration Institutions “Think”?’: pp. 181–182.
88 Hamid Troyansky notes that in the northern Balkans, there was lower State support for land and subsidies,
which contributed to Muslim-Christian clashes and eventually led to the Russo-Ottoman War. In central
Anatolia, there was also lower State investment, resulting in economic stagnation. In contrast, among
successful settlements were those of the Circassians whose villages in the southern Levant flourished and
whose industry boosted regional trade and attracted outside investment. He also credits the Ottoman
support for refugee settlement as enabling refugees to establish three of the four major cities in modern
Jordan, including the capital city of Amman. Hamed-Troyansky, ‘Imperial Refuge’, pp. iv–v, 3; Hamed-
Troyansky, ‘Circassian Refugees’: p. 606.
89 Ther, The Outsiders, p. 44. Ther also notes that Jewish refugees had great difficulty finding a State that
was willing to accept them. In regard to the United States, Jewish organizations supported the difficult
resettlement procedures, which required good health, the ability to care financially for themselves and
payment for the journey. Many could not meet these strict requirements and, absent a port of refuge,
eventually had to return to Russia.
90 Charles Keely examines how States with more than one national group have approached nation-building
and identifies four ways: i) creating a supranational identity that is separate from any constituent group; (ii)
creating a national identity based on one dominant group and requiring others to conform; (iii) expelling
or transferring those not of the dominant group; (iv) making confederation arrangements. He notes that,
while all four patterns include the possibility of conflict among groups, which can lead to conflict and forced
displacement, those that require the destruction or suppression of national identity are most likely to be
met with resistance and a high risk of conflict. Charles B. Keely, ‘How Nation-States Create and Respond to
Refugee Flows’, The International Migration Review 30, no. 4 (1996): pp. 1053–1054.
91 Mark Biondich, ‘The Balkan Wars: violence and nation-building in the Balkans, 1912–13’, Journal of Genocide
Research 18, no. 4 (2016): pp. 389–400. Greece, Serbia and Montenegro expanded appreciably, the Balkan
League collapsed, and the Serbia/Russia alliance deepened, to the alarm of Austria-Hungary and Germany.
92 The number of Muslim refugees following the First Balkan War (1912) is estimated at 400,000 in Biondich,
‘The Balkan Wars’: p. 392. See also: Berna Pekesen, ‘Expulsion and Emigration of the Muslims from the
Balkans’, European History Online (7 March 2012), para. 7; Nedim İpek, ‘The Balkans, War, and Migration’,
in M. Hakan Yavuz and Isa Blumi (eds.), War and Nationalism: The Balkan Wars, 1912–1913, and their
Sociopolitical Implications (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 2013), p. 649.
93 Peter Gatrell, The Making of the Modern Refugee (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 24.
94 Gatrell, The Making of the Modern Refugee, p. 23.
95 İpek, ‘The Balkans, War, and Migration’, pp. 645–646.
96 According to İpek, the Ottoman State’s policies to incentivize refugee return were designed to result in
returnees’ self-reliance and contribution to the state treasury as well as to populate certain areas more
densely. Returnees would farm state owned land and unoccupied or abandoned territories and generate
taxable income for the state. İpek, ‘The Balkans, War, and Migration’, pp. 650–652.
97 İpek, ‘The Balkans, War, and Migration’, pp. 651–652; Eyal Ginio, ‘Mobilizing the Ottoman Nation during the
Balkan Wars (1912–1913): Awakening from the Ottoman Dream’, War in History 12, no. 2 (2005): pp. 165–167.
99 Steven Mintz, ‘Historical Context: The Global Effect of World War I’, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American
History website.
100 Peter Gatrell, ‘Refugees’, 1914–1918 Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War (8 October
2014); Zolberg, Suhrke, and Aguayo, Escape from Violence, p. 18.
101 See, for example: Harald Wixforth, ‘The Economic Consequences of the First World War’, Contemporary
European History 11, no. 3 (August 2002): pp. 477–488; John Singleton, ‘“Destruction...and misery”: the First
World War’ in Michael J. Oliver and Derek H. Aldcroft (eds.), Economic Disasters of the Twentieth Century
(Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2007); Apocalypse: 10 Lives, ‘The Consequences of the First World War’.
102 Including Austria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Yugoslavia.
103 Included in these forced relocations were Jews, Poles, Germans, and Baltic farmers. Gatrell, The Making of
the Modern Refugee, p. 30.
104 Peter Gatrell, ‘War, refugeedom, revolution: understanding Russia’s refugee crisis, 1914–1917’, Cahiers du
Monde Russe, 58, 1/2 (2017): pp. 123–146. The Russian Civil War broke out just as WWI came to an end
and created further waves of refugee movements, as well as conflicts between factions — the White Army
ENDNOTES 377
fought the Red Army, and nationalist groups across the Baltic fought both, as well as further struggles across
the Caucasian and Asiatic regions of Russia. Ibid., p. 138.
105 Gatrell estimates that the number of internally displaced persons in Russia reached 3–7 million people
between 1915 and 1917 alone. Peter Gatrell, ‘Refugees and Forced Migrants during the First World War’,
Immigrants & Minorities 26, no. 1/2 (March/July 2008): p. 86. Skran notes that Russian refugee numbers are
hard to determine, but that by 1922 there were an estimated 900,000 concentrated in European countries
bordering the former Russian Empire. There were over a hundred thousand in the Far East. Skran, Refugees
in Inter-War Europe: The Emergence of a Regime (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 35–36.
106 Regarding displacement during WWI, see: Ther, The Outsiders, p. 57.
107 Martin Gilbert, ‘Twentieth-Century Genocides’, in Jay Winter (ed.), America and the Armenian Genocide
of 1915 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p 19; Jay Winter, ‘The Armenian Genocide in the
context of total war’ in America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915, p. 48; Henry Morgenthau, Ambassador
Morgenthau’s Story (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1918). Armenian lands were used to
resettle the refugees from the Balkan Wars.
108 Skran, Refugees in Inter-War Europe, p. 45. Syria, Greece and France were among the main receiving
countries.
109 Gatrell notes that they built “on the foundations of a common sense of loss and the need for collective effort
to regain what has been forfeited in wartime”, The Making of the Modern Refugee, p. 43. For difficulties
faced by refugees in Italy, see: Matteo Ermacora, ‘Assistance and Surveillance: War Refugees in Italy, 1914–
1918’, Contemporary European History 16, no. 4 (November 2007).
110 Gatrell, The Making of the Modern Refugee, p. 40. Gatrell notes, for example, “Arthur Ringland who was
instrumental in the creation of CARE, and Maurice Pate, who helped to found UNICEF”. In regard to those
who became political leaders, see: Gatrell, ‘Refugees and Forced Migrants’: p. 103.
111 Skran, Refugees in Inter-War Europe, p. 38.
112 Skran, Refugees in Inter-War Europe, pp. 38–39. Skran writes that of the estimated 900,000 Russian refugees
in 1922, nearly half remained in an insecure status 20 years later.
113 At the end of the War, and on behalf of the League, Nansen was in charge of the exchange of over 400,000
prisoners of war between the former Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia. In 1921, he coordinated relief
efforts for the millions of people facing death by starvation during the famine in the Soviet Union. For all his
efforts, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922, The Nobel Prize, ‘Fridtjof Nansen: Facts’, website.
On his character, see: Skran, who writes that his “personality embodied the humanitarian principle of the
international refugee regime” in Refugees in Inter-War Europe, p. 288.
114 States were reluctant to extend refugee status beyond specified groups. See: Skran Refugees in Inter-War
Europe, pp. 114–116.
115 Katy Long, The Point of No Return: Refugees, Rights, and Repatriation (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2013), p. 55.
116 Skran, Refugees in Inter-War Europe, pp. 152–154. Only 6,000 Russian refugees were repatriated. Long, The
Point of No Return, p. 56.
117 In the 19th century, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, and the United States were among the main
immigrant-receiving countries. For a comparative review, see: Ashley S. Timmer and Jeffrey G. Williamson,
Racism, Xenophobia or Markets? The Political Economy of Immigration Policy Prior to the Thirties, NBER
Working Paper Series: Working Paper 5867 (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1996);
Kelley and Trebilcock, The Making of the Mosaic; Skran, Refugees in Inter-War Europe, pp. 22–23, National
Museum of Australia, ‘White Australia Policy’, website; Diego Acosta Arcarazo, ‘Immigration and wealth in
19th century South America’, Expert Comment, DOC Research Institute (29 November 2018); Diego Acosta
Arcarazo, The National versus the Foreigner in South America: 200 Years of Migration and Citizenship Law
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 92–101.
118 Among the major immigration-receiving countries, attracting immigrants was initially critical to settling the
land and there were sizable inducements to foreigners and relatively few barriers. Tighter restrictions emerged
due to a number of factors. Available land for settlement was diminishing and growing industrialization was
tempering the former large demand for labour. Trade unions were also growing in strength and insisted on
preventing foreign workers from undermining wages. Additionally, countries saw immigration as helping to
define the national character and build a homogeneous society based on common values, traditions and
institutions.
119 See, for example: League of Nations, Arrangement Relating to the Legal Status of Russian and Armenian
Refugees (signed 30 June 1928), League of Nations Treaty Series vol. LXXXIX, no. 2005.
120 Susan Martin discusses some of these barriers, while noting the passport’s significance in recognizing
that refugees had a specific juridical status. Susan F. Martin, International Migration: Evolving Trends from
the Early Twentieth Century to the Present (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 51–56. See
also: James Hathaway, ‘The Evolution of Refugee Status in International Law: 1920–1950’, International &
Comparative Law Quarterly 33, no. 2 (April 1984): pp. 351–352.
121 Thompson wrote this in 1938 and is quoted in Skran, Refugees in Inter-War Europe, p. 122.
122 Ibid., p. 105.
123 Ibid., p. 192. These are those the ILO directly placed. It claimed to have reduced the unemployment of able-
bodied Armenian and Russian refugees directly and indirectly by 50 per cent: from 400,000 to 200,000,
p. 192.
124 Skran, Refugees in Inter-War Europe, pp. 43–44; League of Nations, The Settlement of the Greek Refugees:
Scheme for an International Loan. Protocol (30 October 1924), C. 524. M. 187. 1924. II, p. 8.
ENDNOTES 379
125 Ellinor Morack, ‘Refugees, Locals and “The” State: Property Compensation in the Province of Izmir Following
the Greco-Turkish Population Exchange of 1923’, Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association
2, no. 1 (2015): pp. 147–166.
126 The Convention concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations formed part of the 1923 Treaty
of Lausanne signed between the British Empire, France, Greece, Italy, Japan, Romania, and the Serb-Croat-
Slovene State on the one side, and Turkey on the other “to bring to a final close the state of war which has
existed in the East since 1914”. Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations
(signed 25 August 1923), LNTS vol. XXXII, no. 806.
127 Skran, Refugees in Inter-War Europe, pp. 44. A similar exchange took place between Greece and Bulgaria
under the Treaty of Neuilly, whereby 45,000 Greeks inside Bulgaria left for Greece and 92,000 of 139,000
Bulgarians in Greece left for Bulgaria.
128 Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations (1923); Al Jazeera World, ‘The
Great Population Exchange between Turkey and Greece’, Video (10:43) (28 February 2018).
129 Gatrell, The Making of the Modern Refugee, pp. 67–70; Kontogiorgi, Population Exchange in Greek
Macedonia: The Rural Settlement of Refugees, 1922–1930 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006),
pp. 166–168, 338.
130 Gatrell, The Making of the Modern Refugee, pp. 64, 70.
131 The loan was for GDP 10 million. The RSC was not permitted to carry out “relief” or charity assistance unless
it served the core goal of self-reliance of the refugee population. League of Nations, ‘The Settlement of the
Greek Refugees’ (1924), art. XV, p. 26.
132 Martin Hill, ‘The League of Nations and the Work of Refugee Settlement and Financial Reconstruction in
Greece, 1922–1930’, Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv 34 (1931): p. 269.
133 Elie Murard and Seyhun Orcad Sakalli, ‘Mass Refugee Inflow and Long-run Prosperity: Lessons from the
Greek Population Resettlement’, Discussion Paper 11613, IZA Institute of Labor Economics (June 2018), p. 5.
Refugees in urban areas, comprising approximately 50 per cent of the refugee population, were assisted
with housing but no other means of support. They were expected to find work, particularly in the industrial
sector. Murard and Sakalli, ‘Mass Refugee Inflow and Long-run Prosperity’, p. 8.
134 John Hope Simpson, ‘The Work of the Greek Refugee Settlement Commission’, Journal of the Royal Institute
of International Affairs 8, no. 6 (1929): pp. 590–591, 596; Gatrell, The Making of the Modern Refugee, p. 66.
Lack of ongoing investments in the health sector, however, meant that the positive impact was not sustained
beyond several years. Kontogiorgi, Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia, p. 276.
135 Simpson, ‘The Work of the Greek Refugee Settlement Commission’: pp. 599–600.

137 Indicated by higher earnings, higher levels of household wealth, greater educational attainment, as well as
larger financial and manufacturing sectors, see: Murard and Sakalli, ‘Mass Refugee Inflow and Long-Run
Prosperity’.
138 Ibid., pp. 3, 36–38. The study acknowledges empirical challenges in measuring impact. In 2017, the United
Nations General Assembly requested UNHCR to “coordinate an effort to measure the impact arising from
hosting, protecting and assisting refugees, with a view to assessing gaps in international cooperation and
promoting burden- and responsibility-sharing that is more equitable, predictable and sustainable, and to
begin reporting on the results to Member States in 2018”. UN General Assembly, Resolution 72/150, Office of
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (19 December 2017), UN Doc A/RES/72/150, para 20.
This was further taken up in: UN General Assembly, Global Compact on Refugees (2 August 2018), UN Doc
A/73/12 (Part II), para. 103. UNHCR issued its first report on 1 July 2020. UNHCR, ‘Measuring the Impact of
Hosting, Protecting and Assisting Refugees’, Progress Report, 1 July 2020.
139 See discussion in Part IV.
140 Skran, Refugees in Inter-War Europe, pp. 167–170.
141 Skran, Refugees in Inter-War Europe, pp. 177–82. In regard to the loans, they were more successful with
urban-based refugees. Farmers had difficulties meeting the repayments in part due to crop failures in
the mid-1930s and some political unrest in certain areas. (p. 181) An initial proposal to support loans to
Armenians within Russian territories failed to gain traction as allied countries were not keen to invest in areas
under Soviet control. Ibid., pp. 171–176.
142 The Office was established following the death of High Commissioner Nansen in 1930. It was responsible
for supervising the implementation of the League’s work in regard to specific groups of refugees, namely
Russian refugees and Christian refugees from the former Ottoman Empire. It eventually was merged into
the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees in 1938. On the representation of refugees, see: Ibid.,
pp. 83–84.
143 Louise W. Holborn, ‘The Legal Status of Political Refugees, 1920–1938’, The American Journal of International
Law 32, no. 4 (1938): p. 689.
144 League of Nations, Convention relating to the International Status of Refugees (signed 28 October 1933),
LNTS vol. CLIX, no. 3663.
145 Convention relating to the International Status of Refugees (1933), arts. 2, 3, 6, 7, respectively. The United
Kingdom did not agree to the prohibition on expulsion at the border and applied a reservation in this regard.
Gilbert Jaeger, ‘On the History of the International Protection of Refugees’, International Review of the Red
Cross 83, no. 843 (September 2001): p. 730.
146 Convention relating to the International Status of Refugees (1933) arts. 8, 10, and 12 respectively.
147 Convention relating to the International Status of Refugees (1933), art. 15.
ENDNOTES 381
148 Tristan Harley, ‘Refugee Participation Revisited: The Contributions of Refugees to Early International Refugee
Law and Policy’, Reference Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR
(October 2021).
149 Russians, Armenians, Assyrians, some Turks, and Assyro-Chaldeans.
150 Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, and the United Kingdom. Convention
relating to the International Status of Refugees (1933).
151 ‘Spanish Civil War (1936–39)’, in Dictionary of World History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).
152 Gatrell estimates 300,000 refugees fled to France alone by October 1937 in: The Making of the Modern
Refugee, p. 73.
153 At this point France had received 70,000 refugees from Spain. Skran, Refugees in Inter-War Europe, p. 58.
Vicki Caron, ‘Unwilling Refuge: France and the Dilemma of Illegal Immigration, 1933–1939’, in Frank
Caestecker and Bob Moore (eds.), Refugees from Nazi Germany and the Liberal European States (New York:
Berghahn Books, 2010).
155 Scott Soo, The routes to exile: France and the Spanish Civil War refugees, 1939–2009 (Manchester, UK:
University of Manchester Press, 2013), pp. 26–27, 35, 59; Ther, The Outsiders, p. 164. Geneviève Dreyfus-
Armand, ‘When Spain’s Refugees Turned to France’, Le Monde Diplomatique (May 2017).
156 Dreyfus-Armand, ‘When Spain’s Refugees Turned to France’. According to Soo, the camp populations had
been reduced from 275,000 to 5,000 by the close of 1940. Soo, The routes to exile, p. 126.
157 Ther, The Outsiders, pp. 165-166. Among those who remained, many fell under German occupation during
WWII, were detained in concentration camps and used as forced labour. ‘Spanish Civil War’, Holocaust
Encyclopedia website; Dreyfus-Armand, ‘When Spain’s Refugees Turned to France’; Soo, The routes to exile,
pp. 80–81. Gatrell describes how following the war their situation remained precarious. Gatrell, The Making
of the Modern Refugee, pp. 75–76.
158 Rosy Rickett, ‘Refugees of the Spanish Civil War and those they left behind: personal testimonies of
departure, separation and return since 1936’, PhD diss., University of Manchester, 2014, pp. 53, 59; Ther, The
Outsiders, pp. 165–166.
159 Alicia Alted Vigil, ‘Repatriation or Return? The Difficult Homecoming of the Spanish Civil War Exiles’, in Sharif
Gemie, Scott Soo and Norry LaPorte (eds.), Coming Home? Vol. 1: Conflict and Return Migration in the
Aftermath of Europe’s Twentieth-Century Civil Wars (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing,
2013), pp. 22–26; Soo, The routes to exile, pp. 22–26; Gatrell, The Making of the Modern Refugee, p. 74; Karl
D. Qualls, ‘From Niños to Soviets? Raising Spanish Refugee Children in House No 1, 1937–1951’, Paper 43,
Dickinson College Faculty Publications (2014), p. 2.
160 Skran, Refugees in Inter-War Europe, pp. 48–53.
161 Ibid., p. 27.
162 His office was separate from the League, and he reported to the Commission’s Governing body and not
the League. For more on this and McDonald, see: Skran, Refugees in Inter-War Europe, pp. 197–198, 230.
163 Greg Burgess, The League of Nations and the Refugees from Nazi Germany: James G. McDonald and
Hitler’s Victims, (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), pp. 32–33.
164 James G. McDonald, Refugees and Rescue: The Diaries and Papers of James G. McDonald, 1935–1945,
eds. Richard Breitman, Barbara McDonald Stewart, and Severin Hochberg (Bloomington, Washington, D.C:
Indiana University Press, 2009); Greg Burgess, The League of Nations and the Refugees from Nazi Germany,
pp. 161–162.
166 Ibid., p. 214.
167 Holborn, ‘The Legal Status of Political Refugees, 1920–1938’: pp. 694–695.
168 League of Nations, Convention concerning the Status of Refugees coming from Germany (signed 10 February
1938), LNTS vol. CXCII, no. 4461. For example, it had a qualified non-expulsion provision “without prejudice
to the measures which may be taken within any territory”, art. 5.2. It afforded refugees access to the courts,
the right to work under specific conditions, and the most favourable treatment accorded to foreign nationals
in regard to industrial accidents, social welfare and access to education, arts. 8, 9, 11, 14, respectively.
169 Belgium and the United Kingdom. Convention concerning the Status of Refugees coming from Germany
(1938), Appendix.
170 Yad Vashem. The World Holocaust Remembrance Center, ‘Decisions taken at the Evian Conference on
Jewish Refugees, July 1938’, website; Closed Borders, ‘The International Conference at Evian’, website.
171 Skran, Refugees in Inter-War Europe, pp. 209–214. At a conference in Bermuda in 1943, the Intergovernmental
Committee’s mandate was broadened from seeking resettlement for refugees from Nazi Germany to all
European refugees. As Susan Martin notes, however, no renewed effort to lower barriers to entry for Jewish
refugees was made by the allied powers. They refused to negotiate with Germany to seek the release of
Jewish refugees because they did not want to be flooded by refugees nor take any action that would
interfere with the war effort. Susan F. Martin, International Migration, p. 60.
172 As one Berlin publication, Der Weltkampf observed: “We are saying openly that we do not want the Jews
while the democracies keep on claiming that they are willing to receive them – then leave the guests out
in the cold. Aren’t we savages better men after all?” Quoted in Kelley and Trebilcock, The Making of the
Mosaic, p. 256.
ENDNOTES 383
173 Skran, Refugees in Inter-War Europe, p. 222. Skran estimates that half of those who immigrated from
Germany were assisted by private organizations. Emma Haddad, The Refugee in International Society:
Between Sovereigns (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Ronald C. Newton, ‘Indifferent
Sanctuary: German-Speaking Refugees and Exiles in Argentina, 1933–1945’, Journal of Interamerican
Studies and World Affairs 24, no. 4 (November 1982): pp. 395–420; Gao Bei, ‘The Chinese Nationalist
Government’s Policy toward European Jewish Refugees during World War II’, Modern China 37, no. 2
(March 2011): pp. 202–237. See also: ‘Refugees’, Holocaust Encyclopedia website.
174 Stephen MacKinnon, ‘Refugee Flight at the Outset of the Anti-Japanese War’ in Diane Lary and Stephen
MacKinnon (eds.), Scars of War: The Impact of Warfare on Modern China (Vancouver, Canada: UBC Press,
2001), p. 122.
175 Steven I. Dutch, ‘The Largest Act of Environmental Warfare in History’, Environmental and Engineering
Geoscience 15, no. 4 (November 2009): pp. 287–297; Gatrell, The Making of the Modern Refugee, p. 181.
177 MacKinnon, ‘Refugee Flight at the Outset of the Anti-Japanese War’, p. 122; Gatrell, The Making of the
Modern Refugee, p. 178. According to Gatrell, “upwards of 30 million [were] displaced by 1939”, p. 180.
178 For more on the organizing in Wuhan and the legacy, see: Ibid, pp. 127–133. For information on local relief
efforts and Chinese charitable organizations, see: Hanna B. Krebs, ‘Responsibility, legitimacy, morality:
Chinese humanitarianism in historical perspective’, HPG Working Paper, Overseas Development Institute
(September 2014), pp. 9, 13; Pichamon Yeophantong ‘Understanding humanitarian action in East and
Southeast Asia: a historical perspective’, HPG Working Paper, Overseas Development Institute (February
2014), p. 9.
179 Skran, Refugees in Inter-War Europe. She provides a summary in the final chapter, pp. 261–296.
180 Emma Haddad, The Refugee in International Society, p. 129. Gatrell estimates over 40 million, Gatrell, The
Making of the Modern Refugee, p. 89.
181 Haddad, The Refugee in International Society, p. 129. Haddad recounts that the civilian refugees fled
advancing German armies including from Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France,
Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union.
182 Ther, The Outsiders, p. 79.
183 Haddad, The Refugee in International Society, p. 129. Ther writes that overall the Germans “uprooted at
least two million people, and deported three million Poles as forced laborers. Russians, Ukrainians and Serbs
suffered similar fates”. Ther, The Outsiders, p. 80.
185 Rebecca Manley, ‘The Perils of Displacement: The Soviet Evacuee between Refugee and Deportee’,
Contemporary European History 16, no. 4 (November 2007): pp. 495–509.
186 Mark Wyman, DPs: Europe’s Displaced Persons, 1945–51 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), p. 17.
187 Notably Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Iran as well as Uganda, Tanzania and India, among others. See, for example:
Ishaan Tharoor, ‘The forgotten story of European refugee camps in the Middle East’, The Washington Post
(2 June 2016); Evan Taparata and Kuang Keng Kuek Ser, ‘During WWII, European refugees fled to Syria.
Here’s what the camps were like’, The World (26 April 2016).
188 William I. Hitchcock, The Bitter Road to Freedom: A New History of the Liberation of Europe, (New York:
Free Press, 2009), Ch. 7 and 9; David Nasaw, The Last Million (New York: Penguin Press, 2020), pp. 9–12.
189 Wyman, DPs: Europe’s Displaced Persons, pp. 22–23, 34–35.
190 For more on displacement in Burma and to and within India, see: Yasmin Khan, India at War: The Subcontinent
and the Second World War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015).
191 Richard Overy, The Oxford Illustrated History of World War Two (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015),
pp. 35, 322 and 337.
192 UNHCR, The State of The World’s Refugees 2000: Fifty Years of Humanitarian Action (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2000), p. 59.
193 Prashant Bharadwaj, Asim Ijaz Khwaja, and Atif R. Mian, ‘The Big March: Migratory Flows after the Partition
of India’, Economic and Political Weekly 43 (August 2008): pp. 1–5; L. A. Kosinski and K. M. Elahi (eds.),
Population Redistribution and Development in South Asia (Heidelberg: Springer, 2013).
194 The exact death toll is disputed, but most scholars place the range at 0.2–2 million people. For a discussion
of the different estimations, see: Gyanendra Pandey, Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism and
History in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 89–91.
195 Bharadwaj, Khwaja, and Mian, ‘The Big March’.
196 Its initial budget in 1943 was $2 billion of which the United States agreed to pay $1.3 billion. Contributions
reached close to $4 billion by 1946. Ben Shephard, The Long Road Home: The Aftermath of the Second
World War (New York: Anchor Books, 2012), pp. 154–157; UNRRA, 50 Facts about UNRRA (New York:
UNRRA, 1947).
197 The vast bulk of UNRRA’s resources were spent in central, eastern and southern Europe. Over $2.5 billion of
shipments were directed there, as compared to just $500 million to the rest of the world. Jessica Reinisch,
‘“Auntie UNRRA” at the Crossroads’, Past & Present 218, suppl. 8 (2013): p. 73. On this as well as UNRRA’s
development work in China, Reinisch cites George Woodbridge, UNRRA: The History of the United Nations
Relief and Rehabilitation Administration vol. 3 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1950), pp. 103, 413–414.
198 Colin Bundy, ‘Migrants, refugees, history and precedents’, Forced Migration Review 51 (January 2016): p. 6.
199 Louise W. Holborn, The International Refugee Organization: A Specialized Agency of the United Nations: Its
History and Work, 1946–1952 (London: Oxford University Press, 1956).
ENDNOTES 385
200 USA and USSR, Agreement Relating to Prisoners of War and Civilians Liberated by Forces Operating Under
Soviet Command and Forces Operating Under United States of America Command (signed 11 February
1945). The agreement provided that all Soviet citizens liberated by force under United States command
and all United States citizens liberated under Soviet command “will, without delay after their liberation, be
separated from enemy prisoners of war and will be maintained separately from them in camps or points of
concentration until they have been handed over to the Soviet or United States authorities”, art. 1. According
to Hitchcock, the United States was so keen to see its nationals home that it agreed to the Soviet insistence
that the return of Soviet citizens be with or without their consent. Hitchcock, The Bitter Road to Freedom,
Ch. 7. As one lawyer for the British Foreign Office noted: “In due course, all those with whom the Soviet
authorities desire to deal must be handed over to them, and we are not concerned with the fact that they
may be shot or otherwise more harshly dealt with than they might be under English law.” Shephard, The
Long Road Home, p. 80.
201 Ibid., p. 80.
202 Shephard, The Long Road Home, p. 85; Ther, The Outsiders, p. 175.
203 Reinisch also notes that Central and Eastern European countries also began to resent the dominance of the
United States and the United Kingdom and, in particular, their control over relief supplies. Jessica Reinisch,
‘Internationalism in Relief: the Birth (and Death) of UNRRA’, Past & Present 210, suppl. 6 (2011): pp. 283–284.
204 Reinisch, ‘“Auntie UNRRA” at the Crossroads’: pp. 87–88. Reinisch elaborates further on the change
of policy and also notes how many United States citizens who worked for UNRRA were later made to
appear at hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee (p. 97). Evidence that the Communist
Governments of Yugoslavia and Poland were privileging pro-government supporters for the UNRRA aid
further underscored mistrust of the institution, especially within Republican circles. So too did the fact that
some UNRRA provisions were being sold to fund other needs. See also: Shephard, The Long Road Home,
pp. 148–9, 263.
205 It provided that “the transfer to Germany of German populations, or elements thereof, remaining in Poland,
Czechoslovakia and Hungary, will have to be undertaken”. Protocol of the Proceedings of the Potsdam
Conference (1 August 1945), art. XII.
206 Enmity was deeper than the war. Ben Shephard notes that in Czechoslovakia for example, there was a
feeling among Czechs that they had long been treated as second-class citizens, subordinated to German
culture and religion and all but dominated by a German elite dating back hundreds of years. Shephard, The
Long Road Home, p. 123.
207 Shephard, The Long Road Home, p. 125.
208 R. M. Douglas, Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War, (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), p. 1; Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims, Facts
Concerning the Problem of the German Expellees and Refugees (Bonn: Federal Ministry for Expellees,
Refugees and War Victims, 1966).
209 Philipp Ther and Ana Siljak (eds.), Redrawing Nations: Ethnic Cleansing in East-Central Europe 1944–1948
(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2001), pp. 53–57; Theodora Dragostinova and David Gerlach,
‘Demography and Population Movements’ in Irina Livezeanu and Árpád von Klimó (eds.), The Routledge
History of East Central Europe since 1700 (Routledge Handbooks Online, 2017) pp. 155–156. According
to Gatrell, 250,000 ethnic Turks were expelled from Bulgaria. Gatrell, The Making of the Modern Refugee,
pp. 92–93.
210 According to Hitchcock, within two years of the conclusion of the war, around 250,000 Jewish refugees
travelled west to Austria, Germany and Italy, mostly from Poland and many with the hope of eventually
reaching Palestine. Hitchcock, The Bitter Road to Freedom, Ch. 9.
212 United Nations, Constitution of the International Refugee Organization, (Opened for signature 15 December
1946), UNTS vol. 18, no. 283.
213 Ibid.
214 Hathaway, ‘The Evolution of Refugee Status in International Law’: pp. 374–376.
215 Post-war resettlement is discussed in Part III.
216 In 1945, United States President Harry Truman commissioned a fact-finding mission to Europe. It was headed
by Earl G. Harrison, the dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a former commissioner of
immigration and naturalization. Harrison reported that “as matters now stand, we appear to be treating the
Jews as the Nazis treated them except that we do not exterminate them. They are in concentration camps
in large numbers under our military guard instead of SS troops”. Hitchcock, The Bitter Road to Freedom,
Ch. 9. Hitchcock provides a detailed account of the conditions in the displaced persons camps during the
immediate aftermath of the war. See also: Wyman, DPs: Europe’s Displaced Persons, pp. 43–44.
217 Hitchcock, The Bitter Road to Freedom, ch. 9; David Nasaw, The Last Million, pp. 358–360; Gatrell, The
Making of the Modern Refugee, p. 122.
218 UN, ‘The Declaration by the United Nations’, in United Nations Yearbook 1946–1947 (Lake Success, NY:
United Nations Department of Information, 1947), part I, sec. 1,ch. A, p. 1.
219 UN, Charter of the United Nations (26 June 1945).
220 ECOSOC was specifically asked to form a Committee to consider the issue of refugees and write a report
for presentation to the GA. UNGA, ‘Question of refugees’ (12 February 1946), UN Doc A/RES/8(I); UNGA,
Constitution of the International Refugee Organization, and Agreement on Interim Measures to be taken in
respect of refugees and displaced persons, (15 December 1946), UN Doc A/RES/62(I).
221 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).

ENDNOTES 387
222 Ibid., art. 14(1).
223 It excluded refugees assisted by other United Nations agencies. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency
for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was created by: UNGA, ‘Assistance to Palestine refugees’
(8 December 1949), UN Doc A/RES/302(IV); the United Nations Korean Reconstruction Agency (UNKRA)
was created by: UNGA, ‘Relief and rehabilitation of Korea’ (1 December 1950), UN Docs A/RES/410(V).
224 UNGA, Statute of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR Statute)
(14 December 1950), UN Doc A/RES/428(V), ch. 1, art. 1.
225 ECOSOC was also given the opportunity in the Statute to have an advisory committee of States, elected on
the basis of “their demonstrated interest in and devotion to the solution of the refugee problem”, UNHCR
Statute (1950), ch. 1, art. 4. This became the Executive Committee of UNHCR.
226 The United States was not in favour of UNHCR having a role in providing relief, while several European
countries, as well as India and Pakistan thought it was vitally important. See: Alexander Betts, Gil Loescher
and James Milner, The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR): The Politics and Practice
of Refugee Protection, (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2011), p. 14.
227 UNHCR, The State of the World’s Refugees 2000, p. 22.
228 His budget was soon augmented by an over $3 million contribution from the Ford Foundation to assist
refugee integration in Europe, see: State of the World’s Refugees 2000, p. 22. The creation of the United
Nations Refugee Fund followed in 1955, a year before van Heuven Goedhart’s untimely death. It grew to
over $16 million by 1958, when it was fully incorporated into UNHCR’s annual programmes. UNHCR, Forty
Years of International Assistance to Refugees (Geneva: Public Information Services, 1962), p. 26.
229 Harley, ‘Refugee Participation Revisited’. In his study of refugee contributions to early 20th century refugee law
and responses, Harley describes how Van Heuven Goedhart’s own refugee experiences profoundly affected
his leadership of UNHCR. He formed steady and appreciative partnerships with voluntary organizations,
believing they deserved his “hearfelt tribute” for the contributions they made. Convinced that the Office
could only be effective if it had direct access to refugees wherever there was a need, he established country
offices not only in Europe but also in other geographic areas including Bogota, Cairo and Hong Kong. See:
Gerrit Jan van Heuven Goedhart, ‘Speech Made by Dr. Gerrit Jan van Heuven Goedhart, United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees’, at the Meeting of Swiss Aid to Europe in Berne, 19 February 1953.
230 ECOSOC Res. 248 (IX)B (8 August 1949), UN Doc E/RES/248(IX). It became known as the Ad Hoc Committee.
The committee was instructed to consider whether a consolidated convention was necessary and, if it was,
to prepare a draft text.
231 Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China (Taiwan), Denmark, Israel, Poland, the Soviet Union, Turkey, the United
Kingdom, the United States and Venezuela. The members from Poland and the Soviet Union officially
resigned, however, because they did not consider Taiwan to be a legitimate United Nations member State.
232 Harley, ‘Refugee Participation Revisited’.
233 Harley, ‘Refugee Participation Revisited’; Irial Glynn, ‘The Genesis and Development of Article 1 of the 1951
Refugee Convention’, Journal of Refugee Studies 25, no. 1 (2011): p. 136. Harley also notes, however, that
Robinson was successful in arguing for its non-applicability to persons fleeing environmental disasters.
234 Now codified in arts. 32 and 33 of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (adopted 25 July 1951)
(1951 Convention), UN Doc A/CONF.2/108; Harley, ‘Refugee Participation Revisited’.
235 Terje Einarsen, ‘Drafting History of the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol’, in Andreas Zimmermann
(ed.), The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and Its 1967 Protocol: A Commentary (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2011), C: IV: 4 para. 42.
236 Ibid., paras. 46–50.
237 Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Federal Republic of Germany,
Greece, Holy See, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland
(the Swiss delegation also represented Liechtenstein), Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela,
Yugoslavia. United Nations Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Status of Refugees and Stateless Persons,
‘Final Act and Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees’ (25 July 1951) UN Doc A/CONF.2/108.
238 Congo, Madagascar, Monaco and Turkey. Turkey maintained its declaration of geographical limitation upon
accession to the 1967 Protocol.
239 Text is available at UNHCR, Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (UNHCR, 2010).
240 James C. Hathaway, The Law of Refugee Status (Toronto, Vancouver: Butterworths Canada Ltd, 1991), p. 8.
Hathaway writes that “by mandating protection for those whose (Western-inspired) civil and political rights
are jeopardized, without at the same time protecting persons whose (socialist-inspired) civil and socio-
economic rights are at risk, the Convention adopted an incomplete and politically partisan human rights
rationale.”
241 Terje Einarsen suggests that it is likely that this ground was aimed to include those who had suffered under
the Third Reich for being “undesirable”, such as “hereditarily ill”, “asocial persons” and “homosexuals”,
Einarsen, ‘Drafting History’, C: V: 2.
242 The only exception is for a person for whom there are reasonable grounds “for regarding as a danger to the
security of the country in which he is, or who, having been convicted by a final judgment of a particularly
serious crime, constitutes a danger to the community of that country”. The Refugee Convention (1951),
art. 33.
243 Other non-derogable Articles in the Convention are those pertaining to the definition, non-discrimination,
freedom of religion and access to the courts. 1951 Convention, arts. 1, 3, 4 and 16(1) respectively. Regarding
the non-refoulement as a principle of customary international law, see: UNHCR, ‘Advisory Opinion on the
Extraterritorial Application of Non-Refoulement Obligations under the 1951 Convention relating to the
Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol’.
ENDNOTES 389
244 Aleinikoff and Zamore write that this was a means to deal with those remaining in the displaced persons
camps. States “that had been funding the IRO (as well as broader development programs, most notably the
Marshall Plan) and resettling hundreds of thousands of refugees came to the conclusion that the remaining
populations would need to be integrated into the states in which they were residing”. Leah Zamore and
T. Alexander Aleinikoff, The Arc of Protection: Toward a New International Refugee Regime (Redwood City,
CA: Stanford University Press, 2019), p. 44.
245 1951 Convention, arts. 16, 23, 20, 22, 14, 29 and 24.
246 1951 Convention, arts. 17 and 15.
247 1951 Convention, arts. 18, 21 and 22.
248 1951 Convention, art. 34. The Ad Hoc Committee was informed by an initial draft of the Convention provided
by the Secretary-General who, in conveying it to the Committee, emphasized that the aim was for refugees
to be integrated into the economic system of the countries of asylum, to provide for their own needs and to
be fully integrated into the national community. UN Ad Hoc Committee on Refugees and Stateless Persons,
‘Ad Hoc Committee on Statelessness and Related Problems, First Session: Summary Record of the Twenty-
Second Meeting’ (2 February 1950), UN Doc E/AC.32/SR.22.
249 Article 35 of the 1951 Convention and para 8 of the UNHCR Statute. States undertake to cooperate with the
Office and provide it with information and statistical data on the condition of refugees, the implementation of
the Convention and laws and decrees relating to refugees. On the ways UNHCR exercises this responsibility,
see: Volker Türk, ‘UNHCR’s Supervisory Responsibility’, Working Paper 67, New Issues in Refugee Research,
UNHCR (October 2002): pp. 6–16.
250 For examples, see: Volker Türk and Rebecca Dowd, ‘Protection Gaps’, in Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Gil
Loescher, Katy Long, and Nando Sigona (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration
Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
251 Discussed further in Part II.
252 Some examples of the commentary are: Betts, Loescher, and Milner, The United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees; Guy S. Goodwin-Gill, ‘The Movements of People between States in the 21st Century: An
Agenda for Urgent Institutional Change’, International Journal of Refugee Law 28, no. 4 (December 2016):
pp. 679–694; Volker Türk and Madeline Garlick, ‘From Burdens and Responsibilities to Opportunities: The
Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework and a Global Compact on Refugees’, International Journal
of Refugee Law 28, no. 4 (December 2016): pp. 656–678; Zamore and Aleinikoff, The Arc of Protection.
253 ‘Closing Speech of Mr Larson, President of the Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Status of Refugees’
made at the 35th meeting, July 1951, UNHCR Archives, ‘Conference of Plenipotentiaries on Draft Convention
Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951’, 4/1/1-G1/12/1/10.
254 ‘The 1951 Refugee Convention’, UNHCR website.
255 UNHCR, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2020, Annual Report (2021), pp. 5, 19.
PART II: Protecting More Broadly
1 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (adopted 25 July 1951) (1951 Convention), UN Doc A/CONF.2/
108, arts. 35 and 36.
2 UNHCR’s Statute provides: “The High Commissioner shall provide for the protection of refugees falling under
the competence of his Office by: (a) promoting the conclusion and ratification of international conventions
for the protection of refugees, supervising their application and proposing amendments thereto”, para 8.
UNGA, Statute of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (14 December 1950),
UN Doc A/RES/428(V). For more on UNHCR’s supervisory responsibilities, see: Volker Türk, ‘UNHCR’s
supervisory responsibility’, Working Paper No. 67, New Issues in Refugee Research, UNHCR (October 2002).
3 Refugees, asylum-seekers, returnees, stateless persons, and internally displaced persons. For more on
UNHCR’s mandate, see: UNHCR, ‘Note on the Mandate of the High Commissioner for Refugees and His
Office’ (October 2013).
4 Sepet and Another v. Secretary of State for the Home Department (2003) UKHL 15 (UK), para. 6. Similarly
recognized in other jurisdictions, see: Suresh v. Canada (2002) 1 SCR 3 (Canada), para. 87; A. v. Minister for
Immigration & Ethnic Affairs (1997) 190 CLR 225 (Australia), para. 22; AC (Syria) (2011) NZIPT 800035 (New
Zealand), para. 62.
5 As part of its supervisory responsibilities for refugees under the 1951 Convention, UNHCR issues Guidelines
on International Protection which provide interpretative and procedural guidance, reflecting updated
legal jurisprudence. UNHCR, ‘Handbook for Determining Refugee Status and Guidelines on International
Protection’, Collected Documents, UNHCR website.
6 For a legal analysis of persecution by non-State actors, see: James C. Hathaway and Michelle Foster, The
Law of Refugee Status (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 292–332; UNHCR, ‘Guidance
Note on Refugee Claims Relating to Victims of Organized Gangs’ (31 March 2010).
7 For a legal analysis of how the understanding of persecution for reasons of membership of a particular
social group (e.g. due to gender, sexual orientation and/or gender identity, family, age, and disability) has
evolved over time, see: Hathaway and Foster, The Law of Refugee Status, pp. 423–461; Guy S. Goodwin-Gill
and Jane McAdam, The Refugee in International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 73–86;
UNHCR, Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status under the 1951 Convention
and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees (Geneva: UNHCR, 2019); UNHCR, ‘Persons in need
of international protection’, Factsheet (June 2017); UNHCR, ‘Guidelines on International Protection No. 2:
“Membership of a particular social group” within the context of Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention and/or
its 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees’ (7 May 2002), p. 2.
8 UNHCR was called to assist, initially by Tunisia and later by the UN General Assembly. It was the beginning
of a much more expansive engagement in Africa. UNHCR, ‘Chapter 2: Decolonization in Africa’, in The State
ENDNOTES 391
...PART II: Protecting More Broadly...
of The World’s Refugees 2000: Fifty Years of Humanitarian Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000),
pp. 38–44.
9 In 1954, Africa was almost entirely under colonial rule except for Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia and Libya, which
were sovereign States, and South Africa which had Dominion status. For a list of dates of independence of
African States, see: Alistair Boddy-Evans, ‘Chronological List of African Independence’, ThoughtCo. website
(25 January 2020).
10 John Parker and Richard Rathbone, African History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2007).
11 UNGA, Declaration on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples (14 December 1960),
UN Doc A/RES/1514(XV).
12 For example, art. 1 (2) “equal rights and self-determination of peoples” and ch. XI (‘Declaration regarding
Non-Self-Governing Territories’, arts. 73 and 74), UN, Charter of the United Nations (26 June 1945). The
Charter was signed on 26 June 1945 and came into force on 24 October 1945.
13 Basil Davidson, ‘The Struggle for Independence of ‘Portuguese’ Africa: 15 million Africans in Angola,
Mozambique and Guinea (Bissau) in search of a new identity’, The UNESCO Courier: a window open on the
world XXVI, 11 (1973): pp. 5–10.
14 Guinea-Bissau gained independence in 1973, Mozambique in 1974, and Angola in 1975. By this time,
the Government in Portugal had been overthrown. Growing fatigue with the colonial wars, which by
1970 exacted 40 per cent of the Portuguese annual national budget, contributed to the downfall of the
Government. See: Peter Abbott and Ronald Volstad, Modern African Wars: Angola and Mozambique 1961–
74 vol. 2 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 1988), pp. 34–35.
15 Between 1960 and 1975, the numbers of refugees from Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique fluctuated
but reached a peak in 1974 when close to 670,000 were recorded of which 450,000 were from Angola, the
majority of whom had sought refuge in what is today the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Rebel groups
set up command and logistical capacities in neighbouring countries, with Marxists drawing support from
China, Cuba and the Soviet Union and those that favoured more free market democratic systems supported
by the United States. Thomas H. Henriksen, ‘People’s War in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau’, The
Journal of Modern African Studies 14, no. 3 (1976): pp. 377–399; Aristide Zolberg, Astri Suhrke, and Sergio
Aguayo, Escape from Violence: Conflict and the Refugee Crisis in the Developing World (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1989), pp. 75–79; UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
16 UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
17 UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. The formation of Tutsi militia intending to regain power in Rwanda, and the
support of some for local insurgencies in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, precipitated
the Government to demand that Rwandan refugees be settled elsewhere. About half of those in Congo
moved to Burundi and Uganda. For more on the crisis in the region, see: Philip Gourevitch, We Wish To
Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families (New York: Picador, 2000); Gérard Prunier,
The Rwanda Crisis, 1959–1994: History of a Genocide (London: C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 1995).
18 This is the region in Africa most commonly around the following lakes: Lake Albert; Lake Edward; Lake
Kivu; Lake Malawi; Lake Tanganyika; and Lake Victoria. It is often used to refer to the countries that border
these lakes: Burundi; Democratic Republic of the Congo; Kenya; Rwanda; Tanzania; and Uganda. The mass
displacement of the 1990s is discussed in Part III.
19 Mark Fathi Massoud, Law’s Fragile State: Colonial, Authoritarian, and Humanitarian Legacies in Sudan (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 91 and, for more, see: pp. 88–92.
20 Ibid., p. 94.
22 Zolberg, Suhrke and Aguayo, Escape from Violence, p. 52. According to UNHCR data, the highest number
of Sudanese refugees during this time was recorded in 1968 at 175,500 persons. Internal displacement
numbers are from Zolberg, Suhrke and Aguayo, Escape from Violence.
23 UNHCR operations in Africa constituted 70 per cent of its budget by the end of the 1960s. Zolberg, Suhrke
and Aguayo, Escape from Violence, p. 38. On the numbers of known refugees at the time, see: UNHCR,
Refugee Data Finder.
24 It was also influenced by the fact that newly formed governments were threatened by counter-insurgency
efforts from neighbouring States. The OAU Convention has provisions to ensure that asylum not be used
for this purpose, obliging States to prohibit refugees from attacking any member State by “any activity
likely to cause tension” and as far as possible settling refugees at a reasonable distance from the border of
their country. Organization of African Unity (OAU), Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee
Problems in Africa (10 September 1969) (OAU Convention), arts. 3(2) and 2(6). On this motivation in general,
see: Tamara Wood, ‘In search of the African Refugee: A principled interpretation of Africa’s expanded refugee
definition’, PhD thesis, University of New South Wales, 2018, pp. 30–31; Marina Sharpe, The Regional Law of
Refugee Protection in Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 22–23.
25 OAU Convention (1969), Preamble.
26 Ibid., arts. 2(3), 2(4), 2(1), 5 respectively.
27 Ibid., art. 1(2).
28 Bonaventure Rutinwa, ‘Relationship between the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1969 OAU Convention
on Refugees: A Historical Perspective’, in Volker Türk, Alice Edwards, and C. W. Wouters (eds.), In Flight
from Conflict and Violence: UNHCR’s Consultations on Refugee Status and Other Forms of International
Protection (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 108–109.
ENDNOTES 393
29 This has been done, for example, in 2010 and 2011 in Ghana, Guinea, Liberia and Togo for individuals fleeing
the Ivory Coast. Sharpe, The Regional Law of Refugee Protection in Africa, p. 47. In Ethiopia, a prima facie
approach is used for persons fleeing South Sudan and Somalia. Tsion Tadesse Abebe, Allehone Abebe, and
Marina Sharpe, ‘The 1969 OAU Refugee Convention at 50’, Africa Report 19 (2019): p. 5. On prima facie, see:
endnote 38.
30 Tamara Wood, ‘Protection and Disasters in the Horn of Africa: Norms and Practice for Addressing Cross-
Border Displacement in Disaster Contexts’, Technical paper (Nansen Initiative, January 2013), pp. 23–30;
Sharpe, The Regional Law of Refugee Protection in Africa, pp. 49–51. Guy Goodwin Gill and Jane McAdam
note that, while this interpretation is possible, the prevailing view among States is that there must be a link
with conflict and violence in the country concerned, as was the case when countries in the Horn of Africa
accepted Somali refugees on a prima facie basis during the 2011–2012 drought. Guy S. Goodwin-Gill and
Jane McAdam, UNHCR & Climate Change, Disasters and Displacement (Geneva: UNHCR, 2017), p. 32. On
prima facie, see: endnote 38.
31 This work is expected to begin in the last quarter of 2021. African Union, ‘Addis Ababa Declaration of The
Continental Commemorative Meeting on The Implementation and Supervision of the 1969 OAU Refugee
Convention’ (20 June 2019).
32 The States that have signed but not ratified are Eritrea, Madagascar, Mauritius, Namibia, Sao Tomé and
Principe, Somalia and Western Sahara. Madagascar, Namibia, Sao Tomé and Principe and Somalia are party
to the 1951 Convention.
33 Marina Sharpe, ‘Regional Refugee Regimes: Africa’, in Cathryn Costello, Michelle Foster, and Jane McAdam
(eds.), The Oxford Handbook of International Refugee Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), p. 293.
For more on the domestic application of the OAU Convention, see also: Tamara Wood, ‘Who Is a Refugee
in Africa? A Principled Framework for Interpreting and Applying Africa’s Expanded Refugee Definition,’
International Journal of Refugee Law 31, no. 2–3 (2019): p. 295.
34 Colloquium on the International Protection of Refugees in Central America, Mexico and Panama, Cartagena
Declaration on Refugees and the Protection of People Fleeing Armed Conflict and Other Situations of
Violence in Latin America (22 November 1984) (Cartagena Declaration).
35 Asian-African Legal Consultative Organization, ‘“Final Text of the AALCO’s 1966 Bangkok Principles on Status
and Treatment of Refugees” as adopted on 24 June 2001 at the AALCO’s 40th Session, New Delhi’ (24 June
2001) (Bangkok Principles).
36 African Union, Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa
(23 October 2009) (Kampala Convention).
37 OAU Convention (1969), Preamble.
38 This is an approach that is used when the evidence makes it readily apparent that the refugees are at risk of
harm for 1951 Convention grounds and need not establish this in an individual assessment process. UNHCR,
‘Guidelines on International Protection No. 11: Prima Facie Recognition of Refugee Status’ (24 June 2015),
p. 11.
39 Including at its 50th Anniversary in 2019, declared “The Year of Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced
Persons”. See: Tadesse Abebe, Abebe, and Sharpe, ‘The 1969 OAU Refugee Convention at 50’. It is also
noted as one of the core regional refugee protection instruments in the Global Compact on Refugees. UN
General Assembly, Global Compact on Refugees (2018), UN Doc A/73/12 (Part II), I. B. 5.
40 Also of note is that in 2017 the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) adopted the Djibouti
Declaration on Education in which member States commit to ensure that “every refugee, returnee and
members of host communities have access to quality education in a safe learning environment within
[their] respective countries without discrimination”. IGAD, ‘Djibouti Declaration on Regional Conference
on Refugee Education in IGAD Member States’ (14 December 2017); UNHCR, ‘Implementing the Djibouti
Declaration: Education for refugees, returnees & host communities’, Global Compact on Refugees Digital
Platform (25 March 2020).
41 Marina Sharpe and others note the following situations as illustrative: refugees fleeing Liberia in 1996, from
Sierra Leone in 1999, and from Angola in 2000; and the forced returns of Somalis from Kenya in 2010, 2013,
and 2014; of Rwandans from Uganda in 2010; of Nigerians from Cameroon beginning in 2015; of northern
Nigerians from Niger in 2015; and of Eritreans from Sudan in 2016. Sharpe, The Regional Law of Refugee
Protection in Africa, pp. 75–76; Tadesse Abebe, Abebe, and Sharpe, ‘The 1969 OAU Refugee Convention
at 50’: p. 7. For earlier examples in the 1990s, see: George Okoth-Obbo, ‘Thirty years on: a legal review
of the 1969 OAU Refugee Convention’, African Yearbook of International Law 8 (2000): p. 84 and Sharpe,
The Regional Law of Refugee Protection in Africa, p. 74. More recent examples include forced returns
of Nigerians from Cameroon in 2018 and 2019 and push-backs of Mozambicans from Tanzania in 2021.
UNHCR, ‘UNHCR alarmed by continuing forced returns of Nigerians by Cameroon’, Press Release (20 April
2018); UNHCR, ‘UNHCR deplores forced refugee returns from Cameroon’, Press Release (18 January 2019);
UNHCR, ‘UNHCR appeals for Mozambicans fleeing violence to be given access to asylum in Tanzania’, Press
Release (18 May 2021).
42 See the study commissioned by UNHCR: Marina Sharpe, ‘The 1969 OAU Refugee Convention and the
Protection of People fleeing Armed Conflict and Other Situations of Violence in the Context of Individual
Refugee Status Determination’, Research Paper (January 2013). See also: Wood, ‘Who Is a Refugee in Africa?’:
p. 301 and Rutinwa, ‘Relationship between the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1969 OAU Convention on
Refugees’, pp. 109–110.
43 Uganda, for example, has long had progressive policies which it maintained even in the face of increased
numbers of refugees, discussed more in Part III.
44 For more on encampment and restrictions on integration, see: Part III. Due to its complementarity, the
OAU Convention does not enumerate social and economic rights like the 1951 Convention, although it
is considered to extend refugees the same rights by virtue of its recognition of the 1951 Convention as
the universal source of refugee rights. OAU Convention (1969), Preamble, para 9. For a more thorough
discussion of the legal commentary in this regard, see: Marina Sharpe, ‘The 1969 African Refugee Convention:
Innovations, Misconceptions, and Omission’, McGill Law Journal 58, no. 1 (September 2012): pp. 124–129.
ENDNOTES 395
45 Rutinwa, ‘Relationship between the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1969 OAU Convention on Refugees’,
p. 113.
46 Global Compact on Refugees (2018).
47 Barry Sen, ‘Protection of Refugees: Bangkok Principles and After’, Journal of the Indian Law Institute 34,
no. 2 (1992): p. 187.
48 Asian-African Legal Consultative Organization, ‘About AALCO’, website, part A. ‘Origin’ and part C. ‘Member
States’.
49 Six of the 10 main refugee-hosting States are members of the AALCO: Turkey (3.7 million); Pakistan (1.4
million); Uganda (1.4 million); Sudan (1 million); Lebanon (0.9 million); and Bangladesh (0.9 million). UNHCR,
Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2020, Report (2021), p. 8. Of them, Sudan, Turkey, and Uganda are
States parties to the 1951 Convention and Protocol.
50 Susan Kneebone, ‘ASEAN and the Conceptualization of Refugee Protection in Southeastern Asian States’, in
Ademola Abass and Francesca Ippolito (eds.), Regional Approaches to the Protection of Asylum Seekers: An
International Legal Perspective (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2014), p. 315.
51 As in the OAU Convention and the Cartagena Declaration. Bangkok Principles (2001), arts. I(1) and I(2).
52 Ibid., art. V.
53 Ibid., arts. VII, IX, X. The reference to burden-sharing was added in 1987 when total displacement numbers in
Asia and Africa had grown exponentially, principally on account of the increased number of Afghan refugees
who fled following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. AALCO, ‘Addendum to the Status and Treatment of
Refugees’ (13 January 1987).
54 Sara E. Davies, ‘Legitimising Rejection: International Refugee Law in Southeast Asia’, Refugees and Human
Rights 13 (2007): p. 4; Hui-Yi Katherine Tseng, ‘Protect the Unprotected: the escaping North Korean issue
and China’s dual dilemma of theoretical enlightenment and operational trial’, The Pacific Review 32, no. 4
(2019): pp. 513–517; Merrill Smith, ‘The Bangkok Principles on the Status and Treatment of Refugees’, Rights
in Exile 18 (December 3, 2011). Solutions are discussed further in Part III.
55 Pia Oberoi, ‘Developments. Regional Initiatives on Refugee Protection in South Asia’, International Journal
of Refugee Law 11, vol. 1 (1999): pp. 197–201 and Smith, ‘The Bangkok Principles’.
56 First South American Congress on Private International Law, Montevideo Treaty on International Penal
Law (23 January 1889), art. 16. For more on the treaty, see: Anders B. Johnsson, ‘Montevideo Treaty on
International Penal Law: 1889–1989 – 100 years of treaty making on asylum issues’, International Journal of
Refugee Law 1, no. 4 (1989): pp. 554–574.
57 Organization of American States (OAS), Convention on Political Asylum (26 December 1933); OAS, Treaty
on Asylum and Political Refuge (4 August 1939); OAS, Convention on Diplomatic Asylum (28 March 1954),
OAS Treaty Series, No. 19, UN Registration: 03/20/89 No. 24377; OAS, Convention on Territorial Asylum
(28 March 1954), OAS Treaty Series, No. 19, UN Registration: 03/20/89 No. 24378.
58 José H. Fischel de Andrade, ‘The 1984 Cartagena Declaration: A Critical Review of Some Aspects of Its
Emergence and Relevance’, Refugee Survey Quarterly 38, no. 4 (2019): p. 345. The author notes that there is
no precise account of the numbers of forcibly displaced people as a result of the conflicts in the late 1970s
and early 1980s in Central America but that some 2 million people are estimated to have been displaced
in total. The majority of those displaced by the conflicts were internally displaced. Numbers known to, and
recorded by, UNHCR at the time did not include internally displaced persons. UNHCR, The State of The
World’s Refugees 2000, p. 124.
59 For example, Mexico—which, according to UNHCR records, hosted about 170,000 refugees in the early
1980s—and Honduras were not parties to the 1951 Convention at that time. UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
For States parties, including reservations and declarations, to the 1951 Convention and its 1967 Protocol,
see: 1951 Convention.
60 Zolberg, Suhrke and Aguayo, Escape from Violence, pp. 204–205.
61 For more on US concerns regarding the social and agrarian reform movements in Central America during this
period and on support to right-wing governments and insurgencies, see: UNHCR, The State of the World’s
Refugees 2000, pp. 121–123. The United States was opposed to the socialist ideology of the Sandinistas,
their economic policies, the close relations they forged with Cuba and the support they provided Salvadoran
and Guatemalan rebels.
62 UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. According to UNHCR data, there were 52,650 Nicaraguan refugees in 1985,
of whom 35,000 were in Honduras and 15,200 in Costa Rica. UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. In 1989, this
number had increased to a total of 97,700, of whom 41,590 were in Honduras and 38,560 in Costa Rica.
UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. Following the signing of the peace agreements, returns started to increase
and the number of Nicaraguan refugees dropped to 53,000 in 1990. UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
63 Five of these movements coalesced in the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (Frente Farabundo
Martí para la Liberación Nacional or FMLN). Estimates place the number of civilian deaths between 30,000
and 70,000. For more on these estimates and the atrocities, see: World Peace Foundation, ‘El Salvador’, Mass
Atrocity Endings website (7 August 2015); Amelia Hoover Green, The Commander’s Dilemma: Violence and
Restraint in Wartime (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018); UNHCR, The State of The World’s Refugees
2000, p. 123.
64 Zolberg, Suhrke, and Aguayo, Escape from Violence, pp. 206–207; Megan Bradley, ‘Unlocking Protracted
Displacement: Central America’s “Success Story” Reconsidered’, Refugee Survey Quarterly 30, no. 4
(December 2011): p. 90; María Cristina García, Seeking Refuge: Central American Migration to Mexico, the
United States, and Canada (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006), p. 35. UNHCR records from
this time do not include IDPs and refugee figures are much lower possibly due to low registration and
recognition rates. UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
65 With several groups united in the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional
Guatemalteca or UNRG).
ENDNOTES 397
66 UNHCR records from this time do not include IDPs and the number of Guatemalan refugees known to
UNHCR at the time was much lower, staying below 54,000 even during peak years. This discrepancy may
be due to a comparatively low level of official registration. UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
67 Fischel de Andrade, ‘The 1984 Cartagena Declaration’: p. 348; UNHCR, The State of The World’s Refugees
2000, p. 124.
68 Rebecca Bodenheimer, ‘The Guatemalan Civil War: History and Impact’, ThoughtCo. website (22 March
2020). As part of the Guatemala Peace Process a Commission for Historical Clarification was established
through an accord signed by the parties in Oslo, Norway in 1994. It reviewed the underlying causes of
the war and documents the widespread gross human rights violations committed. The Committee found
state forces and related paramilitary groups were responsible for “93% of the violations documented by the
CEH, 92% of the arbitrary executions and 91% of forced disappearance”. It records in detail the particular
cruelty of the State forces and that “in the majority of massacres were multiple acts of savagery”. Historical
Clarification Commission, Guatemala: Memory of Silence, Report (1999), paras. 15, 87.
69 UNHCR, The State of the World’s Refugees 2000, pp. 128–131.
70 UNHCR, The State of the World’s Refugees 2000, pp. 124.
71 Ten governments were represented from Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras,
Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and Venezuela. Experts from countries in the region also participated.
72 Cartagena Declaration, arts. III(5) and III(12).
73 Ibid., arts. III(6), II (h), II(i).
74 Ibid., art. III(11).
75 Ibid., art. III(3).
76 Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and Nicaragua have adopted the definition in
its entirety. Belize, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay have adopted it in
modified form. Luisa Feline Freier, Isabel Berganza, and Cécile Blouin, ‘The Cartagena Refugee Definition
and Venezuelan Displacement in Latin America’, International Migration 58, no. 6 (2 December 2020):
pp. 15–19. On the extent to which countries in the region have or have not incorporated its provisions
and/or modified them in their national laws, see: Michael Reed-Hurtado, ‘The Cartagena Declaration on
Refugees and the Protection of People Fleeing Armed Conflict and Other Situations of Violence in Latin
America’ in Türk, Edwards, and Wouters (eds.), In Flight from Conflict and Violence, pp. 158–161.
77 Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Mexico. Juan Ignacio Mondelli, ‘Reshaping Asylum in Latin America as a
Response to Large-Scale Mixed Movements: A Decade of Progress and Challenges (2009–2019)’, Reference
Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR (October 2021), p. 5.
78 Pacheco Tineo Family v. Plurinational State of Bolivia (2013) IACHR, paras. 137–140; Advisory Opinion
OC-25/18 (2018) IACHR, paras. 112, 113, 131 and 132; Advisory Opinion OC-21/14 (2014) IACHR,
paras. 102–123. The Court considered State obligations under Article 22 of the American Convention on
Human Rights, which came into force in 1978. That Article provides for the right of every person “to seek
and be granted asylum” in accordance the “the legislation of the state and international conventions”. OAS,
American Convention on Human Rights (Pact of San José) (1969).
79 For a review of these, see: Mondelli, ‘Remodeling Asylum in Latin America’ pp. 7–11.
80 This includes the 1994 San José Declaration (Cartagena +10) which, among other things, agreed on
principles to respond to internal displacement, years before the International Guiding Principles on Internal
Displacement were formulated. The Cartagena Declaration is also a foundational document for the 2004
Mexico Declaration (Cartagena +20) that included an Action Plan for sustainable solutions and advanced
regional cooperation in regard to border management, refugee solutions and cooperation among cities.
The 2014 Brazil Declaration also reaffirmed the Cartagena Declaration and included an ambitious Plan of
Action for the 2015–2024 period. For the first time, the Caribbean countries have joined as full members
of the process. Carlos Maldonado Castillo, ‘The Cartagena Process: 30 Years of Innovation and Solidarity’,
Forced Migration Review 49 (2015): p. 90; Mondelli, ‘Remodeling Asylum in Latin America’, p. 7.
81 Reed-Hurtado, ‘The Cartagena Declaration on Refugees’, p. 162.
82 R4V, ‘Key Figures’, Inter-Agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela, website.
83 UNHCR, ‘Guidance Note on International Protection Considerations for Venezuelans – Update I’ (May
2019), para. 5.
84 Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, Paraguay and Uruguay.
85 Of the over 1 million asylum claims filed, just 170,000 had received a positive decision as of the end of 2020.
R4V, ‘Key Figures’.
86 UNHCR, ‘UNHCR welcomes Brazil’s decision to recognize thousands of Venezuelans as refugees’, Press
Briefing (6 December 2019). As of the end of 2020, Brazil had accepted 46,700 Venezuelan refugees on a
prima facie basis. UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
87 Blouin, Berganza, and Freier, ‘The Spirit of Cartagena?’: p. 66.
88 R4V, ‘Residence and Stay Permits’, Inter-Agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from
Venezuela, website. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, for example, have used Temporary
Stay Permit programmes and/or simplified requirements in their visa/migration schemes to facilitate the
access of Venezuelans to legal stay alternatives and documentation.
89 Grupo Interagencial sobre Flujos Migratorios Mixtos (GIFMM) and R4V, ‘Venezuelans in Colombia’, Factsheet
(November 2020).
ENDNOTES 399
90 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Colombia, ‘Decree No. 216: Temporary Protection Statute for
Venezuelan Migrants under Temporary Protection’ [Spanish] (1 March 2021).
91 BBC News, ‘Colombia to grant legal status to Venezuelan migrants’, website (9 February 2021).
92 UNHCR, ‘UN High Commissioner for Refugees praises Latin America for its commitment to the inclusion of all
those in need of protection’, Press Release (23 June 2021); Luc Cohen, ‘Ecuador to start new “normalization
process” for Venezuelan migrants’, Reuters (17 June 2021).
93 UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. At the end of 2020, forcibly displaced populations from El Salvador, Guatemala
and Honduras included close to 105,000 refugees under UNHCR’s mandate and nearly 445,000 asylum-
seekers. There were an additional 319,000 IDPs, the vast majority in Honduras (some 77 per cent) and the
remainder in El Salvador. UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
94 For more, see: UNHCR, ‘The MIRPS’, Global Compact on Refugees Digital Platform.
95 UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder and UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. Most of the recognitions have been in
Costa Rica, Mexico, Spain and the United States. UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
96 See: endnote 76.
97 Discussed further in Part III.
98 Discussed further in this Part.
99 As noted in the preamble to the 1951 Convention. The commitment is also found in Article II(4) of the OAU
Convention (1969): “where a Member State finds difficulty in continuing to grant asylum to refugees, such
Member State may appeal directly to other Member States and through the OAU, and such other Member
States shall in the spirit of African solidarity and international cooperation take appropriate measures to
lighten the burden of the Member State granting asylum”.
100 UNHCR, A Thematic Compilation of Executive Committee Conclusions (7th Edition) (June 2014), pp. 44
and 42–61.
101 Ibid. See, for example: No. 100 (LV) 2004 ‘International Cooperation and Burden and Responsibility Sharing
in Mass Influx Situations’, which reaffirms that “respect by States for their protection responsibilities towards
refugees is strengthened by international solidarity involving all members of the international community
and that the refugee protection regime is enhanced through committed international cooperation in a spirit
of solidarity and responsibility and burden sharing among all States”, p. 56.
102 UNHCR, Global Trends 2020, p. 2.
103 UNHCR, ‘Resettlement’, website.

104 See, for example: Barnaby Willitts-King and Alexandra Spencer, Reducing the humanitarian financing gap:
review of progress since the report of the High-Level Panel on Humanitarian Financing, HPG Commissioned
Report, Overseas Development Institute (April 2021); UNHCR, ‘UNHCR’s engagement in the Grand Bargain:
Summary of the progress made per workstream’, External Update (November 2020). The reports show that
overall funding has increased in recent years, but the gap between needs and resources has not narrowed
while high levels of tight earmarking persist.
105 See: Part V.
106 Hathaway and Gammeltoft-Hansen refer to this as a “schizophrenic attitude towards international refugee
law” because they remain formally engaged with refugee law yet simultaneously try to avoid related
responsibilities. James C. Hathaway and Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, ‘Non-Refoulement in a World of
Cooperative Deterrence’, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 53, no. 2 (2015): p. 282.
107 And following two years of global consultations aimed to address the many challenges that faced the
implementation of the 1951 Convention and its 1967 Protocol, including new forms of persecution and
conflict, complex mixed movements, the reluctance of many States to accept refugees, and the restrictive
interpretation of the 1951 Convention. For the papers and the conclusions resulting from the Global
Consultations, see: Erika Feller, Volker Türk, and Frances Nicholson, Refugee Protection in International Law:
UNHCR’s Global Consultations on International Protection (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
108 UNHCR, ‘Declaration of States Parties to the 1951 Convention and/or Its 1967 Protocol Relating to the
Status of Refugees’ (16 January 2002), UN Doc HCR/MMSP/2001/09; UNHCR, ‘Report of the Ministerial
Meeting of States Parties to the 1951 Convention and/or Its 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees’
(18 January 2002), UN Doc HCR/MMSP/2001/10.
109 UNHCR, Agenda for Protection (Third Edition) (October 2003).
110 UN, ‘Ministerial Communiqué’ (8 December 2011), UN Doc HCR/MINCOMMS/2011/6. 153 United Nations
member States participated in the intergovernmental event at the ministerial level of member States of
the United Nations on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status
of Refugees and the 50th anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, held in
Geneva (7–8 December 2011), which culminated in the issuance of the Communiqué. UNHCR, ‘Ministerial
Meeting: List of Participants’ (22 December 2011), UN Doc HCR/MINCOMMS/2011/09.
111 See later in this Part.
112 Informed by the Secretary-General’s Report to the UNGA, ‘In safety and dignity: addressing large movements
of refugees and migrants’ (21 April 2016), UN Doc A/70/59.
113 UNGA, New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants (19 September 2016), UN Doc A/RES/71/1.
114 181 United Nations member States voted in favour of adopting the Global Compact on Refugees, Hungary
and the United States voted against it, and the Dominican Republic, Eritrea and Libya abstained. 152 UN
member States voted in favour of adopting the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, five
ENDNOTES 401
(Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Poland, United States) voted against it, and 12 abstained. Global Compact
on Refugees (2018); UNGA, Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) (19 December
2018), UN Doc A/RES/73/195.
115 Global Compact on Refugees (2018), paras. 60–61; Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration
(2018), objective 7, para 23. The GCM also makes specific reference to this in regard to search and rescue
efforts. Objective 8, para 24.
116 Global Compact on Refugees (2018), paras. 13, 57–58, 94–96; Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and
Regular Migration (2018), objective 10. This is consistent with the Palermo Protocols that are supplementary
to UNGA, Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (15 November 2000), UN Doc A/RES/55/25:
UNGA, ‘Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children,
Supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime’ (15 November
2000); UNGA, ‘Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, Supplementing the United
Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime’ (15 November 2000).
117 UNHCR, Agenda for Protection, pp. 46–52; UNHCR, ‘The 10-Point Plan in Action: 2016 Update’ (December
2016).
118 Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (2000); ‘Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by
Land, Sea and Air’; ‘Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and
Children’.
119 Risks that give rise to a need for international protection include persecution, threats to life, freedom or
physical integrity arising from armed conflict, serious public disorder, certain situations of violence, or other
risks. Refugees have a right to international protection as may others who are outside their own country
and unable to return home because they would be at risk there and their country is unable or unwilling
to protect them. For more on this and a list of international and regional agreements which include the
non-refoulement principle, see: UNHCR, ‘Persons in Need of International Protection’.
120 Mathias Czaika, Hein De Haas, and Maria Villares-Varela, ‘The Global Evolution of Travel Visa Regimes’,
Population and Development Review 44, no. 3 (2018): p. 592.
121 Czaika, De Haas, and Villares-Varela, ‘The Global Evolution of Travel Visa Regimes’. The authors show how
visas have been the rule rather than the exception over the past 40 decades, see: pp. 591–592 and 601.
122 Ibid.: p. 594. They note that there are at least 20 economic unions and communities around the world and
they usually but not exclusively liberalize trade, investment, travel and migration among the member States,
see: p. 597.
123 On the use of visas, see: Ibid.: p. 610. For examples of countries that use visa requirements to reduce asylum
claims, see: David Scott FitzGerald, Refuge beyond Reach: How Rich Democracies Repel Asylum Seekers
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2019). For example, Canada imposed visa requirements in response
to increasing claims from refugees arriving from Haiti in the late 1970s, from Central and Latin America in
the 1970s and 1980s, from Czech Republic in the 1990s (re-increased claims from Roma), from Hungary
and Zimbabwe in the early 2000s, pp. 60–61. The EU has also used visas in response to increased refugee
flows. In 1987, the European Community agreed on a list of 50 countries for visas which expanded to over
100 countries in the new millennium. Additional airport transit visas were imposed on nationals of some of
the largest refugee movements. Ibid., p. 165. Most nationalities require a visa to enter the United States, a
requirement which is not aimed exclusively at asylum-seekers but equally does not provide exemptions for
them, pp. 60–61.
124 1951 Convention, arts. 31, 33.
125 Hathaway and Gammeltoft-Hansen, ‘Non-Refoulement in a World of Cooperative Deterrence’: pp. 238–239.
126 Canada: The Immigration Act (1869), arts. 3–4 and 11; Australia: Immigration Restriction Act (1901), para. 9.
This Act was the foundation of Australia’s “white only” policy. USA: Immigration Act (1924), sec. 16. UK:
British Aliens Act (1793), secs. II and VII.
127 Astri Suhrke and Kathleen Newland, ‘UNHCR: Uphill into the Future’, The International Migration Review 35,
no. 1 (2001): p. 290.
128 Bernard Ryan and Valsamis Mitsilegas, Extraterritorial Immigration Control: Legal Challenges (Leiden: Brill
Nijhoff, 2010), p. 20. Hathaway and Gammeltoft-Hansen, ‘Non-Refoulement in a World of Cooperative
Deterrence’: p. 253.
129 Paula Hancocks, ‘Israel starts installing barrier on its Egyptian border’, CNN News (22 November 2010).
130 For numbers of refugees and asylum-seekers in Israel in 2012, see: UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. Hadas
Yaron, Nurit Hashimshony-Yaffe, and John Campbell, ‘“Infiltrators” or Refugees? An Analysis of Israel’s
Policy Towards African Asylum-Seekers’, International Migration 51, no. 4 (2013): pp. 4–5; Ron Friedman,
‘Netanyahu: Migrants threaten our national identity’, The Times of Israel (20 May 2012).
131 UNHCR, ‘UNHCR’s position on the status of Eritrean and Sudanese nationals defined as “infiltrators” by
Israel’ (November 2017), para. 3. For a chronology of legislative developments from 2010 to date impacting
asylum-seekers and asylum procedures in Israel, see: UNHCR Israel, ‘Legislation’, website. On recognition
rates in Israel compared with the EU, see: endnote 138.
132 UNHCR, ‘UNHCR’s position on the status of Eritrean and Sudanese nationals defined as “infiltrators” by
Israel’.
133 UNHCR, ‘UNHCR is concerned at new Amendment to Israel’s Law on the Prevention of Infiltration’, Briefing
Notes (10 January 2014).
134 The Court issued its judgment on 12 September 2014. Reuven Ziegler, ‘Second Strike and You are (Finally)
out? The Quashing of the Prevention of Infiltration Law (Amendment No. 4)’, Israel Democracy Institute
(29 September 2014).
ENDNOTES 403
135 UNHCR Israel, ‘Legislation’; UNHCR, ‘UNHCR concerned over Israel’s refugee relocation proposals’, Press
Release (17 November 2017).
136 The suspension of deportations was ordered by the Israeli High Court in March 2018. At the end of 2018,
there were around 32,000 Eritreans and Sudanese left in Israel, down from some 48,000 in 2012. UNHCR,
Refugee Data Finder. Some 4,500 had been relocated under the Government’s forced relocation policy.
UNHCR, ‘UNHCR and Israel sign agreement to find solutions for Eritreans and Sudanese’, Press Release
(2 April 2018).
137 The Times of Israel, ‘Some 200 asylum seekers cross into Israel despite Sinai fence’ (6 December 2015); Gili
Cohen, ‘Israel Raising Height of Egypt Border Fence to Keep out Asylum Seekers’, Haaretz (15 March 2018);
Human Rights Watch (HRW), ‘UN: Egypt to Chair Refugee Agency’s Governing Body – Highlights Urgency
for Cairo to End Abuses Against Refugees and Asylum Seekers’, HRW News (8 October 2010); HRW, ‘Egypt/
Israel: Egypt Should End “Shoot to Stop” Practice at Sinai Border Crossings’, HRW News (11 December 2008);
Patrick Strickland, ‘Sudanese refugees shot dead on Egypt-Israel border’, Al Jazeera (15 November 2015);
Rachel Humphris, ‘Refugees and the Rashaida: human smuggling and trafficking from Eritrea to Sudan and
Egypt’, Research Paper No. 254, New Issues in Refugee Research, UNHCR (March 2013), p. 4.
138 For numbers up until 2017, see: ‘UNHCR’s position on the status of Eritrean and Sudanese nationals defined as
“infiltrators” by Israel’, p. 3. Between 2018 and 2020, recognition rates for Eritreans in Israel were on average
below 2 per cent. No Sudanese were granted refugee status in Israel during this time. Some 600 Sudanese
received complementary protection status. For Sudanese numbers, see: UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder and
for Eritreans, see: UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. In 2018 and 2019, EU recognition rates for Eritreans were
around 80 per cent, and for Sudanese fluctuated between 54 and 62 per cent. In 2020, the recognition rate
of Eritreans in the EU stood at 82 per cent and preliminary data for Sudanese indicates a recognition rate of
approximately 46 per cent. European Commission, ‘First instance decisions on applications by citizenship,
age and sex – annual aggregated data (rounded)’, Eurostat Data Browser (6 March 2021).
139 Keno Verseck, ‘How Hungary is violating EU law on refugees’, Deutsche Welle (2 August 2021); UNGA, Human
Rights Council, ‘Visit to Hungary: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants’ (11 May
2020), UN Doc A/HRC/44/42/Add.1, pp. 7–8; UNHCR, ‘Hungary as a Country of Asylum: Observations
on restrictive legal measures and subsequent practice implemented between July 2015 and March 2016’,
Report (May 2016), pp. 8–12.
140 European Commission v. Hungary (17 December 2020), CJEU, C-808/18, para. 175.
141 European Commission v Hungary, para. 266.
142 On 9 June 2021, the European Commission initiated a non-compliance procedure against Hungary under
art. 260(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) for failing to comply with the
CJEU judgment of 17 December 2020 (C-808/18). The Commission may consider referring the case back
to the CJEU with a proposal for financial sanctions. European Commission, ‘June Infringements Package:
Key Decisions’, website (9 June 2021).
143 UNHCR, ‘UNHCR Position on Hungarian Act LVIII of 2020 on the Transitional Rules and Epidemiological
Preparedness related to the Cessation of the State of Danger’ (June 2020).
144 Ibid.; UNHCR, ‘Access to asylum further at stake in Hungary’, Press Release (29 June 2020). On other
reactions to the legislations, see, for example: European Parliament, ‘Parliamentary questions: Access to
asylum in Hungary’, (7 July 2020), E-004020/2020; ‘Answer to Parliamentary Question’ (19 November
2020), E-004020/2020(ASW). The Commission noted in its answer that it “has serious concerns as regards
the compatibility of the new system with obligations under EU asylum law to ensure effective access
to the asylum procedure, including at the border, and has already raised the matter with the Hungarian
Government at several occasions”.
145 The EU reported that the arrivals were being facilitated by Belarus “as a political tool to destabilize the
European Union and its Member States”. European Commission, ‘Communication from the Commission to
the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee
of the Regions on the Report on Migration and Asylum’ (29 September 2021), COM(2021) 590 final,
pp. 1, 3, 10. The agencies called for the situation to be managed “in accordance with international legal
obligations”, and that “asylum-seekers and migrants should never be used by States to achieve political
ends”. UNHCR, ‘UNHCR and IOM shocked and dismayed by deaths near Belarus-Poland border’, Press
Release (21 September 2021). Poland had previously announced measures to build a fence and increase its
military presence along its border. Kasper Pempel, ‘Poland to build fence, double troop numbers on Belarus
border’, Reuters (23 August 2021). Two cases are currently before the European Court of Human Rights
(ECHR) filed by applicants at the borders of Latvia and Poland seeking admission. In an interim ruling the
Court decided to request Polish and Latvian authorities to provide aid to the applicants without prejudice to
its decisions on the merits of the applications. ECHR, ‘Court indicates interim measures in respect of Iraqi
and Afghan nationals at Belarusian border with Latvia and Poland’, Press Release (25 August 2021).
146 Christopher Giles, ‘Trump’s wall: How much has been built during his term?’, BBC News (12 January 2021);
Lauren Giella, ‘Fact Check: Did President Trump Build the “Big, Beautiful” Border Wall He Promised?’,
Newsweek (12 January 2021).
147 UNHCR, ‘UNHCR deeply concerned about new U.S. asylum restrictions’, Press Release (15 July 2019).
148 US Department of Homeland Security, ‘Migrant Protection Protocols’, Archived Content (24 January 2019).
149 Under this practice, 70,000 asylum-seekers were returned to Mexico until the practice was discontinued in
February 2021. By May 2021, more than 11,200 asylum-seekers with active cases in the programme were
allowed to return to the United States to await rulings. Kristy Siegfried, ‘The Refugee Brief’, UNHCR website
(4 June 2021). Among the criticisms of the policy are the unsafe conditions in which migrants and refugees
have to wait in Mexico. HRW, ‘“Like I’m Drowning” - Children and Families Sent to Harm by the US ‘Remain
in Mexico’ Program’, Report (January 2021).
150 UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. In 2016, 96,900 refugees were resettled to the United States. This number
dropped to 33,400 in 2017 and further to 22,900 in 2018. In 2019, the number slightly increased again but
was still only at 27,500. In 2020, the total number was at a historic low of 9,900 in the context of the COVID-
19 pandemic during which access to asylum was further curtailed.
ENDNOTES 405
151 Ariel G. Soto Ruiz, ‘One Year after the U.S.-Mexico Agreement Reshaping Mexico’s Migration Policies’, Policy
Brief, Migration Policy Institute (June 2020). Mexico was reported to have acted over concerns that it would
otherwise face escalating trade tariffs. Makini Brice, ‘Trump threatens more tariffs on Mexico over part of
immigration deal’, Reuters (10 June 2019); BBC News, ‘US-Mexico talks: Agreement to avoid tariffs reached,
says Trump’, website (9 June 2019).
152 U.S. Customs and Border Protection, ‘Southwest Border Migration FY 2019’, website. Inadmissibility metrics
include: “individuals encountered at ports of entry who are seeking lawful admission into the United States
but are determined to be inadmissible, individuals presenting themselves to seek humanitarian protection
under our laws, and individuals who withdraw an application for admission and return to their countries of
origin within a short timeframe”.
153 Asylum-seekers are either placed in formal immigration proceedings or expedited removal proceedings.
In the latter, the person can express a fear of persecution or torture in their country of origin, and a United
States asylum official assesses whether there is a “significant possibility” that this claim would be recognized
in a formal hearing. If so, the person is sent to the formal hearing process. Those denied can request a
review of the decision by an immigration judge. If the judge confirms the negative decision, the person is
removed. Prior to 2013, 4–8 per cent of asylum-seekers from Central America were placed in expedited
processing. This increased to over 40 per cent. Ben Harrington, ‘The Law of Asylum Procedure at the Border:
Statutes and Agency Implementation’, Congressional Research Service Report R46755 (4 September 2021),
pp. 10–13, 17–18, 20–25, 27–28; U.S. Department of Homeland Security, ‘Assessment of the Migrant
Protection Protocols (MPP)’ (28 October 2019), p. 7.
154 The most controversial being the separating of children from their parents and their detention. United
Nations human rights experts declared the practice illegal under international law. This policy was terminated
by President Trump in June 2018. OHCHR, ‘UN experts to US: “release migrant children from detention and
stop using them to deter irregular migration”’, OHCHR News (22 June 2018). In an April 2021 filing with the
District Court of Southern California, the US Justice Department and the American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) reported that there remained over 445 separated children not yet reunited with their parents. The
majority of the parents had been deported. Ms. L. v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (2018) S.D.
Cal., 3:18-cv-00428; Aishvarya Kavi, ‘A court filing says parents of 445 separated migrant children still have
not been found’, The New York Times (8 April 2021).
155 Eleanor Acer, ‘Criminal Prosecutions and Illegal Entry: A Deeper Dive’, Just Security website (18 July 2019);
American Immigration Council, ‘Prosecuting People for Coming to the United States’, Factsheet (23 August
2021).
156 Department of Homeland Security, ‘Statement on the Suspension of New Enrollments in the Migrant
Protection Protocols Program’, website (20 January 2021). This decision has subsequently been subject
to court challenges. In August 2021, a district judge in Texas ruled that the Government had to reinstate
the Migrant Protection Protocols. The Biden administration then lodged an emergency appeal with the
United States Supreme Court to stay the order. The Court refused, requiring the Biden administration to
make a “good faith” effort to implement the policy while the court case proceeds. Biden v Texas (2021)
USSC, 21-10806. The administration has also suspended and initiated the process to terminate the Asylum
Cooperative Agreements (ACA) with the Governments of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Under the
agreements, a person could be denied the right to seek asylum at the United States border and sent to
any of these countries. US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, ‘Suspending and Terminating the Asylum
Cooperative Agreements with the Governments of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras’, Press Release
(2 June 2021); Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, ‘Biden Administration Ends “Safe Third Country” Agreements’,
Immigration Impact (8 February 2021).
157 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), ‘Order
Suspending the Right To Introduce Certain Persons From Countries Where a Quarantinable Communicable
Disease Exists’, Federal Register (13 October 2020); UNHCR representative to the United States and the
Caribbean Matthew Reynolds, ‘UNHCR concerned over U.S. expulsion flights under COVID-19 asylum
restrictions’, Press Release (11 August 2021).
158 UN, ‘UNHCR chief calls on US to end COVID-19 asylum restrictions at the Mexico Border’, UN News (20 May
2021); UNHCR, ‘News Comment by UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi on conditions
and expulsions at US Border’, Press Release (21 September 2021). The Biden Administration had just a few
months earlier extended temporary protection to Haitians that had come to the United States in the wake
of the 2010 earthquake. US Citizenship and Immigration Services, ‘Temporary Protected Status Designated
Country: Haiti’ (May 2021).
159 Including at airports. Regina Jefferies, Daniel Ghezelbash, and Asher Lazarus Hirsch, ‘Assessing Protection
Claims at Airports: Developing procedures to meet international and domestic obligations’, Policy Brief 9,
Kaldor Centre for Refugee Law (September 2020).
160 Persons entering Australia at airports with visas and presenting an asylum claim or suspected of later doing
so have also faced detention. Ibid., p. 8.
161 According to Australia’s official records, the number of unauthorized arrivals by sea steadily increased
over the preceding years: It stood at 200 persons in 1998, over 3,700 persons in 1999, close to 3,000
in 2000 and over 5,500 in 2001. Janet Phillips and Harriet Spinks, ‘Boat Arrivals in Australia since 1976’,
Research Paper, Parliament of Australia, Department of Parliamentary Services: Social Policy Section (2013),
Appendix A; Parliament of Australia, Senate Select Committee, ‘Chapter 10 - Pacific Solution: Negotiations
and Agreements’, A Certain Maritime Incident, Report (2002); Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law,
‘The Tampa affair: 20 years on’, website (10 August 2021).
162 Ariane Rummery, ‘Australia’s “Pacific Solution” draws to a close: The last 21 Sri Lankan refugees on Nauru
leave for Australia, signalling the end of Australia’s “Pacific Solution”’, UNHCR News (11 February 2008).
163 Janet Phillips, ‘Boat arrivals and boat “turnbacks” in Australia since 1976: a quick guide to the statistics’,
Research Paper, Parliament of Australia, Department of Parliamentary Services: Social Policy Section (2017),
table 1; Bob Douglas, Claire Higgins, Arja Keski-Nummi, Jane McAdam and Travers McLeod, ‘Beyond the
boats: building an asylum and refugee policy for the long term’, Report following high-level roundtable
(November 2014), p. 17.
ENDNOTES 407
164 There were an estimated 1,400 deaths at sea between 2001 and 2014. See: Douglas et al., ‘Beyond the
boats’, p. 13; Kenneth McLeod, ‘Deadly voyages: Border related deaths associated with Australia’, Interactive
Charts, SBS News (23 April 2015).
165 They were predominately from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan or Sri Lanka or were stateless. Janet Phillips,
‘Asylum seekers and refugees: what are the facts?’, Research Paper, Parliament of Australia, Department of
Parliamentary Services: Social Policy Section (2015).
166 Refugee Council of Australia, ‘Offshore processing statistics - How many people are on Nauru and PNG?’,
website (30 August 2021).
167 As part of larger measures to remove incentives for people to attempt to come to Australia without prior
authorization. See: Government of Australia, ‘Report of the Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers’ (13 August
2012); Janet Phillips, ‘A comparison of Coalition and Labor government asylum policies in Australia since
2001’, Research Paper, Parliament of Australia, Department of Parliamentary Services: Social Policy Section
(2 February 2017); Elibritt Karlsen, ‘Australia’s offshore processing of asylum seekers in Nauru and PNG: a
quick guide to statistics and resources’, Research Paper, Parliament of Australia, Department of Parliamentary
Services: Law and Bills Digest Section (19 December 2016).
168 Department of Home Affairs, Australian Government, ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’, website.
169 UNHCR, ‘Returns to Sri Lanka of individuals intercepted at sea’, Press Release (7 July 2014); UN Committee
on the Rights of the Child, ‘Concluding observations on the combined fifth and sixth periodic reports of
Australia’ (1 November 2019), UN Doc CRC/C/AUS/CO/5-6, pp. 12–13; UN Committee on the Elimination
of Discrimination against Women, ‘Concluding observations on the eighteenth to twentieth periodic reports
of Australia’ (25 July 2018), UN Doc CEDAW/C/AUS/CO/8, p. 16; Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination, ‘Concluding observations on the eighteenth to twentieth periodic reports of Australia’
(26 December 2017), UN Doc CERD/C/AUS/CO/18-20, p. 7; Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, ‘Statement by UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein at the Interactive Dialogue on the Human Rights of
Migrants at the 29th session of the Human Rights Council’, Speech reported on OHCHR website (15 June
2015).
170 Human Rights Council, ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants on his mission
to Australia and the regional processing centres in Nauru’ (24 April 2017), UN Doc A/HRC/35/25/Add.3,
paras. 72–79.
171 Ibid., paras. 80–82.
172 Namah v. Pato (2016) PNGSC, SC1497; Kelly Buchanan, ‘Australia/Papua New Guinea: Supreme Court Rules
Asylum-Seeker Detention Is Unconstitutional’, Global Legal Monitor, Library of Congress website (2 May
2016).
173 Joseph Lew, ‘Photos of Nauru’s (Now) Mostly Empty Immigration Detention Centre’, VICE World News
(22 October 2020); Refugee Council of Australia, ‘Seven Years on: An Overview of Australia’s Offshore
Processing Policies’, Report (July 2020), p. 7. The Nauru Regional Processing Centre (in 2015) and Manus
Island Regional Processing Centre (in 2016) had previously been transitioned to more open facilities. UNHCR,
‘UNHCR appeals to Australia to act and save lives at immediate risk’, Press Release (23 October 2018).
174 Kaldor Centre for Refugee Law, ‘Offshore Processing: An Overview’, Factsheet (11 January 2021); Refugee
Council of Australia, ‘Seven Years on: An Overview’, p. 11.
175 Refugee Council of Australia, ‘How many people are on Nauru and PNG?’.
176 Australian Human Rights Commission, ‘Tell Me About: Bridging Visas for Asylum Seekers’, Factsheet (17 April
2013).
177 Department of Home Affairs, Australian Government, ‘Immigration Detention and Community Statistics
Summary’, Report (30 April 2021). See also: UNHCR, ‘Australia: UNHCR Submission for the Universal Periodic
Review - Australia - UPR 37th Session’ (July 2020), p. 4.
178 Claire P. Gutekunst, ‘Interdiction of Haitian Migrants on the High Seas: A Legal and Policy Analysis,’ The Yale
Journal of International Law 10, no. 1 (1984): pp. 152–154. For more on the economic and human rights
situation, see: David Nicholls, ‘Haiti: the rise and fall of Duvalierism’, Third World Quarterly 8, no. 4 (1986):
pp. 1243–1244; HRW, Haiti’s Rendezvous with History: The Case of Jean-Claude Duvalier, Report (2011),
p. 2.
179 Claire P. Gutekunst, ‘Interdiction of Haitian Migrants on the High Seas’: pp. 156–158 and 164. Practices, such
as expedited hearings and mass exclusion hearings behind closed doors, were found to violate United States
constitutional and statutory rights in several court cases. Subsequent individual hearings were also found
not to comply with procedural safeguards. See also: Gil Loescher and John Scanlan, ‘Human Rights, U.S.
Foreign Policy, and Haitian Refugees’, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 26, no. 3 (1984):
pp. 333, 335, 339–341, 345.
180 Niels Frenzen, ‘Responses to “Boat Migration”: A Global Perspective – US Practices’, in Violeta Moreno-
Lax and Efthymios Papastavridis (eds.), ‘Boat Refugees’ and Migrants at Sea: A Comprehensive Approach
(Leiden: Brill Nijhoff, 2017): p. 287. The only way a Haitian could gain access to a screening interview was to
call out or use gestures to show a “manifestation of fear”. This came to be known as the “shout test”. Eleanor
Acer, ‘A System Designed to Fail Haitians’, Human Rights First website (10 February 2010). FitzGerald, Refuge
beyond Reach, pp. 79–82.
181 Niels Frenzen, ‘Responses to “Boat Migration”’, pp. 282–283, 288–292, 296–297.
182 Homeland Security and United States Coast Guard, ‘Maritime Law Enforcement Assessment – Fiscal Year
2020 Report to Congress’, Report (9 December 2020), pp. 5–7. The report refers to an Executive Order that
states that the Government’s obligations under the 1967 Protocol do not extend to persons located outside
the territory of the United States. It also refers to the Executive Order authorizing the Attorney General
to “maintain custody, at any location he deems appropriate, of any undocumented aliens he has reason
to believe are seeking to enter the United States and who are interdicted or intercepted in the Caribbean
region”. George Bush, Executive Order 12807, Interdiction of Illegal Aliens (1992), Homeland Security Digital
ENDNOTES 409
Library; George W. Bush, Executive Order 13276, Delegation of Responsibilities Concerning Undocumented
Aliens Interdicted or Intercepted in the Caribbean Region (2002), Homeland Security Digital Library.
183 Frenzen, ‘Responses to “Boat Migration”’, pp. 299–302; Azadeh Dastyari, United States Migrant Interdiction
and the Detention of Refugees in Guantánamo Bay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015),
pp. 161–171, 207–214; Bill Frelick, Ian M. Kysel, and Jennifer Podkul, ‘The Impact of Externalization of
Migration Controls on the Rights of Asylum Seekers and Other Migrants,’ Journal on Migration and Human
Security 4, no. 4 (December 2016): p. 200.
184 Sale v. Haitian Centers Council, Inc. (1993) USSC, 509 U.S. 155.
185 Hathaway and Gammeltoft-Hansen, ‘Non-Refoulement in a World of Cooperative Deterrence’: pp. 247–248.
For an analysis of Sale v. Haitian Centers Council, see: Dastyari, United States Migrant Interdiction and the
Detention of Refugees in Guantánamo Bay, pp. 106–112; FitzGerald, Refuge beyond Reach, pp. 84–91.
186 Hathaway and Gammeltoft-Hansen, ‘Non-Refoulement in a World of Cooperative Deterrence’: p. 247.
187 Hirsi Jamaa and Others v. Italy (2012) ECHR, 27765/09.
188 Council of Europe, Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (4 November
1950), UNTS vol. 213, no. 2889, art. 3.
189 Hirsi Jamaa and Others v. Italy, paras. 82, 123.
190 For more commentary on the case, see: Meltem Ineli-Ciger, Temporary Protection in Law and Practice
(Leiden: Brill Nijhoff, 2018), p. 56.
191 UNHCR, ‘UNHCR warns against “exporting” asylum, calls for responsibility sharing for refugees, not burden
shifting’, Press Release (19 May 2021); UNHCR, ‘Observations on the Proposal for amendments to the Danish
Alien Act (Introduction of the possibility to transfer asylum-seekers for adjudication of asylum claims and
accommodation in third countries)’ (8 March 2021), para 16.
192 As of 2021, the United States has appropriated about $3.3 billion to the Mérida Initiative since 2008. Clare
Ribando Seelke, ‘Mexico: Evolution of the Mérida Initiative, 2007–2021’, Congressional Research Service
Report IF10578 (13 January 2021), p. 1; Clare Ribando Seelke and Kristin Finklea, ‘U.S.-Mexican Security
Cooperation: The Mérida Initiative and Beyond’, Congressional Research Service Report R41349 (29 June
2017), pp. 11–12. Other investments in the region have come through the Central America Security Initiative
(CARSI) and as of 2014 the Strategy for Engagement in Central America to improve conditions in the region
as also a means to reduce unauthorised arrivals. Disbursements of approved funding slowed down during
the Trump administration which some have said may have contributed to increased arrivals. In 2021, the
Biden administration announced a $4 billion comprehensive strategy for the region. Peter J. Meyer, ‘U.S.
Strategy for Engagement in Central America: Policy Issues for Congress’, Congressional Research Service
Report 44812 (12 November 2019), pp. 4–5, 12, 18–20, 22–23; Mark L. Schneider, ‘Six Months On: Changes
in U.S. Policy toward the Northern Triangle’, Commentary, Center for Strategic and International Studies
(CSIS) (20 July 2021).
193 Including through the training of border officers, the provision of patrol boats and surveillance equipment.
Hathaway and Gammeltoft-Hansen, ‘Non-Refoulement in a World of Cooperative Deterrence’: pp. 254;
Human Rights Law Centre, Can’t flee, can’t stay: Australia’s interception and return of Sri Lankan asylum
seekers, Report (March 2014), pp. 24–25, 27–33. These measures have been criticized by human rights
activists including on the basis that they prevent those at risk in Sri Lanka from fleeing. Ibid., pp. 4–7 and
14–18.
195 More than €800 million have been mobilized since 2015 by the North of Africa window of the EU Emergency
Trust Fund alone for 38 programmes implemented in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia. Over half
goes to protection, community stabilization and socio-economic support, while one third goes to border
management and the rest to migration governance and labour migration. EU, ‘EU Emergency Trust Fund for
Africa: Improving Migration Management in the North of Africa Region’, Factsheet (September 2020). There
are other bilateral arrangements as noted in the case of Morocco noted below.
197 This was reportedly approved just after Morocco relaxed its border controls allowing 12,000 migrants and
asylum-seekers to enter within two days. Spanish officials had accused Morocco of using migrants as a
means to exert leverage over Spain, amidst political tensions over Spain permitting a leader of the Polisario
Front to access medical treatment in Spain. Nicholas Casey and José Bautista, ‘“Come On In, Boys”: A Wave
of the Hand Sets Off Spain-Morocco Migrant Fight’, The New York Times (2 June 2021).
198 Ibid.
199 Hathaway and Gammeltoft-Hansen, ‘Non-Refoulement in a World of Cooperative Deterrence’: p 250.
200 Funding is channelled through the facility, with only part of it provided as direct grants to government
ministries. European Commission, ‘The EU Facility for Refugees in Turkey’, Factsheet (September 2021).
201 EU, Council of the European Union, ‘EU-Turkey Statement’ (18 March 2016); Kyilah Terry, ‘The EU-Turkey
Deal, Five Years On: A Frayed and Controversial but Enduring Blueprint’, Article, Migration Policy Institute
(8 April 2021); Berkay Mandiraci, ‘Sharing the Burden: Revisiting the EU-Turkey Migration Deal’, Commentary,
International Crisis Group (13 March 2020).
202 UNHCR, ‘UNHCR’s reaction to Statement of the EU Heads of State and Government of Turkey’, Press Briefing
(8 March 2016); UNHCR, ‘UNHCR expresses concern over EU-Turkey plan’, UNHCR News (11 March 2016);
UNHCR, ‘Legal considerations on the return of asylum-seekers and refugees from Greece to Turkey as
part of the EU-Turkey Cooperation in Tackling the Migration Crisis under the safe third country and first
country of asylum concept’ (23 March 2016); UNHCR, ‘Legal considerations regarding access to protection
and a connection between the refugee and the third country in the context of return or transfer to safe
third countries’ (April 2018). See also: Lisa Haferlach and Dilek Kurban, ‘Lessons Learnt from the EU-Turkey
Refugee Agreement in Guiding EU Migration Partnerships with Origin and Transit Countries’, Global Policy 8,
no. S4 (2017): pp. 85–93; Jesuit Refugee Service, ‘The EU-Turkey Deal: Analysis and Considerations’, Europe
Policy Discussion Paper (30 April 2016).
ENDNOTES 411
203 Turkey may grant non-Europeans a “conditional refugee status”, which provides for a lesser protection status
and is intended to be temporary with the only durable solution being resettlement to another country. Since
2011, Turkey grants Syrians fleeing the civil war temporary protection. Ineli-Ciger, Temporary Protection in
Law and Practice, pp. 168–170.
204 European Commission, ‘EU-Turkey Statement: Three Years On’ (March 2019), p. 1; UNHCR, ‘Mediterranean
Situation’, UNHCR Operational Data Portal - Refugee Situations.
205 Over 34,180 refugees were resettled from Turkey to Europe from 2016 to 2021, far short of the agreed
maximum of 72,000. UNHCR, Resettlement Data Finder (RDF); European Commission, ‘EU-Turkey
Statement: Three Years On’, p. 2; Terry, ‘The EU-Turkey Deal’.
206 This may have contributed to Turkey’s decision to relax its controls in early 2020. Terry, ‘The EU-Turkey Deal’;
Mandiraci, ‘Sharing the Burden’; UNHCR, ‘UNHCR statement on the situation at the Turkey-EU border’, Press
Release (2 March 2020). Some observers say that other factors were also thought to play a role, including
securing additional funding and seeking EU support for Turkey’s military strategy in Idlib, Syria. Mandiraci,
‘Sharing the Burden’.
207 Frontex, ‘Migration flows: Eastern, Central and Western routes’, Infographic; Frontex, ‘Eastern Mediterranean
Route’, website.
208 The Central Mediterranean route connects Sub-Saharan Africa through central north Africa (Algeria, Libya
and Tunisia) with Europe (Italy and Malta). The Western Mediterranean route connects north-west Africa
(Morocco and western Algeria) with Spain. UNHCR, ‘Routes towards the Western and Central Mediterranean
Sea: Working on Alternatives to Dangerous Journeys for Refugees’, Updated Risk Mitigation Strategy and
Appeal (January 2021), p. 5.
209 European Union, ‘EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa: Strategy in the North of Africa’, website; Mixed
Migration Centre, Mixed Migration Review 2020, Annual Report (18 November 2020), pp. 19–25.
210 The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that, even though almost 800,000 migrants
left Libya in 2011, the country continues to host over 570,000 migrants mostly working in sectors that pose
higher risks to health and safety and provide less protection against violence, exploitation and abuse (such
as construction, water supply, electricity and gas sectors, agriculture, pastoralism, the food industry, and
manual craft). IOM estimates that around 22 per cent of migrants are unemployed. Emma Borgnäs, Linda
Cottone, Tassilo Teppert, ‘Labour Migration Dynamics in Libya’, in Philippe Fargues et al. (eds.), Migration in
West and North Africa and across the Mediterranean: Trends, Risks, Development and Governance (IOM,
2020), p. 303; Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) and IOM, ‘Libya’s Migrant Report’, Mobility Tracking
Round 33 (September–October 2020), p. 6; DTM and IOM, ‘Libya’s Migrant Report’, Mobility Tracking Round
35 (January–February 2021), p. 4. At the end of 2020, there were some 44,000 refugees and asylum-seekers
registered with UNHCR, and several hundred thousand persons estimated to be internally displaced by the
conflict. UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
211 Salah Sarrar, ‘Gaddafi and Berlusconi sign accord worth billions’, Reuters (30 August 2008); Ian Traynor, ‘EU
keen to strike deal with Muammar Gaddafi on immigration’, The Guardian (1 September 2010).
212 Katie Kuschminder, ‘Once a Destination for Migrants, Post-Gaddafi Libya Has Gone from Transit Route to
Containment’, Article, Migration Policy Institute (5 August 2020); IOM, Living and Working in the Midst of
Conflict: The Status of Long-Term Migrants in Libya (2019), pp. 1–2.
213 In 2016, Italy received some 181,400 arrivals, most of whom arrived from Libya (some 163,000). Spain
received some 8,200. UNHCR, ‘Mediterranean Situation’; UNHCR, ‘Italy Country Update - December 2016’,
Situation Report (9 February 2017).
214 UNHCR, ‘Mediterranean Situation’; Deutsche Welle, ‘Thousands of African migrants saved off Italian coast’,
website (5 October 2016); Phillip Connor, ‘Italy may surpass Greece in 2016 refugee arrivals’, Article, Pew
Research Center website (2 November 2016); Steve Scherer, ‘Record 2016 pushes migrant arrivals in Italy
over half million’, Reuters (30 December 2016); Louise Hunt, ‘Cracks widen in “impossible” Italian asylum
system’, The New Humanitarian (15 August 2016).
215 Relocations were based on quotas with only asylum-seekers of nationalities having an average EU asylum
recognition rate of 75 per cent or higher eligible for transfer. An audit concluded that, out of a total of
a close to half a million qualifying asylum-seekers in Greece and Italy, just 35,000 (some 22,000 from
Greece and close to 13,000 from Italy) were relocated to 22 member States and three associated countries
(Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland). The United Kingdom and Denmark exercised their opt-out rights
and Hungary and Poland refused to relocate any asylum-seekers. European Court of Auditors, ‘Special
report No 24/2019: Asylum, relocation and return of migrants: Time to step up action to address disparities
between objectives and results’ (13 November 2019), pp. 8 and 20–22.
216 Such as through port closures, refusals of disembarkation and legal repercussions for staff on rescuing
vessels. UNHCR, ‘UNHCR and IOM call for urgent disembarkation of rescued migrants and refugees in
Central Mediterranean Sea’, Press Release (29 August 2020); Crispian Balmer, ‘Italian magistrates set to level
charges against sea rescuers, NGOs’, Reuters (3 March 2021); Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) International,
‘Lives on the line as legal appeal lodged to free the Sea-Watch 4’, Press Release (23 October 2020).
217 OHCHR, ‘“Lethal Disregard”: Search and rescue and the protection of migrants in the central Mediterranean
Sea’, Report (May 2021), p. 21.
218 According to the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), “in some cases, rescue vessels
were blocked in harbours due to flag issues or the inability to meet maritime safety-related and other
technical requirements”. FRA, ‘December 2020 update - NGO ships involved in search and rescue in the
Mediterranean and legal proceedings against them’, website (18 December 2020).
219 UNHCR and IOM have consistently objected to the criminalization of saving lives at sea, noting the crucial
role that NGOs have played in it. They have also urged that commercial vessels not be requested to transfer
rescued persons to the Libyan Coast Guard or otherwise have them disembark in Libya. UNHCR, ‘Joint
Statement: UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi and IOM Director General António Vitorino
welcome consensus on need for action on Libya, Mediterranean’ (22 July 2019). In September 2020, the
European Commission presented a proposal for a New Pact on Asylum and Migration (New EU Pact). The
proposals include for example new border and return procedures, preparedness and solidarity measures,
promoting legal pathways to the EU and enhancing search and rescue operations. Positively, it recognises
ENDNOTES 413
that “there is a need to avoid criminalisation of those who provide humanitarian assistance to people in
distress at sea”. European Commission, ‘Commission Recommendation (EU) 2020/1365 of 23 September
2020 on cooperation among Member States concerning operations carried out by vessels owned or
operated by private entities for the purpose of search and rescue activities’, Official Journal of the European
Union 63 (October 2020), para. 5.
220 In total, the EU has funded around €700 million in support to Libya from 2014 to 2020 under various funding
instruments. The EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa has invested thus far €455 million in community
stabilization, protection and border management projects in Libya under the North Africa window. Of this,
13 per cent € 57.2 was allocated for border management projects, which included technical trainings for
members of the Libyan Coast Guard as well as logistical and infrastructure support. EU Emergency Trust
Fund for Africa, ‘EU Support on Migration in Libya’, Factsheet (October 2020); EU Trust Fund for Africa,
‘DEC: Support to Integrated border and migration management in Libya – First phase’, website (27 July
2017); EU Trust Fund for Africa, ‘DEC: Support to Integrated border and migration management in Libya
– Second phase’, website (13 December 2018). Italy has also provided additional assistance to Libyan
authorities. Charlotte Oberti, ‘Agreement between Italy and the Libyan coastguard renewed for three years’,
InfoMigrants (7 February 2020); Anja Palm, ‘The Italy-Libya Memorandum of Understanding: The baseline
of a policy approach aimed at closing all doors to Europe?’, EU Migration and Asylum Law and Policy blog
(2 October 2017).
221 Search and Rescue (SAR) regions are established in accordance with the International Convention on
Maritime Search and Rescue to ensure that the rescue of persons in distress at sea is coordinated and
that assistance is provided. International Maritime Organisation (IMO), ‘SAR Convention’, website (27 April
1979). They are acknowledged by the International Maritime Organization. See: Alarm Phone et al., Remote
Control: The EU-Libya Collaboration in Mass Interceptions of Migrants in the Central Mediterranean, Report
(17 June 2020), pp. 2 and 8–10.
222 The New EU Pact includes proposals to enhance the search and rescue operations of EU member States,
to provide for predictable disembarkation arrangements based on solidarity mechanisms within the EU and
to strengthen the cooperation with countries of origin and transit. European Commission, ‘Communication
from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social
Committee and the Committee of the Regions on a New Pact on Migration and Asylum’ (23 September
2020), COM/2020/609, pp. 13–14. For more on the New EU Pact, see: European Commission, ‘New Pact
on Migration and Asylum: A fresh start on migration in Europe’, website; European Commission, ‘Migration
and Asylum Package: New Pact on Migration and Asylum documents adopted on 23 September 2020’,
Collected Documents. For an update on the proposals, see: European Commission, ‘Report on Migration
and Asylum’ (29 September 2021).
223 Tom Kington, ‘Turkish ships muscle in on Europe’s role in Libyan waters’, The Times (21 May 2021); Emma
Wallis, ‘Are Turkish ships working with the Libyan coastguard in the central Mediterranean?’, InfoMigrants
(30 January 2020).
224 UNHCR, ‘UNHCR Position on the Designation of Libya as a Safe Third Country and as a Place of Safety for
the Purpose of Disembarkation Following Rescue at Sea’ (September 2020), paras. 10 and 13.
225 The estimated number of detainees in official detention centres constantly fluctuates and forced
disappearances are reported. As of 30 July 2021, UNHCR estimated that some 5,400 individuals were
detained in Libya, of whom 1,000 were persons of concern to UNHCR (refugees, asylum-seekers, IDPs,
returnees and stateless persons). UNHCR, ‘Libya Update’, Situation Report (30 July 2021).
226 Amnesty International, ‘Between life and death’: Refugees and Migrants trapped in Libya’s cycle of abuse,
Report (2000), pp. 21–32; HRW, No Escape from Hell: EU Policies Contribute to Abuse of Migrants in Libya,
Report (2019), pp. 30–57.
227 UNHCR/IOM, ‘IOM and UNHCR condemn the return of migrants and refugees to Libya’, Joint Press Release
(16 June 2021).
228 United Nations Secretary-General, ‘UN Secretary-General’s video remarks to the Berlin II Conference on
Libya’, Transcript (23 June 2021); Permanent Representative of Germany to the United Nations, ‘Letter Dated
22 January 2020 from the Permanent Representative of Germany to the United Nations addressed to the
President of the Security Council’, Annex I: ‘The Berlin Conference on Libya: Conference Conclusions’
(22 January 2020), UN Doc S/2020/63; UNHCR, ‘Position on the Designation of Libya’, paras. 33 and 34;
UNSC, Res. 2510 (12 February 2020), UN Doc S/RES/2510; Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, ‘UN human rights chief:
Suffering of migrants in Libya outrage to conscience of humanity’, OHCHR News (14 November 2017).
229 Julia Litzkow, Bram Frouws, and Roberto Forin (Mixed Migration Centre), ‘Smuggling and mixed migration:
Insights and key messages drawn from a decade of MMC research and 4Mi data collection’, Briefing Paper
(June 2021), p. 5; The Danish Refugee Council and the MMC, ‘Countering Human Smuggling: No Silver
Bullet for Safer Mobility - Evidence based recommendations towards a protection-sensitive approach to
actions against Human smuggling’, Position Paper (July 2021), p. 3.
230 UNHCR, ‘Mediterranean Situation’. The number of arrivals across the Central Mediterranean increased
in 2020 possibly as a result of the impact of COVID-19 measures in Northern Africa and other African
countries. UNHCR, ‘Routes towards the Western and Central Mediterranean Sea’, pp. 9–11. See also:
Frontex, ‘Migration Flows’.
231 UNHCR, ‘Mediterranean Situation’; Frontex, ‘Migration Flows’.
232 UNHCR, ‘Spain - land and sea arrivals - December 2019’, Factsheet (23 January 2020); UNHCR, ‘Spain - land
and sea arrivals - December 2020’, Factsheet (19 January 2021).
233 Most refugees and migrants on this route transit through The Gambia, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal
and Western Sahara. UNHCR, ‘Routes towards the Western and Central Mediterranean Sea’, pp. 4, 10–11;
European Council and Council of the European Union, ‘Western Mediterranean and Western African routes’,
website.
234 Some 1,750 people may have died along these land routes between 2018 and 2019, with an average of
at least 72 deaths per month. UNHCR and MMC, ‘On this journey, no one cares if you live or die.’ Abuse,
protection, and justice along routes between East and West Africa and Africa’s Mediterranean coast, Report
(July 2020), pp. 7, 14.
ENDNOTES 415
235 Ana-Maria Murphy-Teixidor (MMC), ‘Mixed migration and migrant smuggling in Libya: The role of non-Libyan
smuggler intermediaries’, Briefing Paper (June 2021), p. 2.
236 Litzkow, Frouws and Forin, ‘Smuggling and mixed migration: Insights and key messages’, p. 4; DRC and
MMC, ‘Countering Human Smuggling: No Silver Bullet for Safer Mobility’, p. 5.
237 Ioanna Kotsioni, ‘Detention of Migrants and Asylum-Seekers: The Challenge for Humanitarian Actors’,
Refugee Survey Quarterly 35 (2016): pp. 41–55.
238 Shin-wha Lee, ‘South Korea’s Refugee Policies: National and Human Security Perspectives’, in Carolina G.
Hernandez et al. (eds.), Human Security and Cross-Border Cooperation in East Asia (Cham, Switzerland:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), pp. 227–248. In Japan, asylum-seekers fleeing situations of armed violence and
conflict are denied 1951 Convention status on the grounds that they were not individually targeted but
suffered indiscriminate violence. Brian Aycock and Naoko Hashimoto, ‘Complementary Protection in Japan:
To What Extent Does Japan Offer Effective International Protection for Those Who Fall Outside the 1951
Refugee Convention?’, Laws 10, no. 16 (2021): pp. 6, 9, 19. See also: Naoko Hashimoto, ‘Why does Japan
recognise so few refugees?’, Refugee Law Initiative blog (1 May 2018).
239 From 2010 to 2020, South Korea recognized nearly 700 refugees, rejected 31,700 applications, and accorded
complementary protection status to 2,200 persons. Japan recognized nearly 200 refugees, rejected 77,700
applications, and accorded complementary protection to 1,300 persons. UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. See
also: Lee, ‘South Korea’s Refugee Policies’.
240 Between 2010 and 2019. UNHCR, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2019, Report (2020), p. 43.
241 Lee, ‘South Korea’s Refugee Policies’; Aycock and Hashimoto, ‘Complementary Protection in Japan’:
pp. 18–23.
242 Ademola Abass and Francesca Ippolito, ‘Establishing the Common European Asylum System: “It’s a Long,
Long Way to Tipperary”’, in Regional Approaches to the Protection of Asylum Seekers, pp. 114–124.
243 UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder and UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
244 European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), ‘Making the CEAS Work, Starting Today’, Policy Note #22
(2019).
245 UK House of Commons, ‘Nationality and Borders Bill’, Bill 141 of 2021–2022.
246 Government of the United Kingdom, ‘New Plan for Immigration’, Policy Statement (24 March 2021).
247 UNHCR, ‘Observations on the New Plan for Immigration policy statement of the Government of the United
Kingdom’ (May 2021); UNHCR, ‘UK asylum bill would break international law, damaging refugees and global
co-operation’, Press Release (23 September 2021).
248 Martin Lemberg-Pedersen, ‘Op-ed: Danish Externalization Desires and the Drive Towards Zero Asylum
Seekers’, ECRE website (12 March 2021).
250 Government of Denmark, ‘Forslag til lov om ændring af udlændingeloven og hjemrejseloven (Indførelse
af mulighed for overførsel af asylansøgere til asylsagsbehandling og eventuel efterfølgende beskyttelse i
tredjelande)’ [Proposal for amendments to the Danish Alien Act and Return Act (Introduction of the possibility
to transfer asylum-seekers for asylum proceedings and possible subsequent protection in third countries)]
(3 June 2021), L 226, The Danish Parliament website.
251 Jan M. Olsen, ‘Danes tap migration envoy as EU eyes asylum system reforms’, AP News (10 September
2020).
252 UNHCR, ‘Observations on the Proposal for amendments to the Danish Alien Act (Introduction of the
possibility to transfer asylum-seekers for adjudication of asylum claims and accommodation in third
countries)’ (8 March 2021), para. 11.
253 Lemberg-Pedersen, ‘Op-Ed: Danish Externalization Desires and the Drive Towards Zero Asylum Seekers’.
254 UNHCR, ‘UNHCR deeply concerned at discriminatory two-tier UK asylum plans, urges rethink’, Press Release
(10 May 2021); John Cosgrave et al., Europe’s refugees and migrants - Hidden flows, tightened borders and
spiralling costs, Report (ODI, September 2016).
255 Peter Tinti and Tuesday Reitano, Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Saviour (London: C. Hurst & Co, 2016), p. 5.
256 They make the important point that: “In each hub, and along each major route, the smuggling market needs
to be analysed for its unique political economy in order to understand the motivations of those moving
through the route, those engaged in trade, those who protect it, and those who are profiting”. Ibid., p. 273.
257 The adverse effects of climate change refer to “changes in the physical environment or biota […] which
have significant deleterious effects on the composition, resilience or productivity of natural and managed
ecosystems or on the operation of socio-economic systems or on human health and welfare”, United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (1992), UNTS vol. 1771, no. 30822, art. 1.
258 A disaster is a “serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society” involving widespread
“human, material, economic and environmental losses and impacts”, which exceeds the ability of the
affected community or society to cope using its own resources. See: United Nations Office for Disaster Risk
Reduction, ‘Terminology: Glossary - Disaster’, website. They include but are not limited to those related
to climate change impacts. See: UNHCR, ‘Key Concepts on Climate Change and Disaster Displacement’,
Factsheet.
259 Data from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) shows that new internal displacements due
to disaster have exceeded new internal displacements due to conflict every year since 2011. IDMC, Global
Report on Internal Displacement: Internal displacement in a changing climate 2021 (GRID 2021), Report
(May 2021), p. 8.
260 Phil Orchard, Protecting the Internally Displaced: Rhetoric and Reality (NY: Routledge, 2019), pp. 63–64.
ENDNOTES 417
261 Ibid, pp. 64–72. He also recounts that UNRRA’s mandate was expanded to include assistance to those
displaced within and outside their countries, while the subsequent IRO’s definition of refugee was limited to
those who were outside their countries.
262 Ibid., pp. 75–79.
263 Eleanor Roosevelt, quoted in Orchard, Protecting the Internally Displaced, p. 74.
264 UNGA, ‘Statute of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (1950), para. 9.
265 Samuel Cheung, ‘Internal Displacement, UNHCR and the International Community’, Reference Paper for
the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR (October 2021), pp. 3–4; UNGA, ‘Office
of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (26 April 1993), UN Docs A/RES/47/105, para. 14;
Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme, ‘Internally Displaced Persons No. 75 (XLV)’
(7 October 1994).
266 Samuel Cheung, ‘Internal Displacement, UNHCR and the International Community’, pp. 5–8. See also:
Susan Martin, ‘Making the UN Work: Forced Migration and Institutional Reform’, Journal of Refugee Studies
17, no. 3 (2004): pp. 301–318.
267 UNGA, ‘New International Humanitarian Order’ (14 December 1981), UN Doc A/RES/36/136.
268 ECOSOC, Commission on Human Rights, ‘Study on Human Rights and Massive Exoduses’ (1981), UN Doc
E/CN.4/1503.
269 Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues (formerly Independent Commission for International
Humanitarian Issues), ‘Purpose’, website.
270 Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues, Winning the Human Race? The Report of
the Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues (London: Zed Books, 1988), pp. 97–107.
271 In the meantime, two international conferences also discussed the need for improved international
and institutional responses to IDPs: UNGA, ‘International Conference on Central American Refugees’
(16 December 1991), UN Doc A/RES/46/107; UN Secretary-General, ‘International Conference on the Plight
of Refugees, Returnees and Displaced Persons in Southern Africa (SARRED)’, Report (19 October 1988), UN
Doc A/43/717.
272 ECOSOC, ‘Note by the Secretary-General pursuant to Economic and Social Council resolution 1990/7,
Addendum: Report on refugees, displaced persons and returnees prepared by Mr. Jacques Cuénod,
Consultant’ (27 June 1991), UN Doc E/1991/109/Add.1.
273 UNGA, ‘Strengthening of the coordination of humanitarian emergency assistance of the United Nations’
(19 December 1991), UN Doc A/RES/46/182. See section on International Coordination in this Part.
274 This was approved by the Economic and Social Council on 20 July 1992. As part of his mandate, he was to
consider international norms applicable to IDPs. The position continued until 2010, when the Human Rights
Council appointed a Special Rapporteur on the human rights of IDPs.
275 Francis M. Deng, ‘Comprehensive study prepared by Mr. Francis M. Deng, Representative of the Secretary-
General on the human rights issues related to internally displaced persons, pursuant to Commission on
Human Rights Resolution 1992/73’ (21 January 1993), UN Doc E/CN.4/1993/35.
276 UNGA, ‘Protection of and assistance to internally displaced persons’ (11 March 1996), UN Doc A/RES/50/195
and UN Commission on Human Rights, ‘Internally Displaced Persons’ (19 April 1996), UN Doc E/CN.4/
RES/1996/52. Deng worked with a team of international legal scholars in developing the Guiding Principles
on Internal Displacement. UN Commission on Human Rights, ‘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’ (11 February 1998), UN Doc E/CN.4/1998/53/Add.2, para 12.
277 Francis. M. Deng, ‘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’
(Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement), para. 9.
278 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, Introduction, para. 2.
279 Ibid., Principles 1, 8, 12 and 14.
280 Ibid., Principle 6.
281 Ibid., Principle 7.
282 Ibid., Principles 18–20 and 23.
283 Roberta Cohen and Francis M. Deng, ‘Reflections from Former Mandate Holders: Developing the Normative
Framework for IDPs’, International Journal of Refugee Law 30, no. 2 (2018): pp. 310–311.
284 International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), ‘Protocol to the Pact on Security, Stability and
Development in the Great Lakes Region on the Protection and Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons’
(30 November 2006).
285 Kampala Convention (2009). The Kampala Convention expands on the Guiding Principles. For example, it
elaborates on the protections afforded to IDPs in situations of armed conflict, the prohibitions related to
armed groups (Article 7), the obligations of States beyond those specified in the Guiding Principles (Article 9),
and the prevention of displacement induced by projects (Article 10).
286 UNGA, ‘2005 World Summit Outcome’ (16 September 2005), UN Doc A/RES/60/1, para. 132.
287 See, for example: UN Human Rights Council ‘Mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of
internally displaced persons’ (11 July 2019), UN Doc A/HRC/RES/41/15; UNSC, ‘Report of the Secretary-
ENDNOTES 419
General to the Security Council on the protection of civilians in armed conflict’ (8 September 1999), UN
Doc S/1999/957, Recommendation 7; UNGA, ‘Protection of and assistance to internally displaced persons’
(18 January 2019), UN Doc A/RES/74/160. To mark the 20th anniversary of the Guiding Principles, the
Special Rapporteur, jointly with UNHCR and OCHA, launched the GP20 Plan of Action based on the Guiding
Principles with the objective to reduce and resolve internal displacement through prevention, protection
and solutions. Human Rights Council, ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally
displaced persons’ (11 April 2018), UN Doc A/HRC/38/39; Human Rights Council, ‘Global and national
activities under the twentieth anniversary of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement’ (12 June
2019), UN Doc A/HRC/40/41/Add.1.
288 See, for example: OAS, ‘Internally Displaced Persons’ (3 June 2008), AG/RES. 2417 (XXXVIII-O/08). See also:
Council of Europe, Committee of Ministers, ‘Recommendation Rec (2006)6 of the Committee of Ministers
to member states on internally displaced persons’ (5 April 2006).
289 David J. Cantor, ‘“The IDP in International Law”? Developments, Debates, Prospects’, International Journal
of Refugee Law 30, no. 2 (2018): pp. 199–200. He draws examples from the treaty bodies that interpret the
following: “1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); 1950 European Convention
on Human Rights (ECHR) and its 1952 Protocol No 1 (ECHRP1) and 1963 Protocol No 4 (ECHRP4); 1969
American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR); 1981 African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights
(ACHPR)”.
290 Cohen and Deng, ‘Reflections from Former Mandate Holders: Developing the Normative Framework for
IDPs’: p. 312.
291 UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, ‘About: Responsibility to Protect’,
website; Ivan Šimonović, ‘The Responsibility to Protect’, UN Chronicle.
292 Phil Orchard, Protecting the Internally Displaced, pp. 225–226. He notes, for example: Kyrgyzstan where the
definition only includes citizens whose homes were destroyed during a certain period of time and in specific
areas; Kosovo which adopted a broad definition but whose policy is limited to those displaced within a fixed
time period between 1998 and 2004; and Bosnia whose law only covered citizens displaced after 1991. In all
of these contexts, the specific limitations set by the governments excluded some IDPs in need.
293 This was the case for example in early laws and policies adopted by Angola and Kosovo, although Adeola
and Orchard note that, in recent years, most IDP legislation includes all possible solutions and engages IDPs
in planning and decision-making. Romola Adeola and Phil Orchard, ‘The Role of Law and Policy in Fostering
Responsibility and Accountability of Governments Towards Internally Displaced Persons’, Refugee Survey
Quarterly 39, no. 4 (2020): pp. 416–418. See also: Daniel MacGuire, ‘The Relationship between National
Normative Frameworks on Internal Displacement and the Reduction of Displacement’, International Journal
of Refugee Law 30, no. 2 (2018): pp. 276–277.
294 According to Adeola and Orchard, as of 2020, 43 States with conflict-induced displacement have laws and
policies on internal displacement. Of the 72 laws and major policies, the Guiding Principles are mentioned in
less than half of them (32), and the definition of an internally displaced person is endorsed in 21. Adeola and
Orchard, ‘The Role of Law and Policy in Fostering Responsibility and Accountability’: p. 414. For a database
with national laws and policies, see: Global Protection Cluster, ‘Global Database on IDP Laws and Policies’,
website.
295 Orchard, Protecting the Internally Displaced, pp. 196–199, 211–213. He cites several examples between the
1990s and 2018, such as Burundi following the Arusha Accords that brought an end to the 7-year civil war,
Guatemala’s commitments to facilitate IDP return and reintegration at the conclusion of its 36-year civil war
in the mid-1990s, and South Sudan’s failure to fulfil its obligations for IDPs set out in the 2011 transitional
Constitution. In regard to the latter, promising efforts to draft a new IDP law in line with the Kampala
Convention have been made since 2018 that include the views of IDPs. See: GP20, ‘Working Together Better
to Prevent, Address and Find Durable Solutions to Internal Displacement: GP20 Compilation of National
Practices’, Report (23 November 2020), pp. 181–182.
296 For example, in situations where they face discrimination or are unable to access needed documentation
health services, employment, education and shelter. Orchard, Protecting the Internally Displaced,
pp. 170–171; HRW, ‘Struggling Through Peace – Return and Resettlement in Angola’, Report, vol. 5, no. 16(A)
(August 2003).
297 These were some of the main findings of a stocktaking exercise carried out by the International Committee
of the Red Cross (ICRC), which examined experiences in eight African States that had implemented IDP laws
and policies. ICRC, ‘Translating the Kampala Convention into Practice: A Stocktaking Exercise’, International
Review of the Red Cross 99, no. 904 (2017): pp. 404–405. See also: UN Secretary-General’s High-Level
Panel on Internal Displacement, Shining a Light on Internal Displacement: A Vision for the Future, Report
(September 2021), pp. 5, 9, 18–20.
298 Orchard, Protecting the Internally Displaced, pp. 144–145, 152–153, 159.
299 Adeola and Orchard, ‘The Role of Law and Policy in Fostering Responsibility and Accountability’, pp. 421–422;
Orchard, Protecting the Internally Displaced, p. 228.
300 Human Rights Council, ‘Internal displacement and the role of national human rights institutions: Report of
the Special Rapporteur on the rights of internally displaced persons’ (17 April 2019), UN Doc A/HRC/41/40,
pp. 9–11, 13–15.
301 Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, ‘The National Policy of the Islamic
Republic of Afghanistan on Internal Displacement’ (2013).
302 Orchard, Protecting the Internally Displaced, pp. 193–196, 213.
303 GP20, ‘Working Together Better to Prevent, Address and Find Durable Solutions to Internal Displacement’,
pp. 133–138.
304 ECOSOC, ‘Note by the Secretary-General pursuant to Economic and Social Council resolution 1990/78,
Addendum: Report on refugees, displaced persons and returnees, prepared by Mr. Jacques Cuénod,
Consultant’, para. 125.
ENDNOTES 421
305 Abby Stoddard et al, ‘Cluster Approach Evaluation’, Humanitarian Policy Group, Overseas Development
Institute (November 2007); Julia Steets et al., ‘Cluster Approach Evaluation 2 Synthesis Report’, Groupe
Urgence Réhabilitation Développement, Global Public Policy Institute (April 2010); Simon Bagshaw and
Diane Paul, Protect or Neglect? Toward a More Effective United Nations Approach to the Protection of
Internally Displaced Persons - An Evaluation (The Brookings-SAIS Project on Internal Displacement and
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, November 2004); Elizabeth Ferris, ‘Ten Years
After Humanitarian Reform: How Have IDPs Fared?’, Study, Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement
(December 2014).
306 Ferris, ‘Ten Years After Humanitarian Reform’.
307 Walter Kälin, ‘Innovative Global Governance for Internally Displaced Persons’, World Refugee Council
Research Paper No. 10, Centre for International Governance Innovation (April 2019): pp. 9–12.
308 UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, Shining a Light on Internal Displacement,
pp. 64–70.
309 Ibid.
310 The Advisory Group on Climate Change and Human Mobility notes that human mobility encompasses the
following: i) displacement: “situations where people are forced to leave their homes or places of habitual
residence”; ii) migration: “movements that are predominantly voluntary”; and iii) planned relocation: “an
organized relocation, ordinarily instigated, supervised and carried out by the state with the consent or upon
the request of the community”. The Advisory Group on Climate Change and Human Mobility, ‘Human
Mobility in the Context of Climate Change’, Report (March 2014), p. 3. The Advisory Group is composed
of ILO, IOM, NRC/IDMC, Refugees International, Sciences Po-CERI, UNDP, UNHCR and UNU-EHS. This
definition was among its recommendations on Human Mobility in the Context of Climate Change made to
the COP20 in Lima, Peru.
311 See: Part I.
312 Pastoralism, for example, “developed 7,000 years ago in response to long-term climate change. It spread
throughout Northern Africa as an adaptation to the rapidly changing and increasingly unpredictable arid
climate”. FAO, Pastoralism in Africa’s drylands: Reducing risks, addressing vulnerability and enhancing
resilience (October 2018): p. ix. Today, the effects of climate change can also have a positive effect,
“allowing new economic activities such as agriculture or tourism”. Sarah Opitz Stapleton et al., Climate
change, migration and displacement: The need for a risk-informed and coherent approach, Report (ODI
and UNDP, November 2017), p. 7.
313 United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, ‘Terminology: Glossay – Disaster’, website.
314 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2021 – The Physical Science Basis,
Report (7 August 2021), pp. 4–41.
315 IDMC, GRID 2021, pp. 11–12. For a definition of hazards, see: World Meteorological Organization, ‘Natural
Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction’, website.
316 Out of those, 9.8 million were displaced internally and 1.4 million externally. UNHCR, Global Trends 2020,
p. 6.
317 According to Etienne Piguet, this was due to a belief “that modernity implies a decreasing impact of nature
on societies”. Etienne Piguet, ‘Mobility, Migration and Climate Change’ [Video], Global Migration Lecture,
Graduate Institute of Geneva, 2 March 2021.
318 Piguet provides seven reasons for this. Etienne Piguet, ‘From “Primitive Migration” to “Climate Refugees”:
The Curious Fate of the Natural Environment in Migration Studies’, Annals of the Association of American
Geographers 103, no. 1 (2013): pp. 153–154. In 1992, the United Nations convened an International
Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit). Participants included political leaders,
diplomats, scientists, representatives of the media and NGOs from 179 countries. The focus was on the
impact of human socioeconomic activities on the environment in which States agreed on the need for a
Climate Convention. UN ‘United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil, 3–14 June 1992: Background’, website. This would eventually lead to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the creation of the UNFCCC Task Force on
Climate Displacement discussed further in this Part. For more on how research developments informed
UNFCCC deliberations and led to migration and displacement being formally recognized in the UNFCCC
process, see: Koko Warner, ‘Climate Change Induced Displacement: Adaptation Policy in the Context of the
UNFCCC Climate Negotiations’, Background Paper for UNHCR’s Expert Roundtable on Climate Change and
Displacement (May 2011).
319 IPCC, ‘Climate Change: The IPCC 1990 and 1992 Assessments’, Report (June 1992), pp. 89, 103.
320 Norman Myers, ‘Environmental Refugees’, Population and Environment 19, no. 2 (1997): p. 175.
321 Piguet, ‘From “Primitive Migration” to “Climate Refugees”’, pp. 154–155. In 2007, the High Representative
and the European Commission to the European Council warned of “millions of ‘environmental’ migrants by
2020” as one of the risks facing the continent. Javier Solana and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, ‘Climate Change
and International Security: Paper from the High Representative and the European Commission to the
European Council’ (14 March 2008), S113/08, p. 4.
322 Piguet, ‘From “Primitive Migration” to “Climate Refugees”’, p. 154.
323 Ibid., p. 155. See also: François Gemenne, ‘Why the numbers don’t add up: A review of estimates and
predictions of people displaced by environmental changes’, Global Environmental Change 21, no. 1 (2011):
pp. 41–49; Caroline Zickgraf, ‘Climate Change and Migration: Myths and Realities’, Green European Journal
(20 January 2020).
324 Opitz Stapleton et al., Climate Change, Migration and Displacement, pp. 12–14; The Government Office
for Science, London, Foresight: Migration and Global Environmental Change, Final Project Report (2011),
pp. 11–12; K.K. Rigaud et al., Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration, Report, (World Bank
Group, 2018), pp. 19–20.
ENDNOTES 423
325 Viviane Clement et al., Groundswell Part 2: Acting on Internal Migration, Report, (World Bank Group, 2021).
p. xxxi; Rigaud et al., ‘Groundswell’, pp. 19–29.
326 Janani Vivekananda et al., Shoring up Stability: Addressing Climate & Fragility Risks in the Lake Chad Region
(Adelphi, 15 May 2019); Saheed Babajide Owonikoko and Jude A. Momodu, ‘Environmental Degradation,
Livelihood, and the Stability of Chad Basin Region’, Small Wars & Insurgencies 31, no. 6 (17 August 2020):
pp. 1295–1322.
327 For a review of global estimates of sea level rise and migration trends, see: Celia McMichael et al., ‘A Review of
Estimating Population Exposure to Sea-Level Rise and the Relevance for Migration’, Environmental Research
Letters (28 September 2020). According to Piguet’s estimate, five island States (Kiribati, the Maldives, the
Marshall Islands, Nauru and Tuvalu) are at risk of being submerged by the end of the century to the point
that they will be uninhabitable. This would potentially leave the more than half a million inhabitants stateless.
Etienne Piguet, ‘Climatic Statelessness: Risk Assessment and Policy Options’, Population and Development
Review 45, no. 4 (2019): p. 871. Also see: Etienne Piguet, ‘Mobility, Migration and Climate Change’.
328 In 2018, the IPCC reported that: “Climate-related risks to health, livelihoods, food security, water supply,
human security, and economic growth are projected to increase with global warming of 1.5°C and increase
further with 2°C”. IPCC, ‘Summary for Policymakers’, in Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5°C (2018),
p. 9. In 2021, it reported that “unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse
gas emissions, limiting warming to close to 1.5°C or even 2°C will be beyond reach”. IPCC, ‘Climate change
widespread, rapid, and intensifying’, Press Release (9 August 2021). IPCC, Climate Change 2021 – The
Physical Science Basis.
329 Clement et al., ‘Groundswell Part 2’; Rigaud et al., ‘Groundswell’.
330 Clement et al., ‘Groundswell Part 2’, pp. xxii, 3. Specifically, its modelling estimates the following possible
internal displacement scenarios: approximately 86 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa, 49 million in East
Asia and the Pacific, 40 million in South Asia; 19 million in North Africa, 17 million in Latin America and 5
million in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, pp. xv, xxii. See also: Graham Watkins and Andrea Garcia Salinas,
‘The climate crisis could drive massive human displacement in Latin America and the Caribbean’, Inter-
American Development Bank blog (30 October 2020).
331 Clement et al., ‘Groundswell Part 2’, pp. xxvii, xxviii; Rigaud et al., ‘Groundswell’, p. 181.
332 The World Bank Group, ‘Action Plan on Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience: Managing Risks for a
More Resilient Future’ (2019), p. 5.
333 Sustainable Development Goal 13, from: UNGA, Transforming our world: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development (25 September 2015), UN Doc A/RES/70/1.
334 See, for example: Guy J. Abel et al., ‘Climate, Conflict and Forced Migration’, Global Environmental Change
54 (2019): pp. 239–249. In their study of the countries affected by the Arab Spring during 2010–2012 and of
some Sub-Saharan countries during the same period, they conclude that the assertion that climate change
will lead to conflict and, in turn, to displacement is too simplistic. This scenario can occur but depends
on other variables and is most likely if the effects of climate change coincide with political instability and
inadequate government responses. See also: Asha Amirali, ‘Migration and the risk of violent conflict and
instability’, K4D Helpdesk Report (18 March 2020), pp. 5–8.
335 Guy J. Abel et al., ‘Climate, Conflict and Forced Migration’; François Gemenne et al., ‘Forced displacement
related to the impacts of climate change and disasters’, Reference Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the
1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR (October 2021), pp. 9–14; Government Office for Science, Foresight:
Migration and Global Environmental Change, pp. 20–21.
336 ICRC, When Rain Turns to Dust: Understanding and Responding to the Combined Impact of Armed
Conflicts and Climate and Environmental Crisis on People’s Lives, Report (2020), pp. 5, 8, 10. For example,
it notes that 60 per cent of the 20 countries considered to be most vulnerable to climate change are ones
affected by armed conflict. Similarly, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported
in February 2021 that “6 of the 10 biggest UN peace operations (by total international personnel) were in
countries ranked most exposed to climate change”. Florian Krampe, ‘Why United Nations Peace Operations
Cannot Ignore Climate Change’, SIPRI website (22 February 2021).
337 Laura Heaton, ‘The Key to Saving Somalia Is Gathering Dust in the British Countryside’, Foreign Policy
(31 May 2017).
338 Sanjula Weerasinghe, ‘In Harm’s Way: International protection in the context of nexus dynamics between
conflict or violence and disaster or climate change’, UNHCR Report (December 2018), pp. 36–37.
339 Karolina Eklöw, and Florian Krampe, ‘Climate-related security risks and peacebuilding in Somalia’, Policy
Paper No. 53, SIPRI, (23 October 2019), pp. 26–27.
340 UNHCR, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2011, Report (2012), p. 12.
341 See: Eklöw and Krampe, ‘Climate-related security risks and peacebuilding in Somalia’; Giovanna Kuele, and
Ana Cristina Miola, ‘Climate change is feeding armed conflict in Somalia’, Institute for Security Studies (ISS)
website (6 April 2018). Shalle Hassan Abdirahman described how the drought and Al-Shabaab’s confiscation
of the little assets they had affected the whole community. Fearful of Al-Shabaab, he said, they “force us
to produce what we did not have”. Katie Nguyen, ‘As drought compounds security woes, Somalis flee to
Ethiopia’, UNHCR News, 2019. For an earlier example of how policies of the colonial power in the Sahel have
contributed to famine, see: Piguet, ‘From “Primitive Migration” to “Climate Refugees”’, p. 157.
342 Robert Malley, ‘Climate Change Is Shaping the Future of Conflict’, Transcript, speech given to the UN Security
Council at the Arria session on climate and security risks (22 April 2020). Other examples include well-
intentioned policies in Mali during the 1970s that inadvertently led to competition among communities. At
that time, new wells in central Mali were constructed to benefit Fulani herders. The wells not only improved
pastoral areas but made previous arid areas more attractive to farmers. Dogon farmers settled in central Mali
initially with the permission of Fulani herdsmen. Over time, tensions between herders and farmers increased
as farmers asserted more rights over land. In the absence of effective land use settlement mechanisms,
conflicts escalated corresponding to the rise of jihadist and self-defense groups. Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim,
‘Role of climate change in Central Sahel’s conflicts: not so clear’, The Africa Report (24 April 2020).
ENDNOTES 425
343 FAO, Pastoralism in Africa’s Drylands, pp. ix, 4-7; FAO, ‘Resilience analysis of pastoral and agropastoral
communities in South Sudan’s cross-border areas with Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda’, FAO resilience
analysis report No. 17 (2019), pp. v, ix, 1-2, 7.
344 FAO, Pastoralism in Africa’s Drylands, pp. 4–17; UNOWAS, ‘Pastoralism and Security in West Africa and the
Sahel: Towards Peaceful Coexistence’ (2018), pp. 13–14; Robert Malley, ‘Climate Change Is Shaping the
Future of Conflict’. Other examples can be found in ICRC, When Rain Turns to Dust.
345 Relevant Security Council resolutions in regard to root causes include UNSC, Res. 2558 (2020), S/RES/2558;
UNSC, Res. 2282 (2016), S/RES/2282. Security Council resolutions in 2020 regarding adverse effects of
climate change within risk management strategies include: UNSC, Res. 2552, S/RES/2552; UNSC, Res.
2524, S/RES/2524; UNSC, Res. 2556, S/RES/2556; UNSC, Res. 2531, S/RES/2531; and UNSC, Res. 2540,
S/RES/2540. Climate Security Expert Network, ‘Climate Security at the UNSC – A Short History’, website.
However, there is disagreement within the Security Council as to whether the adverse effects of climate
change are a matter of international peace and security and, therefore, of concern to the Council. Russia
and China are of the view that the adverse effects of climate change are development issues and, therefore,
best addressed in the related international fora. In contrast, France, the United Kingdom and, most recently,
the United States take the position that climate change is a threat to collective security and, therefore, a
matter for the Security Council’s attention and action. Stéphanie Fillion, ‘Can the Issue of Climate-Induced
Wars Stick to the UN Security Council Agenda? The UK Tries It Out’, PassBlue (18 February 2020). See also:
Security Council Report, ‘The UN Security Council and Climate Change’, Research Report (21 June 2021).
346 Janani Vivekananda, Adam Day and Susanne Wolfmaier, What Can the UN Security Council Do on Climate
and Security?, CSEN Policy Paper (21 July 2020), p. 5.
347 Rigaud et al., ‘Groundswell’, pp. xxii, 5–7 and 184–187.
348 Refugees International, ‘Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, Refugees International’s Richard C. Holbrooke Awardee
2020’, blog (21 April 2020).
349 The Government of Fiji, ‘Planned Relocation Guidelines: A framework to undertake climate change related
relocation’ (2018). Other important policies are: The Government of Fiji, ‘Displacement Guidelines: In the
context of climate change and disasters’ (2019); The Government of Fiji, ‘The Republic of Fiji National
Climate Change Policy 2018–2030’ (2019); The Government of Fiji, ‘Republic of Fiji National Adaptation
Plan: A pathway towards climate resilience’ (2018).
350 These and other practices are documented in: GP20, ‘Working Together Better to Prevent, Address and Find
Durable Solutions to Internal Displacement’, pp. 89–94.
351 T. Alexander Aleinikoff, ‘Environmental Mobility: The Responsibility of the International Community’,
International Migration 58, no. 6, Commentary (2020): p. 256. A report by Oxfam and the Stockholm
Environment Institute (SEI) found that “the richest 10 per cent of the world’s population (c.630 million
people) were responsible for 52 per cent of the cumulative carbon emissions” and “the poorest 50 per cent
(c.3.1 billion people) were responsible for just 7 per cent of cumulative emissions”. Tim Gore, ‘Confronting
carbon inequality’, Report Summary (21 September 2020). For an example of reducing greenhouse gas
emissions through making the polluter pay for its pollution, see: Hillary Aidun, Daniel J. Metzger and Michael
B. Gerrard, ‘Principles of International Law and the Adoption of a Market Based Mechanism for Greenhouse
Gas Emissions from Shipping’, Report, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law (February 2021), pp. 4–13.
352 There are currently 197 parties to the UNFCCC (196 States and 1 regional economic integration organization).
United Nations, ‘Status of Ratification of the Convention’, UNFCCC website.
353 Each year, the Conference of Parties (COP) reviews progress and agrees on future work. In 2015, 21 years
after the first meeting, the parties signed the Paris Agreement to strengthen the global response. The Paris
Agreement commits States to limit the increase in climate temperature by mid-century to well below 2
degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even
further to 1.5 degrees Celsius. UNFCCC, Paris Agreement, in ‘Report of the Conference of the Parties on
its twenty-first session, held in Paris from 30 November to 13 December 2015’ (29 January 2016), UN Doc
FCCC/CP/2015/10/Add.1, Annex, art. 2.1.(a).
354 UNFCCC, ‘Addendum: Part two: Action taken by the Conference of the Parties at its twenty-first session’,
in ‘Report of the Conference of the Parties on its twenty-first session, held in Paris from 30 November to
13 December 2015’ (29 January 2016), UN Doc FCCC/CP/2015/10/Add.1, para. 49.
355 UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–
2030 (18 March 2015). It was adopted by the General Assembly in 2015 and will be in place through 2030.
356 Michelle Yonetani, ‘Positioned for Action: Displacement in the Sendai Framework for disaster risk reduction’,
Briefing Paper, IDMC (16 February 2017).
357 Many States report annually. As of September 2019, 47 least developed countries had started reporting and
over 100 countries reported that they have national strategies in place. Relatively few country strategies are
fully aligned with the Sendai Framework principles. Mami Mizutori, ‘Reflections on the Sendai Framework
for Disaster Risk Reduction: Five Years Since Its Adoption’, International Journal of Disaster Risk Science 11,
no. 2, Commentary (2020): p. 148. UNDRR, ‘Measuring Implementation of the Sendai Framework’, Sendai
Monitor website.
358 Mizutori, ‘Reflections on the Sendai Framework’: p. 148; Yonetani, ‘Positioned for Action: Displacement in
the Sendai Framework’, pp. 4, 9.
359 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (2018), paras 18(a), 18(h)–18(l), 21(h). The United
Nations Network on Migration includes in its workplan policy and analysis in support of States to meet the
objectives of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration. United Nations Network on
Migration, ‘Network Workplan: 2021-2022 Priorities’ (28 April 2021), p. 14.
360 See: UNHCR, ‘Legal considerations regarding claims for international protection made in the context of the
adverse effects of climate change and disasters’ (1 October 2020).
361 The Nansen Initiative, Agenda for the Protection of Cross-Border Displaced Persons in the Context of
Disasters and Climate Change, Vol. 1 (December 2015), para. 56; Weerasinghe, ‘In Harm’s Way’, pp. 2–4;
ENDNOTES 427
UNHCR, ‘Legal considerations regarding claims for international protection made in the context of the
adverse effects of climate change and disasters’, pp. 7–10.
362 OAU Convention (1969), art. 1(2); Cartagena Declaration (1984), art. III (3); Sharpe, The Regional Law of
Refugee Protection in Africa, pp. 48–49.
363 Goodwin-Gill and McAdam, Climate Change, Disasters and Displacement, pp. 35–36.
364 Wood, ‘Who Is a Refugee in Africa?’: p. 307; Sharpe, The Regional Law of Refugee Protection in Africa,
pp. 48–49; UNHCR, ‘Legal considerations regarding claims for international protection made in the context
of the adverse effects of climate change and disasters’, pp. 8–9.
365 For example, UNGA, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) (16 December 1966), UN
Doc A/RES/2200(XXI)A, arts. 6, 7. See also: UNHCR, ‘Legal considerations regarding claims for international
protection made in the context of the adverse effects of climate change and disasters’, para 19.
366 The Human Rights Committee (HRC) is a body of independent experts that monitors implementation of
the ICCPR by its States parties. Ioane Teitiota v. New Zealand (2020), HRC, No. CCPR/C/127/D/2728/2016.
367 Ibid., para. 9.11. Para 61 of the Global Compact on Refugees also calls for “fair and efficient determination of
individual international protection claims” made in accordance with the State’s “applicable international and
regional obligations”. Global Compact on Refugees (2018).
368 Ama Francis, ‘Free Movement Agreements & Climate-Induced Migration: A Caribbean Case Study’, Sabin
Center for Climate Change Law (September 2019), p. 18; David Cantor, ‘Environment, Mobility, and
International Law: A New Approach in the Americas’, Chicago Journal of International Law 21, no. 2 (2021):
p. 302. According to Susan Martin, the exercise of discretion on humanitarian grounds can be found in the
laws and practices of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala,
Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, and the United States. Several laws make specific
reference to their use in circumstances of natural disasters, such as Argentina, Mexico and Peru. Susan
Martin, ‘Climate Change’, UNHCR (unpublished), pp. 9–10.
369 IGAD, ‘Protocol On Free Movement Of Persons Endorsed At Ministerial Meeting’, Press Release (26 February
2020).
370 Sectoral Ministerial Meeting on the Protocol on Free Movement of Persons in the IGAD Region, Khartoum,
Republic of Sudan, ‘Communiqué’ (26 February 2020). See also: Tamara Wood, ‘Opinion: New pact offers
innovative solutions to climate displacement’, Reuters (28 February 2020).
371 See: Tamara Wood, ‘The Role of Free Movement of Persons Agreements in Addressing Disaster Displacement:
A Study of Africa’, Platform on Disaster Displacement Report (May 2018).
372 For examples of those who have advanced this point of view, see: Jane McAdam, ‘Swimming against the
Tide: Why a Climate Change Displacement Treaty is Not the Answer’, International Journal of Refugee Law
23, no. 1 (2011): pp. 5–6. See also: François Gemenne et al., ‘Forced displacement related to the impacts of
climate change and disasters’, p. 5.
373 Guy Goodwin-Gill and Jane McAdam, ‘UNHCR and Climate Change, Disasters, and Displacement’, UNHCR
Report, (May 2017): pp. 13–18.
374 Cantor, ‘Environment, Mobility, and International Law’: pp. 320–322.
375 See, for example: Jane McAdam, ‘Swimming against the Tide’; Simon Behrman and Avidan Kent, Climate
Refugees: Beyond the Legal Impasse? (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2018); Cantor, ‘Environment, Mobility,
and International Law’: pp. 280–282, 320–322; Alexander Betts, ‘Towards a “soft law” framework for the
protection of vulnerable migrants’, Research Paper No. 162, New Issues in Refugee Research, UNHCR
(August 2008).
376 McAdam specifically cites responses that “may enable people to remain in their homes for as long as
possible (which is the predominant wish among affected communities), or to move safely within their own
countries, or to migrate in a planned manner over time”. McAdam, ‘Swimming against the Tide’, pp. 5–6.
377 Goodwin-Gill and McAdam, ‘UNHCR and Climate Change, Disasters, and Displacement’, pp. 14–19.
378 Nansen Initiative, ‘Agenda for the Protection of Cross-Border Displaced Persons in the Context of Disasters
and Climate Change’.
379 Ibid., pp. 45–48.
380 Ibid., pp. 24–29. See also: Koko Warner et al., ‘Integrating Human Mobility Issues within National Adaptation
Plans’, UNU-EHS Policy Brief no. 9 (June 2014). Pages 18–24 of this report describe how National Adaptation
Plans in Kiribati, Tuvalu and other countries, like Bangladesh and Kenya, link climate change and human
mobility and include reskilling and other development programmes to better manage and support different
types of mobility caused by climate change.
and Climate Change’, pp. 36–39. As for prevention, the Agenda examines approaches to risk-mapping and
risk reduction, including the ways that States are reducing vulnerabilities and building resilience to risks,
pp. 34–36.
382 It was established in 2016 and is State-led and based in Geneva. Platform on Disaster Displacement, ‘About
Us’ website.
383 Nansen Initiative, ‘Guide to Effective Practices for RCM Member Countries: Protection for persons moving
across borders in the context of disasters’ (2016). Adopted by Belize, Canada, Costa Rica, the Dominican
Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and the United States.
384 Cantor, ‘Environment, Mobility, and International Law’: p. 318.
385 South American Conference on Migration (CSM), International Organization for Migration (IOM), Platform
on Disaster Displacement (PDD), Regional Guidelines on Protection and Assistance of Persons Displaced
across Borders and Migrants in Countries Affected by Disasters of Natural Origin [Spanish] (2019). These
ENDNOTES 429
provide guidance tailored to the region on risk reduction, admission, temporary stay arrangements and
durable solutions for those who cannot return to their respective countries of origin. The guidelines also
include migrants who are affected by disaster in their respective countries of residence or transit.
386 PDD, ‘Report - Advisory Committee Workshop 2019’ (February 2019), p. 12.
and Climate Change’, pp. 6 and 50.
388 United States Congress, Immigration Act (1990), Pub. L. 101-649, 104 STAT. 4978, art. 244 A(b).
389 Cantor, ‘Environment, Mobility, and International Law’: pp. 294–295. He provides several examples.
Although only used infrequently, TPS were of benefit to nationals of countries affected by the following
disasters: the 1998 Hurricane Mitch (El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua), the 1997 volcanic eruption in
Montserrat and the 2000 earthquake in El Salvador. Following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Haitian nationals
received protection under a separate TPS provision. This was extended in May 2021. U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services, ‘Temporary Protected Status Designated Country: Haiti’, website. More generally,
see: Jill H. Wilson, ‘Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure’, Congressional Research
Service Report RS20844 (9 August 2021).
390 Cantor, ‘Environment, Mobility, and International Law’: p. 296. Jamaica used these for Haitians following the
2010 earthquake.
391 Ibid., p. 300.
392 Ibid., p. 298. Costa Rica, for example, regularized 150,000 disaster-affected migrants from Hurricane Mitch.
393 United Nations Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (2018), Objective 5.
394 Susan Martin, ‘Climate Change’, pp. 16–17. See also: Holly Lawton, ‘Pacific Labour Scheme: expanding while
borders are closed’, Development Policy Centre blog (27 May 2021); Hikina Whakatutuki, ‘Pacific Migrants
Trends and Settlement Outcomes Report’, New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
(MBIE) (December 2018).
395 Brookings Institution, University of Bern ‘Addressing Internal Displacement: A Framework for National
Responsibility’ (April 2005). This is a State obligation in the Kampala Convention, which States must then
operationalize through national laws and practice. Kampala Convention (2009), art. 13.1. The importance of
governments putting in place “processes and systems to collect, analyse and manage internal displacement
data” and be supported in their efforts was also stressed by the High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement.
High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, Shining the Light on Internal Displacement, pp. 37–39.
396 Ibid.; Natalia Baal and Laura Ronkainen, ‘Obtaining representative data on IDPs: challenges and
recommendations’, UNHCR Statistics Technical Series (April 2017).
397 Gabriel Cardona-Fox, ‘The Politics of IDP Data’, Refugee Survey Quarterly 39, no. 4 (2020): pp. 626–627.
398 Cardona-Fox observes that in Ukraine, the Government “will only recognise IDPs that are officially
registered with the authorities and have thus overcome several restrictive hurdles, such as the production
of documentation, which is not always possible”. Ibid., pp. 624–625. For a more in-depth review of the
challenges in Ukraine, see: IDMC, ‘IDP Registration in Ukraine: Who’s In? Who’s Out? And Who’s Counting?’,
Expert Opinion (March 2015).
399 Cardona-Fox, ‘The Politics of IDP Data’: pp. 626–629.
400 Ibid.: p. 623.
401 Kira Vinke and Roman Hoffmann note that most climate-related migration is internal, yet this is difficult to
count and no monitoring mechanisms are in place for regularly capturing population mobility within and
between countries. For this and other data challenges, see: Vinke and Hoffman, ‘Data for a difficult subject:
Climate change and human migration’, Migration Policy Practice 10, no. 1 (2020): pp. 16–20.
402 Efforts to improve coordinated data collection is discussed further in Part V.
403 Natalia Krynsky Baal, ‘Forced Displacement Data: Critical gaps and key opportunities in the context of the
Global Compact on Refugees’, Reference Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention,
UNHCR (October 2021), pp. 10–11.
404 Actors currently involved in collecting data on IDPs include UNHCR, IDMC, IOM, NGOs and the Joint IDP
Profiling Service (JIPS). For more on their roles, see: Eurostat, Technical Report on Statistics of Internally
Displaced Persons (17 October 2018), pp. 64–66. The challenges in data collection and quality are regularly
noted by UNHCR and IDMC. Since 1998, IDMC annually provides consolidated and multi-sourced estimates
of IDPs displaced by conflict and violence as well as by disasters. See: IDMC, GRID 2021. In regard to UNHCR
and data availability, see: UNHCR, ‘Refugee Data Finder: Methodology’, website.
405 Debora Gonzalez Tejero, Lorenzo Guadagno, Alessandro Nicoletti, ‘Human mobility and the environment:
Challenges for data collection and policymaking’, Migration Policy Practice 10, no. 1 (January–March 2020):
p. 5. Even when migrants are asked why they move, they are frequently asked to cite the main reason, which
omits the contributing ones. This could be improved through the use of ranked scales. Cantor and Apollo
make a similar observation in regard to internal displacement generally. David James Cantor and Jacob
Ochieng Apollo, ‘Internal Displacement, Internal Migration, and Refugee Flows: Connecting the Dots’,
Refugee Survey Quarterly 39, no. 4 (2020): pp. 647–664. They note that internal displacement “cannot
always be neatly separated off from other forms of movement”, p. 660. In addition to conflict, patterns
of displacement including decisions on when, where and how long to move can be influenced by other
factors, such as labour opportunities, and family or social connections elsewhere in the country. Movement
can reflect broader trends, such as migration from rural to urban areas. Ibid., pp. 648–649.
406 EGRIS is part of the United Nations Statistical Commission, which was created in 1947 to set global standards
for the collection and use of statistics. Among the relevant areas of measurement are: legal and civil status;
education, health and economic status; and social inclusion. Indicators of progress include: citizenship, civil
documentation and travel documents; family status; language proficiency; income and consumption; rights
to work, move freely, own property, open a bank account, and access benefits and justice.
ENDNOTES 431
407 EGRIS, International Recommendation on Refugee Statistics (IRRS) (March 2018); EGRIS, International
Recommendations on Internally Displaced Persons Statistics (IRIS) (March 2020). Endorsed in 2020 by
the UN Statistical Commission, they provide an internationally agreed framework for the production and
dissemination of quality statistics comparable between regions and countries.
408 World Bank Group, ‘Global Civil Registration and Vital Statistics: Abut CRVS’, website (20 March 2018).
PART III: Solutions – An Uneven Record
1 While these sources enable us to see general trends and the lessons learned, significant gaps remain in the
data. These are discussed further in this Part in relation to each of the solutions.
2 Exceptions were during the years 1971–1972, 1991–1992, 1994, 1996 and 2002–2005 when annual returns
exceeded 10 per cent of the total refugee population. See: UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
3 The collection of data on internal displacement commenced in 1993 and on return of internally displaced
persons in 1997.
4 UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. In 13 of the past 23 years (i.e., since data first became available), annual return
rates remained below 10 per cent. In seven of these 23 years, annual returns ranged from 11 to just under
20 per cent. In just three years, return rates ranged from 21 to 26 per cent of the global total of conflict-
induced internal displacement.
5 In each of the past 20 years, between one third and two thirds of forcibly displaced persons in the world
were from these countries. Since 2013, Syria has been the main country of origin, consistently producing
one fifth or more of all forcibly displaced persons globally. See: UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
6 World Bank Group, Forcibly Displaced: Toward a Development Approach Supporting Refugees, the Internally
Displaced, and Their Hosts (Washington, D.C: World Bank, 2017), p. 105.
7 Ibrahim Elbadawi, Linda Kaltani, and Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel, ‘Post-Conflict Aid, Real Exchange Rate
Adjustment, and Catch-up Growth’, Working Paper 4187, The World Bank (April 2007), pp. 5–6, 18–20.
8 World Bank Group, Forcibly Displaced, p. 107.
9 Surveys conducted since 2018 by IDMC among returnees in Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, Myanmar, Nigeria
and South Sudan found that nearly 77 per cent were living outside their respective areas of origin at the time
of the research. While some opted to settle elsewhere in pursuit of new livelihood opportunities, many of
...PART III: Solutions – An Uneven Record...
these returning refugees were unable to return to their areas of origin or were displaced again. See: Bina
Desai et al., ‘On This Side of the Border – The Global Challenge of Internal Displacement: Scale, Impacts
and Solutions’, Reference Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR (October
2021), pp. 6–8.
10 For examples, see: Victoria Metcalfe, Simone Haysom, and Ellen Martin, ‘Sanctuary in the City? Urban
Displacement and Vulnerability in Kabul’, Humanitarian Policy Group Working Paper, Overseas Development
Institute (June 2012): p. 39. And for the need for new approaches, see: Simone Haysom, ‘Sanctuary in the
city? Urban displacement and vulnerability’, HPG Final Report 33, ODI (June 2013).
12 Niels Harild, Asger Christensen, and Roger Zetter, Sustainable Refugee Return: Triggers, Constraints and
Lessons on Addressing the Development Challenges of Forced Displacement, Report (The World Bank
Group, 2015), pp. x, xv, 10, 12, 13, 14, 35, 110, 127–128.
13 Fear of forced conscription is among the concerns young Syrian male refugees note in contemplating
return. Young Somali refugees cite a similar fear in relation to forced recruitment by Al-Shabaab. See: DRC
et al., Unprepared for (Re)Integration: Lessons Learned from Afghanistan, Somalia and Syria on Refugee
Returns to Urban Areas, Report (November 2019), pp. 19, 21.
14 Desai et al., ‘On This Side of the Border – The Global Challenge of Internal Displacement’, p. 6.
15 Rez Gardi, ‘The Future of Solutions’, Reference Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee
Convention, UNHCR (October 2021). They were eventually resettled in New Zealand.
16 Generally, the decision is taken following a personal interview to determine whether the refugee under
consideration meets the State’s own priorities and the validity of the documents provided is assessed.
17 As will be discussed further in this Part, it is noteworthy that the annual refugee resettlement numbers
exceeded 100,000 in only 21 of the 61 years since 1959 when data first became available. See: UNHCR,
18 This includes persons who are in danger of being forcibly returned to their countries, or who are being
seriously threatened by others. It also may include persons who have specific health needs that cannot be
adequately treated in the country of refuge, including life-saving treatments or psychological interventions
for those who have survived torture or extreme violence. It may also include children who are at risk of
being forced to work or to marry, or of being trafficked. See: UNHCR, The Resettlement Handbook (2011).
19 In cases of extreme urgency regarding refugees at immediate risk, some States provide more rapid
processing which can be completed within seven days of the UNHCR referral.
20 Commonly experienced by UNHCR resettlement staff in field locations. This can create conflicting incentives.
For example, some refugees might be less inclined to accept measures to overcome their vulnerabilities if
they believe it could hurt their ability to be selected for resettlement based on their specific needs.
ENDNOTES 433
21 Discussed further in this Part.
22 For statistical purposes, UNHCR refers to naturalization as the legal process by which non-citizens may
acquire citizenship. See: UNHCR, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2019, Annual Report (2020),
pp. 68–69.
23 Available data on naturalization remains limited. The number of countries reporting on naturalization for
the purpose of the UNHCR 2020 Mid-Year Review was 25; UNHCR, therefore, considers available data to
underestimate the extent to which refugees are in fact naturalized.
24 The Netherlands, France, Belgium and Ireland each naturalized 26,700, 18,600, 14,800 and 4,900 refugees
respectively in the decade. UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
25 UNHCR, Global Trends 2019, p. 54; UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
28 World Bank Group, Forcibly Displaced, p. 68. While there is believed to be a net positive gain, they may still
displace other host community workers who may require further skills development and support. For more
on this, see: Economic Inclusion in Part IV.
29 Zara Sarzin notes that these concerns “are often based on unsubstantiated perceptions rather than
empirical evidence, and tend to focus on short run costs rather than long-term benefits arising from the
economic inclusion of forced migrants”. Zara Sarzin, ‘The Impact of Forced Migration on the Labor Market
Outcomes and Welfare of Host Communities’, Reference Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee
Convention, UNHCR (October 2021), p. 3. See also discussion on Economic Inclusion in Part IV.
30 UNHCR, ‘Livelihoods and Economic Inclusion’, website.
31 Roger Zetter and Héloïse Ruaudel, ‘Refugees’ Right to Work and Access to Labor Markets – An Assessment’,
Part I, KNOMAD (September 2016), p. 29.
32 For example, see: Utz Johann Pape and Ambika Sharma, ‘Informing Durable Solutions for Internal
Displacement in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan’ Vol. A: ‘Overview’, Report, World Bank Group
(2019), pp. ix, x, 4, 13, 27, 32.
34 This is discussed in Part II. For example, several countries, including some with the largest numbers of
internally displaced persons, such as Somalia, South Sudan and Afghanistan, have national laws and policies
that reflect the criteria and principles in the IASC, ‘Framework on Durable Solutions for Internally Displaced
Persons’ (April 2010). Additionally, see: Global Protection Cluster, ‘20th Anniversary of the Guiding Principles
on Internal Displacement: A Plan of Action for Advancing Prevention, Protection and Solutions for Internally
Displaced People 2018–2020’ (23 May 2018).
35 The High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement addresses this problem in its recommendations. It calls for
“a combination of positive incentives and accountability measures”, including financial and other incentives,
high-level diplomatic advocacy and criminal prosecutions for egregious abuse. See: UN Secretary-General’s
High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, Shining a Light on Internal Displacement: A Vision for the Future,
Report (September 2021), pp. 18–20.
36 ECOSOC, Ad Hoc Committee on Statelessness and Related Problems, Status of Refugees and Stateless
Persons – Memorandum by the Secretary-General (3 January 1950), UN Doc E/AC.32/2.
37 UNHCR’s Statute provides that it is to seek permanent solutions for refugees by assisting governments to
“facilitate voluntary repatriation” or “assimilation within new national communities”. See: UNGA, Statute of
the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (14 December 1950) (UNHCR Statute),
UN Doc A/RES/428(V), ch. 1, para. 1.
38 See: Part I. See also: Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (adopted 25 July 1951), UN Doc
CONF.2/108, art. 34; T. Alexander Aleinikoff and Stephen Poellot, ‘The Responsibility to Solve: The
International Community and Protracted Refugee Situations’, Virginia Journal of International Law 54
(March 2014).
39 Art. 33 of the 1951 Convention. The right to return is found in Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights (adopted 10 December 1948), Article 14(1), UN Doc A/RES/217(III).
40 Organization of African Unity, Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa
(10 September 1969) (OAU Convention); Colloquium on the International Protection of Refugees in
Central America, Mexico and Panama, Cartagena Declaration on Refugees and the Protection of People
Fleeing Armed Conflict and Other Situations of Violence in Latin America (22 November 1984) (Cartagena
Declaration); Asian-African Legal Consultative Organization, Bangkok Principles on the Status and Treatment
of Refugees (31 December 1966) (Bangkok Principles); European Parliament and Council, ‘On standards for
the qualification of third-country nationals or stateless persons as beneficiaries of international protection,
for a uniform status for refugees or for persons eligible for subsidiary protection, and for the content of the
protection granted’ (13 December 2011), Directive 2011/95/EU; UN General Assembly, Global Compact on
Refugees (2 August 2018), UN Doc A/73/12 (Part II).
41 In practice, this is through tripartite agreements between the country of asylum, the country of origin, and
UNHCR.
42 The engagement of States and of intergovernmental agencies, as well as the rights of returnees and
non-penalization for having left are found in the OAU Convention, art. V with respect to refugees in Africa.
The Bangkok Principles stipulate a right to return in art. VI, the voluntariness of return and non-penalization
for having left in art. VII, the promotion of comprehensive solutions including voluntary repatriation, local
settlement and third country resettlement in art. VIII, and the right to compensation in art. IX.
43 See: Part I.
44 Twenty-nine States have made reservations on art. 17 (wage-earning employment). Twenty States have
made reservations in regard to labour legislation and social security (art. 24).
ENDNOTES 435
45 The Refugee Convention (1951), art. 34. The Ad hoc Committee was informed by an initial draft of the
Convention provided by the Secretary-General who, in conveying it to the Committee, emphasized that
the aim was for refugees to be integrated into the economic system of the countries of asylum, to provide
for their own needs and be fully integrated into the national community. ECOSOC, ‘Ad Hoc Committee on
Statelessness and Related Problems, First Session’ (14 February 1950), UN Doc E/AC.32/SR.22.
46 OAU Convention (1969), art. II (1).
47 Ibid., Preamble.
48 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), ‘Protocol Relating to Free Movement of Persons,
Residence and Establishment’ (29 May 1979), A/P 1/5/79. It was revised and updated in 1993. The objective
of the protocol is to permit community citizens to enter, reside and economically engage in the territory of
a member State. This is to be automatic within the first 90 days and extended through established processes
thereafter.
49 Aderanti Adepoju, Alistair Boulton, and Mariah Levin, ‘Promoting integration through mobility: free movement
and the ECOWAS Protocol’, Working Paper 150, New Issues in Refugee Research, UNHCR (2007). They
also note other barriers, including costs of visas, which were prohibitive for many refugees. Nigeria is a
notable exception: Between 2007 and 2010, it provided migration status to 117,000 Liberian refugees and
18,000 Sierra Leoneans, discussed later in this Part. For more on the Protocol and how it has facilitated
movement of some groups over others, see: Thomas Yeboah et al., ‘The ECOWAS Free Movement Protocol
and Diversity of Experiences of Different Categories of Migrants: A Qualitative Study’, International Migration
59, no. 3 (June 2021).
50 Included in the Contadora Act on Peace and Co-operation in Central America. See: The Cartagena
Declaration (1984).
51 Governments of Latin America and the Caribbean, ‘A Framework for Cooperation and Regional Solidarity
to Strengthen the International Protection of Refugees, Displaced and Stateless Persons in Latin America
and the Caribbean (Brazil Declaration and Plan of Action)’ (3 December 2014). For discussion on the impact
of previous declarations on the current displacement crisis from Venezuela, see: Luisa Feline Freier, Isabel
Berganza and Cécile Blouin, ‘The Cartagena Refugee Definition and Venezuelan Displacement in Latin
America’, International Migration 58, no. 6 (December 2020).
52 UN, Global Compact on Refugees (2018); Brazil Declaration (2014), paras. 98–99.
53 See: Part I.
54 For Global Refugee Forum pledges, see: UNHCR, ‘Pledges & Contributions Dashboard’, The Global Compact
on Refugees Digital Platform.
55 Francis M. Deng, ‘Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement’, International Migration Review 33, no. 2
(June 1999): pp. 484–493.
56 Ibid.: p. 493.
57 African Union, Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa
(23 October 2009) (Kampala Convention), art. 2.
58 The humanitarian coordination forum of UN and non-UN humanitarian partners.
59 IASC, ‘Framework on Durable Solutions for Internally Displaced Persons’, p. 5.
60 Ibid., p. 27.
61 See, for example, some of the problems that the World Bank links to current definitions, discussed in this
Part. World Bank, ‘Issues for Consideration by the High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement’, Submission,
2020.
62 GP20, ‘Submission from the GP20 Initiative to the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Internal
Displacement’ (8 May 2020), p. 7. The GP20 policy brief of 2021 also recognizes that, due to the generic
character of the IASC definition, it should be applied considering the specific situation and context and
complement more detailed operational guidance adopted by humanitarian and development actors or
national and local authorities. GP20, ‘Ten Years since the IASC Framework on Durable Solutions’, Policy
Brief (May 2021), p. 4.
63 Megan Bradley, ‘Durable Solutions and the Right of Return for IDPs: Evolving Interpretations’, International
Journal of Refugee Law 30, no. 2 (2018): pp. 218–242.
64 The World Bank advocates for defining durable solutions “as the point where IDPs are living in conditions
that are similar to the rest of the population”. World Bank, ‘Issues for Consideration by the High-Level Panel
on Internal Displacement’, p. 4. In some situations, government policies create incentives for continuing
to be counted as displaced even after a solution has been reached. For example, a profiling exercise of
internally displaced persons in the Luhansk Region in Ukraine observed that, while many internally displaced
persons perceived that they were integrated, government policies required them to maintain their status
as internally displaced persons in order to access pensions and other social services. Norwegian Refugee
Council and Joint IDP Profiling Service, ‘Profiling of IDP situation in Luhansk Region, Ukraine – Data-driven
approach to durable solutions’, Report (December 2020), p. 25.
65 UNHCR has estimated refugee numbers by region from 1950, with more precise annual numbers of
refugees becoming available by countries of origin and asylum from 1980 onwards. Annual resettlement
figures became available from 1959. From the 1980s, UNHCR datasets include government data on the
annual number of refugees that governments have resettled including, but not limited to, refugees referred
by UNHCR. Since 2003, UNHCR has maintained yearly statistics on UNHCR resettlement activities, such as
submissions to resettlement countries and annual departures.
66 In 1998, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) was established as part of the Norwegian
Refugee Council to provide comprehensive data and analysis on situations of internal displacement. IDMC
provides a yearly Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID), which includes a repository of data and
analysis on internal displacement. The consolidation of UNHCR data collected through its annual statistical
activities, data provided by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near
East (UNRWA) and data provided by IDMC on persons displaced within their country due to conflict or
ENDNOTES 437
violence is available at: UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. For further information on data availability, see:
UNHCR, ‘Methodology’, website.
67 Among the challenges is that national definitions for internally displaced persons are not uniform and can be
politically motivated (e.g. recognizing only persons displaced by certain actors and not others). Additionally,
there are significant data collection challenges in fragile and conflict-affected areas that can lead to both
under- and over-reporting. See: World Bank, ‘Issues for Consideration by the High-Level Panel on Internal
Displacement’. Generally, compiling refugee and internal displacement return statistics is complex due to
differences in the availability, timeliness, quality and comparability of the statistics received from different
sources. For further information on data availability, see: UNHCR, ‘Methodology’; UNHCR, Statistical
Yearbook 2010 (2011), pp. 15–20.
69 Ibid., p. 54.
70 Although not formally binding, Conclusions on International Protection are relevant to the interpretation of
the international protection regime. They constitute expressions of opinion which are broadly representative
of the views of the international community.
71 UNHCR, A Thematic Compilation of Executive Committee Conclusions (7th Edition) (June 2014). The
Executive Committee is comprised of 104 States elected to the Committee by the United Nations Economic
and Social Council.
73 Sadako N. Ogata, The Turbulent Decade: Confronting the Refugee Crises of the 1990s (New York: W.W.
Norton & Co, 2005), p. 277.
74 UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. The available data on refugee returns during this period is likely an
underestimation as data on returns only became available in 1965 and was only partially available until the
1990s. As mentioned earlier, the number of internally displaced persons who returned in this period is not
known.
75 See: Part I.
76 UNHCR, The State of The World’s Refugees 2000: Fifty Years of Humanitarian Action (NY: Oxford University
Press, 2000), pp. 41–42.
77 According to Gil Loescher, this helped garner the trust of African States that were then open to UNHCR
normative guidance. Gil Loescher, The UNHCR and World Politics: A Perilous Path (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2001), pp. 107–109.
78 After the Dayton Accords that concluded the Bosnian War, refugee returns did not feature prominently
in peace agreements. Peace agreements are the culmination of negotiations. Return and sustainable
reintegration are continuing processes that are subject to many variables over indeterminate lengths of
time. The parties to a peace agreement may not be the same parties necessary to set terms and conditions
for refugee returns.
79 For more on the Algerian crisis, see: UNHCR, The State of The World’s Refugees 2000, pp. 41–43.
80 Loescher, The UNHCR and World Politics, pp. 107–108.
81 For the different perceptions and terminology on the war, see: Anam Zakaria, ‘Remembering the War of 1971
in East Pakistan’, Al Jazeera (16 January 2016).
82 Willem van Schendel, ‘Pakistan Falls Apart’, in A History of Bangladesh (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2009), pp. 121–130.
83 As described by Gary Bass in his book on these events and the US response, it was a “slaughter” that in “the
dark annals of modern cruelty… ranks as bloodier than Bosnia, and by some accounts, in the same league as
Rwanda”. Gary J. Bass, The Blood Telegram (NY: Penguin Random House, 2014), p. xiii.
84 UNHCR, The State of The World’s Refugees 2000, p. 61. Estimates of the number of deaths vary. The official
Bangladesh figure is 3 million although the United States Department of State estimated 200,000 which
according to Gary Bass is a conservative one. Gary Bass, ‘Looking Away from Genocide’, The New Yorker
(19 November 2013).
86 UNHCR also coordinated on behalf of the United Nations humanitarian efforts in support of the exchange
of populations between Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. This repatriation exercise was encompassed in the
New Delhi Agreement signed in 1993 by Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. It provided for the repatriation
of Pakistani prisoners of war and civilian internees in India, all Bengalis in Pakistan, and non-Bengalis in
Bangladesh who chose to move to Pakistan. Over 230,000 people benefited from this agreement. For more
on this and the refugee influx to India, see: UNHCR, ‘Rupture in South Asia’, in The State of The World’s
Refugees 2000, pp. 59–74.
87 UNHCR and ICRC also supported the transfer of over 200,000 people who found themselves “stranded
in states of which they no longer wanted to be a part”. These included Bengalis in Pakistan and Biharis in
Bangladesh. UNHCR, The State of The World’s Refugees 2000, pp. 71–74.
88 Note, however, that Urdu speakers from Bangladesh who had comprised a privileged minority before the
war, were confined to camps in the 40 years following the war, without recognition of their legal identity
and associated rights. For more on the resolution of their situation through the conferral of recognized
citizenship, see: Ninette Kelley, ‘Ideas, Interests, and Institutions: Conceding Citizenship in Bangladesh’, The
University of Toronto Law Journal 60, 2 (2010): pp. 349–371.
89 UNHCR, The State of The World’s Refugees 2000, p. 75; Katy Long, The Point of No Return: Rights,
Refugees, and Repatriation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 90–91; Loescher, The UNHCR and
World Politics, pp. 224–225.
ENDNOTES 439
90 Long, The Point of No Return, pp. 90–91; Loescher, The UNHCR and World Politics, pp. 224–225.
91 Discussed later in this Part.
92 Discussed further under Resettlement in this Part.
94 Ibid., p. 213.
95 Ibid., pp. 210–13.
96 Other post-independence return movements during the 1970s that were similarly assisted but on a much
smaller scale, were to Guinea-Bissau (51,000 persons), Angola (86,000 persons), and Mozambique (59,000
persons). UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
97 UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. Loescher, The UNHCR and World Politics, pp. 149–150.
98 The conflict between the south and north would wage on until the south achieved independence in 2011.
Peace, however, was short-lived: Within two years the new country was plunged into a prolonged civil war
causing mass forced displacement. Elsewhere in Sudan, another rebellion in Darfur erupted in 2003, also
leading to mass displacement and ongoing fragility requiring the continued presence of an African Union
and UN peacekeeping operation until the end of 2020.
100 UNHCR, ‘Chapter 5: Proxy Wars in Africa, Asia and Central America’ in The State of The World’s Refugees
2000, pp. 106–107.
101 Ibid., p. 110.
102 Jeff Crisp, ‘The Politics of Repatriation: Ethiopian Refugees in Djibouti, 1977–83’, Review of African Political
Economy 30 (1984): pp. 73–82.
103 UNHCR, The State of the World’s Refugees 2000, p. 115. The circumstances leading to this exodus are
discussed in Part II.
104 Long, The Point of No Return, pp. 98–99.
105 In Barbara Hendrie’s review of the return movement, she writes that UNHCR did not formally participate
because of the absence of agreement to it from the Ethiopian Government, the lack of support for it from
the United States, and because UNHCR did not have sufficient information or access to areas of return nor
full appreciation of the coping skills of the Tigrayans. Barbara Hendrie, ‘The Politics of Repatriation: The
Tigrayan Refugee Repatriation 1985–1987’, Journal of Refugee Studies 4, no. 2 (1991): pp. 200–218.
106 UNHCR, ‘Handbook of Selected Lessons Learned from the Field: Refugee Operations and Environmental
Management’ (December 2002), p. 12; Hendrie notes that initially men returned and their families followed
as agricultural production improved. Hendrie, ‘The Politics of Repatriation’: p. 204.
107 Amnesty International, ‘Ethiopia: Tepid International Response to Tigray Conflict Fuels Horrific Violations
over Past Six Months’, Press Release (4 May 2021).
108 Prior to the conflict, the Tigray region was host to some 100,000 Ethiopian internally displaced persons.
By March 2021, the number of internally displaced persons in Tigray had increased to an estimated 1
million persons. Some suggest that this is only an estimate, as access to the region has been restricted.
In addition, over 63,000 Ethiopians had fled to Sudan as of April 2021. UNHCR, ‘Ethiopia Situation (Tigray
Region) Regional Update #15’, Situation Report (5 May 2021), pp. 1, 3; UNHCR, ‘Ethiopia Situation – Tigray
Emergency Response’, Operational Data Portal.
109 UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. By 1989, the number of Ugandan refugees in Sudan had decreased to just
over 9,000.
110 Jeff Crisp, ‘Ugandan Refugees in Sudan and Zaire: The Problem of Repatriation’, African Affairs 85, no. 339
(1986): p. 174. He notes that food assistance had been cut in southern Sudan, and that hunger and lack
of medical care were among the reasons for return. He also writes that more returned from Zaire (Now
Democratic Republic of the Congo) than from Sudan.
111 IDMC, ‘Uganda: Focus shifts to securing durable solutions for IDPs’, Internal Displacement Profile
(3 November 2008), p. 9.
112 Between 1980 and 1989, nearly 568,000 Ugandan refugees returned, according to UNHCR data. UNHCR,
Refugee Data Finder. However, several sources indicate that accurate data collection was difficult at the
time and numbers should therefore be considered indicative only. On this issue, see, for example: Crisp,
‘Ugandan Refugees in Sudan and Zaire’. For more on Uganda displacement at this time, see: Lucy Hovil,
‘Uganda’s Refugee Policies: The History, the Politics, the Way Forward’, Policy Paper, International Refugee
Rights Initiative (October 2018): pp. 4–5.
114 Penelope Mathew and Tristan Harley, Refugees, Regionalism and Responsibility (Cheltenham, UK: Edward
Elgar Publishing Ltd, 2016), p. 165.
115 Alexander Betts notes that the “only significant donor contributions made were done on the basis of wider
strategic and foreign policy interests, with the United States, for example, targeting most of its contributions
towards “its strategic allies in African Cold War proxy conflicts”. Alexander Betts, Protection by Persuasion:
International Cooperation in the Refugee Regime (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009), pp. 65–66.
Mathew and Harley note that these allies included Angola and Sudan, Mathew and Harley, Refugees,
Regionalism and Responsibility, p. 172.
ENDNOTES 441
116 UN General Assembly, Resolution 37/197, ‘International Conference on Assistance to Refugees in Africa’
(18 December 1982), UN Doc A/RES/37/197, para. 5.
117 Kate Milner recalls how major donors were criticized for their slow initial response to assist a communist
regime the policies of which contributed to the massive crisis. Kate Milner, ‘Flashback 1984: Portrait of a
Famine’, BBC News (6 April 2000).
118 This and the following assessment can be found in Robert F. Gorman, Coping With Africa’s Refugee Burden:
A Time for Solutions (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987), pp. 24–30.
119 In 2017, the General Assembly requested UNHCR to “coordinate an effort to measure the impact arising from
hosting, protecting and assisting refugees, with a view to assessing gaps in international cooperation and
promoting burden-and-responsibility sharing that is more equitable and sustainable, and to begin reporting
on the results to Member States in 2018”. Affirmed the next year in the Global Compact on Refugees,
para. 103.
120 Robert F. Gorman, Coping With Africa’s Refugee Burden, pp. 24–25; Robert F. Gorman, ‘Beyond ICARA II:
Implementing Refugee-Related Development Assistance’, International Migration Review 20, no. 2 (March
1986): p. 288.
121 The General Assembly requested UNHCR to coordinate efforts to measure the impact arising from
hosting, protecting, and assisting refugees as part of the larger commitments of the Global Compact on
Refugees towards enhanced burden-sharing. To that end, UNHCR, with support from the World Bank
and in consultation with a range of member States, has been working to develop a common approach
and methodology to measure impact. There are many challenges, not least of which is the availability of
comparable sound data and the difficulty in isolating the impacts caused by refugees on host communities
from other causes, including neighbouring conflict. For more on this ongoing work, see: UNHCR, ‘Measuring
the Impact of Hosting, Protecting and Assisting Refugees’, Progress Report (1 July 2020).
122 Robert F. Gorman, ‘Beyond ICARA II’: pp. 288–289.
123 Evident in the Global Compact on Refugees and discussed in more detail in Part V.
126 Ogata, The Turbulent Decade, pp. 285–286.
127 UNHCR, ‘Going Home: Voluntary Repatriation’, in The State of The World’s Refugees 1993: The Challenge
of Protection (NY: Penguin, 1993), p. 104.
128 UN Security Council, ‘Final Act of the Paris Conference on Cambodia’ (30 October 1991), UN Doc S/23177,
art. 20.
129 Long, The Point of No Return, p. 123; Loescher, The UNHCR and World Politics, pp. 281–282.
130 A number of factors helped to stabilize the country, including a resumption in international aid after the
United Nations supervised elections in 1993, which helped attract foreign direct investment and economic
recovery. The return of Prince Sihanouk to Cambodia was a stabilizing influence, helping heal the trauma
of previous decades. Although he was removed by a coup d’état in 1997 by Prime Minister Hun Sen, the
country has not experienced renewed internal armed conflict. Sokty Chhair and Luyna Ung, ‘Economic
History of Industrialization in Cambodia’, Working Paper No. 2013/134, UNU-Wider (2013); Hal Hill and Jayat
Menon, ‘Cambodia: Rapid Growth with Institutional Constraints’, Working Paper 331, Asia Development
Bank (January 2013). Scholars have examined the impact of the peace agreement and, specifically, lessons
learned that may have a bearing on the evolution of one-party rule and political unrest in more recent
times. See, for example: United States Institute for Peace, ‘Lessons from Cambodia’s Paris Peace Accords
for Political Unrest Today’, Brief (16 May 2017). See also: Hal Hill and Jayat Menon, ‘Cambodia: Rapid Growth
with Institutional Constraints’.
131 Loescher, The UNHCR and World Politics, pp. 284–286; UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
133 Loescher, The UNHCR and World Politics, pp. 224–225; Long, The Point of No Return, pp. 123–25.
134 UN, ‘Rohingya Refugee Crisis a “Human Rights Nightmare”, UN Chief Tells Security Council’, UN News
136 UNHCR, The State of The World’s Refugees 2000, p. 212.
137 Ogata, The Turbulent Decade, p. 28.
138 UN Security Council, Resolution 688 (5 April 1991), UN Doc S/RES/688(1991).
139 The Coalition was established further to a 1990 Security Council resolution authorizing States to use “all
necessary measures” to compel Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait. UNSC, Res. 678 (29 November 1990), UN
Doc S/RES/678(1990).
140 According to UNHCR’s Refugee Data Finder, a total of 1.3 million persons returned to Iraq in 1991. See also:
UNHCR, The State of The World’s Refugees 2000, pp. 213–218.
141 UNHCR, The State of The World’s Refugees 2000, p. 213; Long, The Point of No Return, pp. 107–109.
142 In his book, Gil Loescher also notes that the experience led UNHCR to improve its preparedness and
emergency response mechanisms, including supply chain and stockpiling. Given the influence of the media
during this period, it also led to greater investments in public communication. Loescher, The UNHCR and
World Politics, pp. 290–291.
ENDNOTES 443
144 The Great Lakes region in Africa includes Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Tanzania.
145 Ogata, The Turbulent Decade, p. 176.
146 A total of 1.2 million refugees returned to Rwanda from Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zaire in 1994.
UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. For more on this movement, see: UNHCR, The State of The World’s Refugees
2000, pp. 245–273.
147 Those who crossed borders to flee went to Zaire, Tanzania, Burundi and Uganda. Ogata, The Turbulent
Decade, p. 189.
148 Long, The Point of No Return, p. 127.
149 A UNHCR commissioned report by Robert Gersony to assess the conditions for repatriation and reintegration
found that between 5,000 and 10,000 persons were killed each month from late April through July 1994.
Ogata, The Turbulent Decade, pp. 190–195.
151 In 1994, an estimated 12,000 Rwandan refugees died in Goma in eastern Zaire. A. K. Siddique et al., ‘Why
Treatment Centres Failed to Prevent Cholera Deaths among Rwandan Refugees in Goma, Zaire’, The Lancet
345, no. 8946 (1995): p. 359.
152 An initial attempt to support the deployment of a special Zairian security force within the camps brought a
modicum of order. But this was relatively short-lived for a variety of reasons, including political divisions and
corruption, and impunity within the camps continued.
153 Kisangani N. F. Emizet, ‘The Massacre of Refugees in Congo: A Case of UN Peacekeeping Failure and
International Law’, The Journal of Modern African Studies 38, no. 2 (2000): pp. 168–169.
154 Ibid.: pp. 168–169.
155 UNGA, ‘Report of the Joint Mission Charged with Investigating Allegations of Massacres and Other Human
Rights Violations Occurring in Eastern Zaire (Now Democratic Republic of the Congo) since September
1996’ (2 July 1997), paras. 38–76; Emizet, ‘The Massacre of Refugees in Congo’: p. 163.
156 Ray Wilkinson, ‘Cover Story: Heart of Darkness’, Refugees Magazine 110 (Crisis in the Great Lakes), UNHCR
(1997).
157 UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. In May 1997, the Mobutu government fell.
158 By the end of that year, over half a million refugees had returned from Tanzania to Rwanda. UNHCR, Refugee
Data Finder. For more on this return movement, see: Ogata, The Turbulent Decade, pp. 253–255; Long, The
Point of No Return, pp. 130–131.
159 The Kibeho camp held over 80,000 Hutu refugees fearful that they would be killed in revenge attacks
should they return home. According to the Rwandan Government, the camp sheltered those responsible
for the genocide. It announced that the camp would be closed and all camp residents screened for possible
culpability in the genocide. Tensions intensified and food and water supplies ran thin. Gérard Prunier, Africa’s
World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2009), pp. 37–72. According to the account of journalist, Joshua Hammer, gunfire broke
out when some tried to flee the screening. Joshua Hammer, ‘He Was the Hero of “Hotel Rwanda”. Now He’s
Accused of Terrorism’, The New York Times (2 March 2021).
160 Successive killings of international aid workers and the response also illustrated the precarity of the situation.
Three Spanish humanitarian workers were killed by Hutu militia men in northwest Rwanda in January 1997.
Three hundred people were killed by the Rwandan army in attempts to arrest the suspects. The following
month, five UN human rights observers were assassinated in Cyangugu, leading the UN to pull out its relief
workers from the western region. Amnesty International, Rwanda: Ending the Silence, Report (25 September
1997), p. 19.
161 Human Rights Watch, Uncertain Refuge: International Failures to Protect Refugees, Report (April 1997),
p. 4; Amnesty International, ‘Rwanda: human rights overlooked in mass repatriation’, Report (January 1997);
Amnesty International, ‘Great Lakes region: Still in need of protection: repatriation, refoulement and the
safety of refugees and the internally displaced’, Report (January 1997); Amnesty International, ‘Rwanda:
Amnesty delegates back from Rwanda report new wave of human rights abuses’, Press Release (19 February
1997).
162 In 1997, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, recognized as much when she acknowledged
that: “UNHCR faces increasing pressures to support repatriation which is neither strictly voluntary nor strictly
safe. Either safety in the country of asylum cannot be guaranteed, because of armed conflict or insecurity,
or because asylum is being withdrawn by the host government. Although there ‘may be problems at home,
returning home in such circumstances may be better than staying’.” Quoted in UNHCR, The State of The
World’s Refugees: A Humanitarian Agenda 1997–1998, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 91.
163 Alexander Betts, Gil Loescher, and James Milner, The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR): The Politics and Practice of Refugee Protection (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2011), p. 51.
164 Loescher, The UNHCR and World Politics, pp. 282–283; UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
165 UNSC, General Peace Agreement for Mozambique (8 October 1992), UN Doc S/24635.
166 United Nations Operations in Mozambique (ONUMOZ, Portuguese: Operação das Nações Unidas em
Moçambique), which ended in January 1995.
167 Jeff Crisp et al., ‘Rebuilding a War-Torn Society: A Review of the UNHCR Reintegration Programme for
Mozambican Returnees’, Refugee Survey Quarterly 16, 2 (1997): pp. 24–71.
168 Crisp et al., ‘Rebuilding a War-Torn Society’, pp. 24–25. They also found that UNHCR’s presence throughout
the country helped build confidence in return as well as play a role in resolving local disputes, pp. 38, 54.
ENDNOTES 445
169 Crisp et al., ‘Rebuilding a War-Torn Society’, p. 31.
170 UNHCR had indicated previously that they be recognized on a prima facie basis, but receiving States were
reluctant to do so. The numbers are best estimates. Aristide R. Zolberg, Astri Suhrke, and Sergio Aguayo,
Escape from Violence: Conflict and the Refugee Crisis in the Developing World (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1989), p. 212; José H. Fischel de Andrade, ‘The 1984 Cartagena Declaration: A Critical Review of Some
Aspects of Its Emergence and Relevance’, Refugee Survey Quarterly 38, no. 4 (1 December 2019): pp. 345,
348; UNHCR, The State of The World’s Refugees 2000, p. 136.
171 CIREFCA, Declaration and Concerted Plan of Action in Favour of Central American Refugees, Returnees and
Displaced Persons (30 May 1989), CIREFCA 89/13/Rev.1, I: Declaration, para. 22.
172 CIREFCA, Declaration and Concerted Plan of Action, II: Plan of Action, paras. 21–23.
173 Alexander Betts, ‘Comprehensive Plans of Action: Insights from CIREFCA and the Indochinese CPA’, Working
Paper 120, New Issues in Refugee Research, UNHCR (2006), p. 15.
174 Ibid., pp. 10–11.
175 The European Economic Community contributed $115 million. In addition, Italy was the largest bilateral
donor providing over $115 million for development projects, followed by Sweden who pledged $60 million.
The United States, so prominent in the CPA, chose to favour its bilateral process over the multilateral
processes. This was driven, in part, by its political alliances, with support to Nicaragua picking up after the
Sandinistas lost the 1990 election. UNHCR, ‘Review of the CIREFCA Process’, Evaluation Report (1 May 1994);
Betts, ‘Comprehensive Plans of Action’, pp. 11, 27–28, 52–53; Mathew and Harley, Refugees, Regionalism
and Responsibility, p. 178.
177 Ron Redmond, ‘The Human Side of CIREFCA’, Refugees Magazine 99, UNHCR (1995). NGOs gained more
prominence and implemented close to 40 per cent of all project funding received. See: Betts, ‘Comprehensive
Plans of Action’, p. 15. According to Betts, this was important because States in the region had traditionally
been reluctant to acknowledge the role of civil society or non-State actors.
178 Part of this failing was laid at the feet of the main international organizations: UNHCR and UNDP. At the time,
UNHCR did not consider itself to have a mandate for internally displaced persons and UNDP’s approach
was geographically based, focusing on areas of high vulnerability and needs, which did not always include
internally displaced persons. See: Betts, ‘Comprehensive Plans of Action’, pp. 8–10, 12, 18. See also: Megan
Bradley, ‘Forced Migration in Central America and the Caribbean’, The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and
Forced Migration Studies (NY: Oxford University Press, 2014) p. 106; Arafat Jamal, ‘Refugee repatriation and
reintegration in Guatemala: Lessons learned from UNHCR’s experience’, Evaluation Report, UNHCR-EPAU
(2000); Paula Worby, ‘Security and Dignity: Land Access and Guatemala’s Returned Refugees’, Refuge 19,
No 3 (2021): pp. 17–24.
179 Betts, ‘Comprehensive Plans of Action’, p. 14. According to Betts, meeting normative protection conditions
was not a condition of the development funding that UNDP coordinated and the Italian Government
supported. An opportunity to use the leverage of financing to improve refugee policies was lost as restrictive
policies remained in some countries.
180 The 1993 report of the UN-approved Commission for El Salvador implicated the State as responsible for
85 per cent of the human rights abuses of the war, including named individuals in the military, civil service
and judiciary. Reinaldo Figueredo Planchart, Belisario Betancur, and Thomas Buergenthal ‘From Madness to
Hope: The 12-Year War in El Salvador: Report of the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador’ (1 April 1993)
UN Doc S/25500, Annex, p. 43. The UN-sponsored Truth Commission for Guatemala similarly found that 93
per cent of the widespread human rights violations in Guatemala were perpetrated by the State, principally
the army, and that over 83 per cent of the victims were indigenous Maya. Commission for Historical
Clarification, Guatemala: Memory of Silence, Report (1999), pp. 20, 85.
181 Jose Miguel Cruz, ‘The Root Causes of the Central American Crisis’, Current History 114, no. 769 (February
2015): pp. 43–48.
182 Ibid, pp. 46–48. Additional economic stresses have also contributed to migration from the region. Some
have been brought on by the adverse effects of climate change, which have led to increased storms and
floods in recent years. Together with other political, social and economic factors, they have influenced
decisions to migrate abroad. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to further economic losses
and, in 2020, two successive hurricanes that hit Central America and Mexico displaced an estimated 3 million
people. International Rescue Committee (IRC), ‘Migration search trends point to growing displacement
from Central America due to COVID, climate change and conflict’, Press Release (16 March 2021); The
Nansen Initiative, ‘Disasters and Cross-Border Displacement in Central America: Emerging Needs, New
Responses’, Background Paper (2013); World Meteorological Organization, ‘Natural Hazards and Disaster
Risk Reduction’, website; Gena Steffens, ‘Changing Climate Forces Desperate Guatemalans to Migrate’,
National Geographic (23 October 2018).
184 For more on the status of Kosovo, see: UNSC, Res. 1244 (10 June 1999), UN Doc S/Res/1244 (1999).
185 UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. Some earlier statistics suggested that the numbers were higher with some
700,000 displaced to Western European countries and 500,000 to 800,000 displaced to neighbouring
countries. Ogata, The Turbulent Decade, pp. 112, 167; UNHCR, The State of The World’s Refugees 2000,
p. 219.
186 In reporting on the 25th anniversary of the Dayton Peace Agreements, The Economist described how the
country remained deeply ethnically divided and the impact of the political structure on deepening divides
and hindering economic development. The Economist, ‘Dayton at 25: After a Quarter of a Century of Peace,
Bosnia Remains Wretched’ (21 November 2020).
187 The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Republika
Srpska, Dayton Peace Agreement (21 November 1995), Annex 7: Agreement on Refugees and Displaced
Persons.
ENDNOTES 447
188 For example, according to Long, nationalist authorities “create[d] economic incentives for ‘their’ people
to relocate through the often illegal distribution of building plots and business premises”. Intimidation and
harassment of minorities with impunity, the ongoing presence of war criminals and three education systems
that taught different histories were among the many ongoing challenges. Long, The Point of No Return,
pp. 113–114; Loescher, The UNHCR and World Politics, p. 323.
189 Maria Derks-Normandin, Linking Peace, Security and Durable Solutions in a Multi-Ethnic Society: The Case
of Kosovo, Report (Brookings Institution, 2014) p. i; World Bank, ‘Population Total: Kosovo’, DataBank. Ogata
writes that by mid-May 1999, 800,000 had fled externally and 600,000 were internally displaced. Ogata, The
Turbulent Decade, pp. 153 and 161. The UNHCR Refugee Data Finder shows lower figures because it does
not account for shorter-term displacement within the year.
190 The international presence was to monitor the withdrawal of Serbian forces, demilitarize the Kosovo
Liberation Army and other armed groups and establish “a secure environment in which refugees and
displaced persons can return home in safety, the international civil presence can operate, a transitional
administration can be established, and humanitarian aid can be delivered”, UNSC Res. 1244.
191 Derks-Normandin, Linking Peace, Security and Durable Solutions in a Multi-Ethnic Society, pp. 19–23.
192 Ogata, The Turbulent Decade, pp. 159–162.
193 In October 2020, the United Nations Interim Mission in Kosovo reported that “there remain 16,052 displaced
persons within Kosovo”, as well as “69,627 persons with displacement-related needs across the Western
Balkans”. UNSC, ‘United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo: Report of the Secretary-General’
(1 October 2020), UN Doc S/2020/964.
194 Ben Shephard, The Long Road Home: The Aftermath of the Second World War (NY: Penguin Random
House, 2012), p. 5.
195 Ibid., pp. 4–5. See also: Part I.
196 UNGA, Constitution of the International Refugee Organization (15 December 1946), UN Doc A/RES/62(I),
Annex I, Part 1, Section D4 and Annex III. This exclusion covered Germans who had been evacuated from
Germany during the war, as well as those who were being expelled from countries in Europe.
197 For more on the position of the Soviet Union and the work of the IRO: Shephard, The Long Road Home,
pp. 264, 339, 384; George Ginsburgs, ‘The Soviet Union and the Problem of Refugees and Displaced Persons
1917–1956’, American Journal of International Law 51, no. 2 (April 1957): pp. 325–361.
198 It also facilitated the return of 73,000 displaced persons. UNHCR, The State of The World’s Refugees 2000,
p. 17.
199 Shephard, The Long Road Home, p. 343. He notes that countries that agreed to resettle the refugees “tried to
extract only those people who suited their labour needs and philosophy of immigration”, and the outcome
determined whether a refugee ended up in “Chile, or Chicago, Manitoba or Melbourne”, p. 5.
200 Auguste Lindt, who was the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 1956 to 1960, pressed
hard for this to stop, saying it was a tragedy so many were left behind. Statement by Dr. Auguste R. Lindt,
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, at the Special Meeting on World Refugee Year, Tenth
Session, Council of the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM), 9 April 1959. It would
take several more years beyond the expiration of his tenure before solutions to the residual camp population
was resolved.
201 Shephard, The Long Road Home, p. 383 (United States), p. 340 (Western Europe), p. 347 (Latin America). In
Canada, arrivals took place over several years. See: Government of Canada, ‘The Arrival of Displaced Persons
in Canada, 1945–1951’, website. With respect to Australia, see: National Archives of Australia, ‘Refugees
Displaced by World War II’ (1947), website.
202 David Nasaw, The Last Million: Europe’s Displaced Persons from World War to Cold War (NY: Penguin
Random House, 2020), pp. 358–434.
203 Nasaw, The Last Million, pp. 10–13 and 36–38; Adina Hoffman, ‘How a Million Refugees Became Postwar
Pawns of the Allies’, The New York Times (15 September 2020); Judy Feigin, ‘The Office of Special
Investigations: Striving for Accountability in the Aftermath of the Holocaust’, Justice Department Report
(December 2006), published online by The New York Times.
204 Shephard, The Long Road Home, p. 346.
205 The United States was, by far, the largest resettlement country. Beginning in the 1950s, its Escapee
Programme had three key objectives: Help people fleeing the Sino-Soviet bloc, encourage others to do
so, and provide the United States with vital intelligence. ‘Circular airgram No. 72: The Secretary of State to
Certain Diplomatic and Consular Offices’, in David M. Baehler et al. (eds.), Foreign Relations of the United
States, 1952 to 1954, Eastern Europe; Soviet Union; Eastern Mediterranean vol. VIII (Washington D.C.: United
States Government Printing Office, 1988), published online by The Office of the Historian; Deutsche Welle,
‘US Cold War Resettlement Program Used for Propaganda, Spying’ (29 December 2008).
206 UNHCR, The State of The World’s Refugees 2000, pp. 29, 32.
207 That support, together with the advocacy of UNHCR, also helped to ensure that family members were
resettled with selected refugees. Loescher, The UNHCR and World Politics, p. 88.
208 Among the refugee population were minors and young people who were separated from their families in
Hungary. Believing in the importance of family unity, Lindt worked with the authorities in Hungary, Austria
and Western asylum and resettlement States to enable their voluntary repatriation. According to Loescher,
some 18,000 returned home. Loescher, The UNHCR and World Politics, p. 88.
209 Shezan Muhammedi, ‘“Gifts From Amin”: The Resettlement, Integration, and Identities of Ugandan Asian
Refugees in Canada’, PhD Thesis, University of Western Ontario, 2017, pp. 101–102; Becky Taylor, ‘Good
Citizens? Ugandan Asians, Volunteers and “Race” Relations in 1970s Britain’, History Workshop Journal 85
(January 2018): p. 121.
ENDNOTES 449
210 Muhammedi, “‘Gifts From Amin’”, pp. 3, 5 and 51. The South Asian population was heavily concentrated
in the commercial, management and professional sectors. For further information on the resettlement of
Ugandan Asians, see: Loescher, The UNHCR and World Politics, pp. 164–167.
211 This estimate includes some 650,000 Vietnamese who departed directly from their country of origin and
some 800,000 Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian refugees who were resettled from countries in the
region. Judith Kumin, ‘Orderly Departure from Vietnam: Cold War Anomaly or Humanitarian Innovation?’,
Refugee Survey Quarterly 27, no. 1 (2008): p. 105. UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. Earlier estimates were even
higher than this. UNHCR, The State of The World’s Refugees 2000, p. 85.
214 For more on ethnic Chinese in Vietnam and the circumstances of this exodus, see: Pao-min Chang, ‘The
Sino-Vietnamese Dispute over the Ethnic Chinese’, The China Quarterly 90 (June 1982): pp. 195–230. The
total number who fled is found on p. 230; Kumin, ‘Orderly Departure from Vietnam’: pp. 107–109; UNHCR,
215 UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder; The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, ‘Khmer Rouge’, Encyclopædia
Britannica online.
216 Reports at the time detailed the brutality of the pirates who attacked refugees with clubs and knives, robbed
them of their possessions, killed many and abducted women and girls. UNHCR, The State of The World’s
Refugees 2000, p. 87.
217 Barry Wain, The Refused: The Agony of the Indochina Refugees (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981),
p. 83; Other estimates put the total of those who died at sea throughout the crisis at about 200,000. See:
Nghia M. Vo, The Vietnamese Boat People, 1954 and 1975–1992 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2006), p. 167.
218 Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States collectively agreed to
resettle 260,000 refugees, see: Mathew and Harley, Refugees, Regionalism and Responsibility, p. 145.
219 Ibid., pp. 145–146. Subsequent agreements included increased regional cooperation for rescue-at-sea
operations and emergency relief to displaced Cambodians, p. 147.
220 Kumin, ‘Orderly Departure from Vietnam’: p. 105. Judith Kumin is the former head of UNHCR’s programmes
for orderly departure from Vietnam and for resettlement of Indochinese refugees.
221 UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. UNHCR, The State of The World’s Refugees 2000, p. 84.
222 Notably from Thailand and Malaysia.
223 UNGA, ‘Declaration and Comprehensive Plan of Action of the International Conference on Indo-Chinese
Refugees, Report of the Secretary-General’ (22 September 1989), UN Doc A/44/523, Part II, D.
224 To accommodate differences among States, with some insisting the returns be voluntary and others refusing
to specify this in the agreement, it was agreed that those refused refugee status would receive counselling
for a period of three months to encourage their voluntary return and would be monitored by UNHCR when
returned. Betts, ‘Comprehensive Plans of Action’, pp. 35–36.
225 Mathew and Harley, Refugees, Regionalism and Responsibility, pp. 151–152. They note that between 1989
and 1995, UNHCR undertook over 18,000 returnee monitoring visits to Vietnam, p. 152.
226 Ibid., pp. 145–151. Two countries continued to bar new arrivals: Singapore no longer permitted rescue-
at-sea cases or direct arrivals to disembark; and local authorities in Malaysia had orders to redirect boat
arrivals back into international waters between 1989 and 1990. UNHCR, State of the World’s Refugees 2000,
pp. 83, 85.
227 UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. Kumin, ‘Orderly Departure from Vietnam’: pp. 104–105.
228 This was significant since many of the States were not parties to the Refugee Convention (1951) or Refugee
Protocol (1967).
229 Richard Towle, ‘Processes and Critiques of the Indo-Chinese Comprehensive Plan of Action: An Instrument
of International Burden-Sharing?’, International Journal of Refugee Law 18, no. 3–4 (September/December
2006): pp. 537–570.
230 Mathew and Harley, Refugees, Regionalism and Responsibility, p. 155. Note however that Towle suggests
that even with these challenges the CPA was important for it helped UNHCR, government officials, and
advocates to develop experience and lessons learned in approaches to mass individualized refugee status
determinations. Richard Towle, ‘Processes and Critiques of the Indo-Chinese Comprehensive Plan of
Action’: p. 269.
231 Mathew and Harley, Refugees, Regionalism and Responsibility, pp. 157–158.
232 Sara Ellen Davies, Legitimising Rejection: International Refugee Law in Southeast Asia (Leiden: Brill, 2008),
p. 226.
233 On United States policy interests, see: Betts, ‘Comprehensive Plans of Action’, pp. 42–43. In regard to
Canada and the CPA, see: Ninette Kelley and Michael Trebilcock, The Making of the Mosaic: A History of
Canadian Immigration Policy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010), pp. 397–398. The Vietnamese
diaspora were particularly supportive, as were civil and faith-based groups.
234 For example, in 1980, there were close to 2 million Afghan refugees and over 2.5 million refugees from
Ethiopia. In 1989, at the time of the second international conference for Indochinese refugees, there were
over 5.5 million Afghan refugees, 1.4 million refugees from Ethiopia and 1 million refugees from Mozambique.
UNHCR, State of the World’s Refugees 2000, p. 314.
235 John Fredriksson and Christine Mougne, ‘Resettlement in the 1990s: A Review of Policy and Practice’,
UNHCR (December 1994), pp. 5–6.
ENDNOTES 451
236 While these countries maintained an open door to refugees during this time, restrictive policies, such as the
Refugees (Control) Act 1966 in Tanzania, the Control of Alien Refugees Act (CARA) 1960 in Uganda and the
Refugee (Control) Act 1970 in Zambia were in place. Those, however, were not always fully implemented
in practice.
237 Alexander Betts et al., Refugee Economies in Uganda: What Difference Does the Self-Reliance Model Make?
(Oxford: Refugee Studies Centre, 2019), p. 6. Policy and practice became more restrictive in Tanzania in
the 1990s, see: Michèle Morel, ‘The lack of refugee burden-sharing in Tanzania: tragic effects’, Afrika Focus
22, 1 (2009): pp. 111–112; James Milner, ‘Two steps forward, one step back: understanding the shifting
politics of refugee policy in Tanzania’, Research Paper 255, New Issues in Refugee Research, UNHCR (July
2013): pp. 4–7. While having imposed some restrictions on refugees, particularly in terms of freedom of
movement, Zambia is pursuing increasingly inclusive policies, particularly in recent years, see: ‘UNHCR,
‘Implementing a Comprehensive Refugee Response: The Zambia Experience’, Report (December 2019).
238 See, for example: Sadruddin Aga Khan, ‘Statement by Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees, to the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly at its 1519th
Meeting, 20 November 1967’ (20 November 1967).
239 Including civil documentation and the adjudication and enforcement of housing, land and property
rights. UNHCR, Agenda for Protection (Third Edition) (October 2003), p. 77. The Global Consultations on
International Protection and the Agenda for Protection are also discussed in Part II.
240 UNHCR, Agenda for Protection.
241 The Global Compact calls for increasing the pool of resettlement places, and more investment in robust
reception and integration services. See: UNGA, Global Compact on Refugees (2018), paras. 91–92. See also:
UNGA, Res. 73/151 (17 December 2018), UN Doc A/RES/73/151, para. 53.
242 Reflected in the Global Compact on Refugees with its emphasis on improved cooperation among political,
humanitarian, development and peace actors. See: Global Compact on Refugees, paras. 8, 11, 24 and 48.
243 See, for example, the 2017 OECD study that observed that despite “more than 15 years of large-scale
international efforts in Afghanistan, the country remains marred by weak rule of law, political fragility and
persistent insecurity – circumstances that are likely to continue to discourage many Afghan refugees and
migrants abroad to return home voluntarily”, Susanna Morrison-Métois, ‘Responding to Refugee Crises:
Lessons from Evaluations in Afghanistan as a Country of Origin’, OECD Development Co-Operation Working
Paper (2017), p. 1.
244 Many refugees from rural areas, for example, do not return to their place of origin with many moving to
urban areas. World Bank, Forcibly Displaced, pp. 101–103. See also the studies discussed in Jolien Tegenbos
and Koen Vlassenroot, ‘Going Home? A Systematic Review of the Literature on Displacement, Return and
Cycles of Violence’, Working Paper, LSE Conflict Research Programme (2018). Tegenbos and Vlassenroot
conclude from their review that most studies of returning refugees and internally displaced persons are
rather narrowly focused on specific groups and on development and humanitarian return policies. They
identify areas in need of further research including: the experience of returnee populations who continue
to be mobile and those that do not following return; how societal changes in areas of return affect the
strategies and positions of those considering return and those who stayed behind; and the role of local
government in regions where national institutions are absent, pp. 25–26.
245 UNHCR increased its return assistance substantially to assist the returnees and was criticized by some human
rights organizations for assisting in coerced returns. For its part, UNHCR reported on the need to assist
the returnees amidst growing insecurity in Pakistan. Gerry Simpson, ‘Pakistan Coercion, UN Complicity:
The Mass Forced Return of Afghan Refugees’, Report, Human Rights Watch (13 February 2017); UNHCR,
‘Repatriation of Afghan Refugees from Pakistan: Supplementary Appeal (Revised)’ (28 October 2016).
248 At the end of 2020, there were some 2.85 million Afghans internally displaced. UNHCR, Refugee Data
Finder. This number rose precipitously in 2021. UNHCR, ‘“After the Airlift”. News Comment Attributable to
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi’, Press Release (30 August 2021).
249 United Nations Development Programme, ‘Human Development Index’ website. See also: UNDP, ‘Human
Development Reports: Afghanistan’, website. David Turton and Peter Marsden, ‘Taking Refugees for a Ride?
The Politics of Refugee Return to Afghanistan’, Working Paper, The Afghanistan Research and Evaluation
Unit (December 2002), p. 20. In a December 2020 symposium, the UNDP Resident Representative in
Afghanistan pointed to the fact that the country had a 70 per cent unemployment rate and significant
economic growth would be necessary to support and sustain large-scale refugee returns. Center for
Conflict and Humanitarian Studies Symposium, ‘Placing Refugee Return and Reintegration at the Heart of
International Development Policy’, website (7 December 2020).
250 Although return assistance alone is not sufficient to ensure sustainability. For reflections on Afghan returns,
see for example: Thea Yde-Jensen et al., ‘Afghanistan’s Displaced People: A Socio-Economic Profile, 2013–
2014’, Report (World Bank, 2018), pp. 4–5; and Hisham Esper, Nandini Krishan, and Christina Wieser, ‘More Is
Better: Evaluating the Impact of a Variation in Cash Assistance on the Reintegration Outcomes of Returning
Afghan Refugees’, Draft Paper, presented at 2020 Research Conference on Forced Displacement.
251 In 2012, UNHCR together with Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan agreed on a Solutions Strategy for Afghan
Refugees (SSAR) to facilitate repatriation and enable sustainable reintegration, including through community
support projects. The idea was to encourage investment in infrastructure (schools, road rehabilitation, water
points) and services (job placement, health services). A 2019 report by the Danish Refugee Council and other
NGOs noted that expectations had not been met for a number of reasons, including a lack of State backing,
lack of measures to safeguard protection principles, over-reliance on return as the preferred solution,
and insufficient inclusion and consultation of civil society and refugees. DRC et al., ‘Unprepared for (Re)
Integration’, p. 37. The strategy was revised in 2019 through the creation of a Support Platform to mobilize
additional financial, technical and material support. Governments of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
et al., ‘SSAR Support Platform: Joint Communique’, UNHCR Operational Data Portal (16 December 2019).
ENDNOTES 453
252 See: Katy Long, ‘Rethinking “Durable” Solutions’, The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration
Studies (NY: Oxford University Press, 2014).
253 UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder and UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. According to Lucy Hovil, ‘Hoping for
peace, afraid of war: the dilemmas of repatriation and belonging on the borders of Uganda and South
Sudan’, Research Paper 196, New Studies in Refugee Research, UNHCR (November 2010), p. 8, over 2
million returned in this period.
254 Sara Pantuliano et al., ‘The Long Road Home: Opportunities and Obstacles to the Reintegration of IDPs and
Refugees Returning to Southern Sudan and the Three Areas – Report of Phase II’, HPG, ODI (2008), p. 1.
255 Ibid., pp. 9–15. She notes how some family members remained behind in Uganda to access health and
education services, yet still considered themselves to have repatriated to Sudan.
256 In the following decade, the numbers of South Sudanese refugees and internally displaced persons would
soar again to 2.2 million refugees and 1.6 million internally displaced persons in 2020, according to UNHCR
data. UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
257 The number of refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo also increased from some 477,000 in
2010 to over 840,000 in 2020. UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
258 UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. OCHA, ‘Humanitarian Needs Overview: Syrian Arab Republic’, Humanitarian
Programme Cycle 2021 (March 2021).
259 OCHA, ‘Syrian Arab Republic: Spontaneous IDP Returnee Movements Overview, Jan–Dec 2020 (As of 31
December 2020)’, ReliefWeb (8 March 2021). In some cases, the same internally displaced person may have
moved multiple times.
260 UNHCR, ‘Syria Regional Refugee Response: Durable Solutions’, Operational Data Portal (7 July 2021). The
figures on returns are limited to those that UNHCR can verify; the actual number could be higher, although
still dwarfed by the number who remain outside the country.
261 World Bank, ‘The Mobility of Displaced Syrians: An Economic and Social Analysis’ (World Bank, 2020).
262 UNHCR, ‘Sixth Regional Survey on Syrian Refugees’ Perceptions and Intentions on Returns to Syria’, Report
(March 2021).
263 Essentially by acknowledging that they were re-availing themselves of the protection of their countries. Katy
Long, ‘Rethinking ‘Durable’ Solutions’, p. 483.
264 World Bank, ‘Afghanistan: Eshteghal Zaiee-Karmondena (EZ-Kar) Project Grant Proposal’, Project Appraisal
Document (27 November 2018).
265 Between 2000 and 2009, nearly 50 per cent of resettled refugees came from Iraq, Myanmar, Somalia,
Sudan, Iran and Afghanistan. The remaining 50 per cent came from various other countries around the
world. In contrast, more than 50 per cent of resettled refugees in the 1990s came only from Vietnam and
Russia. UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
266 UNHCR, ‘Progress Report on Resettlement’ (7 June 2004), UN Doc EC/54/SC/CRP.10; UNHCR, Refugee
Data Finder.
267 Between 2002 and 2013 — with the exception of 2009 — annual resettlement numbers stayed below
100,000. The average for these years (except 2009) was below 80,000 per year. UNHCR, Refugee Data
Finder.
268 The Framework was drafted and approved by the Core Group on Resettlement, comprised of States from
both the developed and developing world, including States hosting refugees for protracted periods, as well
as long-standing and emerging resettlement countries. The European Commission and the International
Organization for Migration (IOM) were also members. UNHCR, ‘Progress Report: Convention Plus’,
(8 November 2005), UN Doc FORUM/2005/6.
269 Several reasons have been advanced for this, including instability within Somalia which made voluntary
return — a key component of the plan — premature, as well as the absence of a government authority in
Somalia with recognized authority to act and insufficient buy-in within UNHCR and among donor States.
270 UNHCR, in some years, experienced difficulties meeting annual resettlement quotas. Group resettlement
helped overcome this and could be applied to those coming from the same country, fleeing similar
circumstances and having similar risk profiles in need of resettlement. Those who have benefited from this
include specific groups of refugees from Afghanistan, Bhutan, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo,
Eritrea, Liberia, Myanmar, Somalia and Uzbekistan.
271 Situations in which it was successfully used were relatively modest. For example, an agreement was reached
with India in 2015 whereby resettlement countries agreed to resettle 300 refugees in India in exchange
for India agreeing to naturalize several thousand Sikh and Hindu refugees. Also in Asia, the resettlement
of Burmese refugees from Thailand was said to have improved UNHCR’s access to refugees and enabled
UNHCR to set up an asylum process for new arrivals. Joanne van Selm, ‘Great Expectations: A Review of
the Strategic Use of Resettlement’, Evaluation, UNHCR Policy Development and Evaluation Service (2013),
pp. 18–20.
272 Prompting Erika Feller, then UNHCR’s Director of International Protection, to caution in 2007 that
“resettlement should not become a substitute for asylum within a State for spontaneous arrivals; nor should
it become the quid pro quo for a functioning re-admission arrangement”. van Selm, ‘Great Expectations’,
p. 20.
273 UNHCR’s concerns on the offshore processing were communicated to the Australian Minister for Immigration
and Citizenship and are found in: António Guterres (Former United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees), ‘Correspondence to the Hon. Chris Bowen MP, Former Minister for Immigration and Citizenship
of Australia regarding Nauru Detention Centre’ (5 September 2012), in ‘United Nations Observations on
Australia’s transfer arrangements with Nauru and Papua New Guinea’, UNHCR website.
ENDNOTES 455
274 These were established between 2008 and 2011. An additional one in Slovakia has since been closed.
275 Participating resettlement States grew from 14 in 2014 to over 30 in 2017.
276 Syria accounted for 20 per cent of all refugees resettled between 2010 and 2019, followed by Iraq and
Myanmar, collectively representing 50 per cent of the over 1 million refugees resettled during that time. The
remaining resettled refugees came from countries around the globe, largely influenced by UNHCR’s annual
assessment of needs.
277 The number of refugees departing for resettlement countries started to plummet by over 40 per cent from
173,000 in 2016 to 107,000 in 2019. For over 30 years, the United States had resettled more refugees than
all other countries combined.
278 Pandemic-induced border closures and travel restrictions put a hold on many resettlement movements.
UNHCR, ‘UN Refugee Agency Releases 2022 Resettlement Needs’, Press Release (23 June 2021); UNHCR,
279 UNHCR, ‘The Three-Year Strategy (2019-2021) on Resettlement and Complementary Pathways’ (June
2019), pp. 6, 10, 11, 12 and 14.
280 Global Compact on Refugees (2018), paras. 17–18; UNHCR, ‘Outcomes of the Global Refugee Forum 2019’,
Report (2020), p. 38.
281 This could be related to the additional resources that can be needed to establish resettlement programmes
such as to cover the costs to process submissions, provide for refugee integration and strengthen capacities
of local partners to assist refugees upon arrival. See discussion further on regarding how these costs can be
offset by the contributions resettled refugees make over time.
282 Philippe Legrain, Refugees Work: A Humanitarian Investment that Yields Economic Dividends, Report (Tent,
2021); Graeme Hugo et al., ‘Economic, Social and Civic Contributions of First and Second Generation
Humanitarian Entrants’, Report, Department of Immigration and Citizenship (2011); William N. Evans and
Daniel Fitzgerald, ‘The Economic and Social Outcomes of Refugees in the United States: Evidence from
the ACS’, NBER Working Paper 23498 (June 2017); d’Artis Kancs and Patrizio Lecca, ‘Long-term Social,
Economic and Fiscal Effects of Immigration into the EU: The Role of the Integration Policy’, JRC Working
Papers in Economics and Finance, 2017/4, (Publication Office of the European Union, 2017).
283 Louise Olliff, ‘From Resettled Refugees to Humanitarian Actors: Refugee Diaspora Organizations and
Everyday Humanitarianism’, New Political Science 40, no. 4 (October 2018).
284 Kalena E. Cortes, ‘Are refugees different from economic immigrants? Some empirical evidence on the
heterogeneity of immigration groups in the US’, Review of Economics and Statistics 86, no. 2 (2004):
pp. 465–480.
285 Evans and Fitzgerald, ‘The Economic and Social Outcomes of Refugees in the United States’, pp. 7, 33.
286 OECD, ‘How will the refugee surge affect the European economy?’, Migration Policy Debates 8 (November
2015); European Commission, ‘An Economic Take on the Refugee Crisis: A Macroeconomic Assessment for
the EU’, Institutional Paper 033 (July 2016).
287 See: Zara Sarzin, ‘The Impact of Forced Migration on the Labor Market’.
288 In September 2021, for example, the United States announced the intention to raise the annual ceiling for
refugee resettlement to 125,000 for the fiscal year 2022. UNHCR, ‘UNHCR welcomes U.S. plan to increase
refugee resettlement’, Briefing (21 September 2021).
289 UNGA, New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants (19 September 2016), UN Doc A/RES/71/1, paras. 77,
79; Global Compact on Refugees (2018), paras. 47, 94–96; UNGA, Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and
Regular Migration (19 December 2018), UN Doc A/RES/73/195, Objective 5. For earlier efforts to expand
such pathways, see: Long, ‘Rethinking “Durable” Solutions’; Hovil, ‘Hoping for Peace, Afraid of War’, pp. 4–7.
290 Hein De Haas, Stephen Castles, and Mark J. Miller, The Age of Migration: International Population Movements
in the Modern World (London: Red Globe Press, 2019), p. 9.
291 Two member States were not included in the study because of their different data collection methods (The
Republic of Korea and Turkey). OECD and UNHCR, ‘Safe Pathways for Refugees II – OECD-UNHCR Study
on Third-Country Solutions for Refugees: Admissions for Family Reunification, Education, and Employment
Purposes between 2010 and 2019’, Report (March 2021).
292 Ibid., p. 14.
293 Of the three types of visas issued to nationals of the seven countries over the course of the decade, family
permits accounted for 67 per cent, education permits made up 18 per cent, while labour permits accounted
for just 13 per cent. When compared with the number of permits issued from these categories overall in
2019, the seven countries accounted for 9 per cent of family visas, 2 per cent of education visas and 4 per
cent of employment visas. Ibid., p. 16.
294 Many people who flee do so suddenly and often without all their individual documents, such as birth,
marriage, and education certificates, any or all of which can be essential to apply for an immigration visa.
Even when they have documents, some have expired.
295 For examples, see: Tamara Wood, ‘The Role of “Complementary Pathways” in Refugee Protection’, Report,
Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law (November 2020), pp. 34–38. Among the examples Tamara
Wood provides is: the World University Services of Canada, which has facilitated 2,000 refugees to immigrate
on a permanent basis for study purposes in Canada since 1978; the Japan International Christian University
Foundation, which has provided two refugee scholarships per year to Syrian refugees since 2017; and Talent
Beyond Boundaries, which has matched 127 refugees with prospective employers in Australia and Canada
since 2017, although not all have immigrated.
296 Statistics from the OECD-UNHCR study showed some promising signs in 2017 when the proportion of
family visas to nationals of the countries under review rose. Since then, however, they have declined to
previous levels. OECD and UNHCR, ‘Safe Pathways for Refugees II’, pp. 15–16.
ENDNOTES 457
297 International Labour Organization, ILO Global Estimates on International Migrant Workers: Results and
Methodology (Third edition), (ILO, 2021), p. 14.
298 OECD and UNHCR, ‘Safe Pathways for Refugees II’, p. 16.
299 Martin and Ruhs, ‘Labour Market Realism and the Global Compacts on Migration and Refugees’, International
Migration 57, no. 6 (2019): pp. 86. They also point out that many labour market schemes are subject to
bilateral agreement between the source and the destination country. In the case of refugees, the country of
origin cannot play the role and first countries of asylum are unlikely to do so. See: pp. 86–87.
300 Michael Lokshin and Martin Ravallion have proposed that citizens be entitled to rent their right to work to
refugees enabling refugees to benefit. Such a scheme would arguably be subject to similar constraints as
raised by Martin and Ruhs. Michael Lokshin and Martin Ravallion, ‘The Missing Market for Work Permits’,
Policy Research Working Paper 9005, World Bank Group (September 2019).
301 The project is coordinated by the ministry responsible for immigration, refugees and citizenship and engages
participating provincial governments, UNHCR and NGOs that recruit potential candidates for referral to
Canada. Government of Canada, ‘The Economic Mobility Pathways Project: Exploring Labour Mobility as a
Complementary Pathway for Refugees’, website (14 October 2020).
302 Quoted in Talent Beyond Boundaries, ‘Hire displaced talent’ [Video]: Kris Braun, former VP Engineering
at Bonfire, Canada, shares his experience of hiring software developer, Mohammed via Talent Beyond
Boundaries, Talent Beyond Boundaries website.
303 See: The Honourable David Coleman MP, ‘Address to the Menzies Research Centre, Melbourne’, Transcript
(7 February 2020). “The Government is also rolling out a two-year Skilled Refugee Pilot to offer skilled
employment in Australia to up to 100 skilled refugees, including in regional areas. We will be working with
an experienced external provider to develop the pilot within our existing, permanent skilled visa framework”.
304 See: ‘Statement of Baroness Williams of Trafford to the House of Lords’, Hansard, HC 806, columns 408–409
(5 October 2020); Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, ‘Complementary Refugee Pathways: Labour
Mobility Schemes’, Factsheet (August 2020).
305 Government of Canada, ‘By the Numbers: 40 years of Canada’s Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program’,
website.
306 Shauna Labman, ‘Private Sponsorship: Complementary or Conflicting Interests?’, Refuge: Canada’s Journal
on Refugees, 32, no. 2 (2016): pp. 67–80; A. Hirsch, K. Hoang and A. Vogl, ‘Australia’s Private Refugee
Sponsorship Program: Creating Complementary Pathways Or Privatising Humanitarianism?’, Refuge 35,
no. 2 (2019): pp. 109–122; Katherine Rehberg, ‘The Future of Refugee Resettlement and Complementary
Pathways’, Report, CWS (12 October 2020).
307 OECD and UNHCR, ‘Safe Pathways for Refugees II’.

308 T. Alexander Aleinikoff and Leah Zamore, The Arc of Protection: Toward a New International Refugee
Regime (Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019), pp. 81–83, 117.
309 As part of the 2002 Agenda for Protection, UNHCR advanced a Framework for Durable Solutions, which
included securing development assistance to enable refugee self-reliance and to benefit host areas
(Development Assistance for Refugees (DAR)), the 4R approach (Repatriation, Reintegration, Rehabilitation
and Reconstruction) and the Development through Local Integration (DLI) approach. UNHCR, ‘Framework
for Durable Solutions for Refugees and Persons of Concern’ (May 2003). On the Solutions Alliance, see:
UNDP, ‘The Solutions Alliance’, website.
310 In 2010, the Transitional Solutions Initiative (TSI) was conceived as a renewed attempt to engage
development actors more systematically and promote the inclusion of displaced persons in government
development plans. See: UNHCR, ‘Concept Note – Transitional Solutions Initiative UNDP and UNHCR
in collaboration with the World Bank’ (October 2010). A pilot project for internally displaced persons in
Colombia was implemented as part of the TSI between 2012 and 2016 and was considered a success
overall in terms of the regularization of informal settlements and securing land ownership. Challenges,
however, remained, including persistently high poverty levels and obstacles in accessing basic services due
to continuing land ownership issues. Greta Zeender and Bronwen James Crowther, ‘Reducing Protracted
Internal Displacement: A Snapshot of Successful Humanitarian-Development Initiatives’, Occasional Policy
Paper (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, June 2019), pp. 11–14; Econometría, ‘External
Assessment of the UNHCR-UNDP Joint Program “Transitional Solutions Initiative”’, Final Report (31 October
2016), p. 85. As noted in a 2019 study by IDMC, long-standing legislation on internal displacement,
humanitarian assistance, compensation and property restitution and the peace agreement had not resolved
large-scale displacement. Chloe Sydney, ‘Stuck in the Middle: Seeking Durable Solutions in Post-Peace
Agreement Colombia’, IDMC Report (March 2019).
311 UNHCR, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2015, Report (2016); UConn Today, ‘Syrian Refugee Crisis
Continues to Capture World’s Attention’, Discussion, website (12 November 2015).
312 These are discussed more in Part V.
313 The Syrian situation was the catalyst for these changes, as many refugees moved onward due to a loss
of hope, an inability to work or a lack of access to health and education services. UNHCR, ‘Seven Factors
behind Movement of Syrian Refugees to Europe’, Briefing Note (25 September 2015). Many donors targeted
their policies and programmes to address these needs in the countries neighbouring Syria.
314 The Sustainable Development Goals are the core of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,
adopted by all United Nations member States in 2015. They are 17 goals to end poverty, improve health and
education, reduce inequality, spur economic growth, tackle climate change and protect the environment
with the aim to “leave no one behind”. UNGA, ‘Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development’ (25 September 2015), UN Doc A/RES/70/1.
315 Global Compact on Refugees, paras. 64–84 and 97–99. In addition, two of its four goals aim to: (i) ease
pressures on host countries; and (ii) enhance refugee self-reliance, para. 7.
ENDNOTES 459
316 Internally displaced persons – as citizens of the country in which they are displaced – should be included
in national development plans.
317 For further details, see: Doreen Kibuka-Musoke and Zara Sarzin, ‘Financing for Forced Displacement
Situations’, Reference Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR (October
2021). Criteria for World Bank concessional funds require, among others, that the receiving countries have
in place policies and practices consistent with the principles of the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967
Protocol.
318 Paras. 45–48.
319 Expert Group on Refugee and Internally Displaced Persons Statistics (EGRIS) is part of the UN Statistical
Commission, which was created in 1947 to set global standards for the collection and use of statistics.
320 EGRIS, International Recommendation on Refugee Statistics (IRRS) (March 2018), pp. 81–113. Among the
relevant areas of measurement for integration are: legal and civil status; education, health and economic
status; and social inclusion. Indicators of progress include: citizenship, civil documentation and travel
documents; family status; language proficiency, income and consumption; rights to work, move freely,
own property, open a bank account, and access benefits and justice.
321 Endorsed in 2020 by the UN Statistical Commission, they provide an internationally agreed framework for
the production and dissemination of quality statistics comparable between regions and countries. EGRIS,
International Recommendations on Internally Displaced Persons Statistics (IRIS) (March 2020). They build
on the Interagency Durable Solutions Indicators and Guide for a systematic and collaborative analysis that
engages all key stakeholders. See: Interagency Durable Solutions Indicator Library.
322 Karen Jacobsen and Therese Bjørn Mason, ‘Measuring Progress Towards Solutions in Darfur’, Review, UK Aid
and Durable Solutions Working Group, (May 2020).
323 Varalakshmi Vemuru, Aditya Sarkar, and Andrea Fitri Woodhouse, Impact of Refugees on Hosting
Communities in Ethiopia: A Social Analysis, Report, World Bank (2020).
324 Utz Johann Pape et al., ‘Informing Durable Solutions for Internal Displacement in Nigeria, Somalia, South
Sudan, and Sudan’, Vol. B: ‘Country Case Studies’, Report, World Bank Group (2019)
325 Ibid., pp. viii–ix, 19 (Nigeria); pp. 19–22 (Somalia); pp. 29–30 (South Sudan); and p. 36 (Sudan).
326 Jacobsen and Bjørn Mason, ‘Measuring Progress Towards Solutions in Darfur’; Zeender and Crowther,
‘Reducing Protracted Internal Displacement’.
327 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Colombia, ‘Decree No. 216: Temporary Protection Statute for
Venezuelan Migrants under Temporary Protection’ [Spanish] (1 March 2021); BBC News, ‘Colombia to
grant legal status to Venezuelan migrants’, website (9 February 2021); Julia Symes-Cobb, ‘Colombia to give
temporary protective status to Venezuelan migrants’, Reuters (8 February 2021).
328 UNHCR, ‘UN High Commissioner for Refugees Praises Latin America for Its Commitment to the Inclusion
of All Those in Need of Protection’, Press Release (23 June 2021); Luc Cohen, ‘Ecuador to start new
“normalization process” for Venezuelan migrants’, Reuters (17 June 2021); UNHCR, ‘Ecuador Monthly
Update: May 2021’, website.
329 Jaime Giménez and Ángela Méndez Triviño, ‘For Displaced Venezuelans, Regularization is the Key to Building
Productive Lives’, UNHCR News (23 June 2021).
330 OECD, ‘Boosting Immigrants’ Contribution to Development and Promoting their Integration’, in Interrelations
between Public Policies, Migration and Development (Paris: OECD, 2017); Katy Long et al., ‘Citizenship,
migration and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’, ODI Briefing Paper (September 2017);
OECD/ILO, How Immigrants Contribute to Developing Countries’ Economies, Report (Paris: OECD, 2018),
pp. 62–71; Patrick A. Imam, and Kangni R. Kpodar, ‘Does an Inclusive Citizenship Law Promote Economic
Development?’, Working Paper 19/3, International Monetary Fund (11 January 2019), p. 27.
331 World Bank Group, Forcibly Displaced, p. 113. See also: Albert Kraler, ‘Regularization of Irregular Migrants and
Social Policies: Comparative Perspectives’, Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies 17, 1 (2019): pp. 94–113
for the experience of seven European countries between 2000 and 2014.
PART IV: Improving Life Prospects
1 They were developed through an extensive participatory process of global consultations with a wide array
of partners. This included governments, civil society, academics, the private sector, and international and
national humanitarian, development, peace and human rights organizations. UN General Assembly, ‘The
road to dignity by 2030: ending poverty, transforming all lives and protecting the planet: Synthesis report
of the Secretary-General on the post-2015 sustainable development agenda’ (4 December 2014), UN Doc
A/69/700, paras. 36–47.
2 The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are: 1. No Poverty; 2. Zero Hunger; 3. Good Health and Well-
being; 4. Quality Education; 5. Gender Equality; 6. Clean Water and Sanitation; 7. Affordable and Clean Energy;
8. Decent Work and Economic Growth; 9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure; 10. Reducing Inequalities;
11. Sustainable Cities and Communities; 12. Responsible Consumption and Production; 13. Climate Action;
14. Life Below Water; 15. Life On Land; 16. Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions; 17. Partnerships for the
Goals.
3 In contrast to the Millennium Development Goals that targeted developing nations.
4 UNGA, ‘Transforming our world: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ (25 September 2015), UN
Doc A/RES/70/1.
ENDNOTES 461
...PART IV: Improving Life Prospects...
5 Ibid., para. 23.
6 Some States, like Somalia and Colombia, have included internally displaced persons in their national
development plans. Countries in the IGAD region, where internal displacement is a major concern,
agreed in 2019 to integrate internal displacement in national development plans and policies. See: Devora
Levakova, Adrián Calvo Valderrama, Jacques Ajaruvwa Wathum and Damien Jusselme, ‘Using collaborative
approaches to improve internal displacement data’, Forced Migration Review 65 (November 2020): p. 11;
GP20 Colombia, ‘Prioritising the participation of IDPs in driving solutions’, Forced Migration Review 65
(November 2020): pp. 14–15; Charles Obila and Ariadna Pop, ‘Reflections on State experiences in the IGAD
region’, Forced Migration Review 65 (November 2020): p. 18.
7 States agreed to voluntarily report annually through Voluntary National Reviews (VNR) on their progress
on achieving the SDGs. Of the 42 countries that completed VNRs in 2019, only 13 mentioned refugees as
meriting specific attention and none provided refugee-related data in regard to meeting any of the SDGs.
See: Allison Grossman and Lauren Post, Missing Persons: Refugees Left Out and Left Behind in the SDGs,
Report, International Rescue Committee (September 2019).
8 The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement refer to IDPs as persons or groups of persons who have
been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence. The latter therefore
can include persons who may not be citizens but who have resided in the country for some time, such
as stateless persons. Brookings Institution, Protecting Internally Displaced Persons: A Manual for Law and
Policymakers (October 2008), pp. 12–13.
9 See: Part II. Issues recognized in the report of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Internal
Displacement, Shining a Light on Internal Displacement: A Vision for the Future, Report (September 2021).
10 UNHCR, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2020, Annual Report (2021), p. 19. This number includes
refugees, asylum-seekers and Venezuelans displaced abroad.
11 For example, in Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, the arrival of Syrian refugees led to greater congestion and
increased depreciation of the transportation infrastructure, aggravated existing structural problems in health
services delivery, and led to rising fiscal costs of energy borne by the central governments due to increased
demand. World Bank, The Fallout of War: The Regional Consequences of the Conflict in Syria (Washington,
D.C.: World Bank, 2020), pp. 20–23.
12 World Bank, ‘The Human Capital Project: Frequently Asked Questions’, website.
13 See, for example: World Bank, Forcibly Displaced: Toward a Development Approach Supporting Refugees,
the Internally Displaced, and Their Hosts (Washington, D.C: World Bank, 2017), pp. 49–51, 68.
14 World Bank, Forcibly Displaced, p. 51. The economic and social impact of the Syria conflict is examined in:
World Bank, The Fallout of War. It notes how the economies of Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon were vulnerable.
Lebanon and Jordan depended heavily on foreign and direct investment, which declined, and transit trades
routes were disrupted. Iraq too experienced a decrease in net capital inflows and falling oil prices between
2015 and 2018, as well as increased instability due to the Islamic State insurgency. Additionally, each had low
institutional resilience. See: pp. 4, 12, 27–29.
15 UNHCR, Global Trends 2020, p. 2; UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. These proportions include Palestine
refugees under UNRWA’s mandate. Two smaller nations also have a high proportion of refugees in compar-
ison to their respective populations: Aruba (1 in 6) and Curaçao (1 in 10).
16 World Bank, Forcibly Displaced, p. 57.
17 Ibid., p. 65.
18 See the example on Uganda.
19 World Bank, World Development Report 2018: Learning to Realize Education’s Promise (2018), p. 3.
20 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted 10 December 1948), UN Doc A/RES/217(III), art. 26. The
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights also recognizes “the right of everyone to
education” and that “primary education shall be compulsory and available free to all”, UNGA, International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) (adopted 16 December 1966), UN Doc
A/RES/2200(XXI), art. 13.
21 George Psacharopoulos and Harry Anthony Patrinos, ‘Returns to Investment in Education: A Decennial
Review of the Global Literature’, Policy Research Working Paper 8402, World Bank (April 2018). The authors
analysed data from 139 economies between 1950 and 2014. They found that, for each additional year of
formal education, individual lifetime earnings increased by around 9 per cent on average. The return rates
are highest in low-income countries and higher for girls than for boys. The authors note that future work
will aim to include analyses on returns to school quality, which has only started to emerge in recent years.
For an overview of studies on the return on education, see also: UNICEF, The Investment Case for Education
and Equity, Report (January 2015), pp. 6–9.
22 Donald A. P. Bundy et al., Disease Control Priorities: Child and Adolescent Health and Development vol. 8
(Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2017), pp. 423–435. This study links increased education with lower
mortality rates. Female education, in particular, is linked to significant mortality reductions in low- and
middle-income countries between 1970 and 2010. Summaries and references to further studies confirming
the positive impact of education on health can be found in UNICEF, The Investment Case for Education and
Equity, pp. 10–11.
23 Jeni Klugman et al., Voice and Agency: Empowering Women and Girls for Shared Prosperity (Washington
D.C.: World Bank Group, 2014), p. 77. This study examines the key drivers and determinants of enhancing
voice and agency of women and girls. Among its findings, based on extensive data and surveys, is that
women who have a secondary education or partial secondary education respectively have an 11 and 36 per
cent lower risk of experiencing violence, compared with women with no education. Additionally, a woman
with a husband or partner with some education is at reduced risk of violence, although not as substantial a
reduction as her having an education.
24 “Each additional year of education is linked to an increase in national GDP per capita of between 13 and 35
per cent.” UNICEF and IDMC, ‘Equitable access to quality education for internally displaced children’, Report
(2019), p. 4.
ENDNOTES 463
25 World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1987).
26 The MDGs emerged from the 2000 United Nations Development Declaration which set out eight targets.
UNGA, United Nations Millennium Declaration (18 September 2000), UN Doc A/RES/55/2.
27 UNGA, ‘Transforming our world’ (2015), Goal 4.
28 UN, The Millennium Development Goals Report 2015 (2015), p. 4.
29 Ibid., pp. 24–26.
30 Lant Pritchett, The Rebirth of Education: Schooling Ain’t Learning, Center for Global Development (Baltimore,
MD: Brookings Institution Press, 2013); World Bank, World Development Report 2018, p. 5. See also: World
Bank, Ending Learning Poverty: What will it take?, Report (2019), p. 16.
31 World Bank, World Development Report 2018, p. 3.
32 Eric A. Hanushek, ‘The Role of Cognitive Skills in Economic Development’, Journal of Economic Literature
46, no. 3 (2008): pp. 607–688. In Hanushek’s view, the literature has focused heavily on education level
and not sufficiently on cognitive skills development in examining the link between education and individual
earnings.
33 UN General Assembly, ‘Transforming our world’, Goal 4.
34 Manos Antoninis and Silvia Montoya, ‘The World is Off Track to Deliver on its Education Commitments by
2030’, UNESCO Institute for Statistics blog (9 July 2019).
35 See, for example: World Bank, ‘Education: Overview’, website. In 2016, an estimated $800 million was spent
on refugee education, approximately funded in equal parts by humanitarian and development aid. This
figure excludes funding provided for education of Palestine refugees, which amounted to an additional
$453 million. UNESCO, Global Education Monitoring Report 2019: Migration, displacement and education:
Building Bridges, Not Walls (2019), pp. xix, 250–251. Through the World Bank’s International Development
Association (IDA) special mechanisms IDA18 Sub-window for Refugee and Host Communities and IDA19
Window for Host Communities and Refugees around $330 million has been approved for education projects
as of February 2021. World Bank, ‘World Bank’s Global Program on Forced Displacement – Brief for Partners
Consultation’ (25 March 2021).
36 Dina Abu-Ghaida and Karishma Silva, ‘Educating the Forcibly Displaced: Key Challenges and Opportunities’,
Reference Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR (October 2021), p. 21.
See also: Samer Al-Samarrai et al., ‘Education Finance Watch 2021’, Report, World Bank, 2021, p. 2. The report
highlights that “[t]wo-thirds of low- and lower-middle-income countries, included in the data collected for
[Education Finance Watch] have cut their education budgets since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In
comparison, only a third of upper-middle and high-income countries have reduced their budget.”
37 Abu-Ghaida and Silva, ‘Educating the Forcibly Displaced: Key Challenges and Opportunities’.
38 UNHCR, Missing Out: Refugee Education in Crisis, Report (September 2016), p. 4.
39 UNHCR, ‘Education Brief 1: Education and Protection’ (July 2015), p. 2; UNHCR, ‘Education Brief 2: Out-of-
School Children in Refugee Settings’ (July 2015), p. 1.
40 Abu-Ghaida and Silva, ‘Educating the Forcibly Displaced: Key Challenges and Opportunities’, p. 8. On
the importance of education for the psychosocial well-being of displaced children, see also: UNESCO,
‘Education as healing: Addressing the trauma of displacement through social and emotional learning’, Policy
Paper 38 (April 2019).
41 From the Arabic expression: ‘Mitl al fare’ bein al ard wa al sama’. Interview with author, Ahmed’s name is
changed for reasons of confidentiality. In 2012, the Lebanese Ministry of Education and Higher Education
opened the doors of public schools to Syrian refugee children. Second shifts were subsequently added as
the number of enrolled Syrian refugee children increased. At the end of 2019, more than 200,000 Syrian
refugee children were enrolled in Lebanese public schools. Yet, 44 per cent of the refugee children in
Lebanon at compulsory school age remained out of formal school. Lebanon Inter-Agency Working Group,
‘Education: End of Year 2019 Dashboard’, Factsheet, UNHCR Operational Data Portal.
42 These are refugees under UNHCR’s mandate. UNHCR, Stepping Up: Refugee Education in Crisis, Report
(2019), p. 11. There are a further 1.3 million under UNRWA’s mandate. UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. UNHCR
estimates that 80 per cent of refugees register with the Office. Note that UNHCR estimates that, out of the
79.5 million forcibly displaced people at the end of 2019, 30–34 million are children. UNHCR, Global Trends:
Forced Displacement in 2019, Annual Report (2020), p. 14.
43 Ages 5 to 17 years inclusive. On the difficulties related to disaggregated data on IDPs, see: IDMC, Global
Report on Internal Displacement (May 2021), pp. 17–18. In their joint report of 2019, UNICEF and IDMC
estimate that only 14 per cent of the countries and territories with data on conflict-related IDPs disaggregate
by age, only a quarter of which doing so systematically. UNICEF and IDMC, Equitable Access to Quality
Education for Internally Displaced Children, Report (July 2019), p. 4. Access challenges are discussed further
in this Part.
44 UNHCR, Coming Together For Refugee Education, Report (2020), pp. 9, 23. Comparisons compiled by
Abu-Ghaida and Silva, ‘Educating the Forcibly Displaced: Key Challenges and Opportunities’. Using data
from: World Bank, ‘World Development Indicators’, databank. Recently released UNHCR education data
shows a drop in primary school indicators since 2019 with 68 per cent of refugee children enrolled in
primary school as of March 2020, secondary enrolment having risen to 34 per cent and tertiary education
enrolment up to 5 per cent. UNHCR, Staying the Course: The Challenges Facing Refugee Education, UNHCR
Education Report 2021 (September 2021), pp. 6–7.
45 86 per cent of people displaced across borders are in developing countries. UNHCR, Global Trends 2020,
p. 2. 98 per cent of IDPs are in developing countries (46.9 of 48.0 million). UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder
(IDMC data).
ENDNOTES 465
46 Sarah Dryden-Peterson, ‘Refugee Education: The Crossroads of Globalization’, Educational Researcher 45,
no. 9 (December 2016): p. 477. UNHCR support was primarily through funding a limited number of post-
primary scholarships.
47 In 1990, the World Conference on Education adopted the World Declaration on Education for All and a
Framework for Action. The launch of the global programme was a product of five leading international
agencies: (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations
Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank. Since then, the initiative has grown to represent a broad coalition,
including national governments, civil society groups, development actors, and specialized NGOs. See:
UNESCO, ‘Education for All (EFA)’, International Bureau of Education website.
48 During this period, refugee children in camps were more likely to go to school than other forcibly displaced
children. Marc Sommers, ‘Children, education and war: reaching Education for All (EFA) objectives in
countries affected by conflict’, CPR Working Paper 1, World Bank Group (30 June 2002), pp. 27–28. For
more on the history of education interventions for refugees, see: Dryden-Peterson, ‘Refugee Education’.
49 UNHCR, Revised (1995) Guidelines for Educational Assistance to Refugees (Geneva: UNHCR, 1995), Part III:
‘Refugee Education in Large Scale Emergencies, Oriented to Durable Solutions’.
50 Dryden-Peterson, ‘Refugee Education’.
51 UNHCR, 2012–2016 Education Strategy (January 2012).
52 UNHCR, Refugee Education 2030: A Strategy for Refugee Inclusion (2019).
53 UNGA, Global Compact on Refugees (2 August 2018), UN Doc A/73/12 (Part II), para. 68. National education
systems can be either formal or informal. Formal education refers to programmes recognized and
certified by a Ministry of Education. Non-formal education programmes are not certified by a Ministry of
Education, although they may take place in an educational institution. They include vocational and technical
programmes as well as literacy, numeracy, life skills and recreational activities, which may not lead to a
certificate. Abu-Ghaida and Silva, ‘Educating the Forcibly Displaced: Key Challenges and Opportunities’.
54 UNHCR, Coming Together For Refugee Education, p. 9. The data is based on data from 12 countries that
host more than half of the 20.4 million refugees under UNHCR’s mandate, p. 10. This refers to the total
number of children in primary school, regardless of age.
55 UNHCR, Coming Together For Refugee Education, p. 9; UNHCR, Stepping Up, p. 23.
56 UNHCR, Coming Together For Refugee Education, p. 9. Both rates were well below the global average of 76
per cent. World Bank, World Development Indicator. Further study is needed to compare these rates with
local populations. This is part of overall commitments to improve responses to forced displacement in a
manner that also benefits hosts.
57 UNHCR, Coming Together For Refugee Education, p. 5; UNHCR, Staying the Course, p. 32; Naomi
Nyamweya, ‘Displacement, Girls’ Education and COVID-19’, Global Partnership for Education blog (26 June
2020).
58 Quentin Wodon et al., Missed Opportunities: The High Cost of Not Educating Girls, Report, World Bank (July
2018), p. 4. The report notes that women with some level of primary education earn 14–19 per cent more
than those with no education at all. Women with secondary education, however, earn on average double
the amount of those with no education. The difference is even more pronounced for those with tertiary
education, who earn nearly three times the income of those without any education.
59 Wodon et al., ‘Missed Opportunities’ p. 4; Klugman et al., Voice and Agency, pp. 2, 38, 49, 103, 107–111. This
study cites many case studies to support this correlation. Moreover, women who marry early have a reduced
chance of literacy, are more likely to experience intimate partner violence, have a higher incidence of HIV in
some contexts, and have less human agency overall.
60 For an overview of challenges in education for internally displaced persons (IDPs), see: UNICEF, IDMC,
‘Equitable Access to Quality Education for Internally Displaced Children’.
61 The GCPEA is a non-profit coalition of organizations that includes: co-chairs Human Rights Watch and
Save the Children; the Council for At-Risk Academics (Cara); the Institute of International Education (IIE);
UNHCR; the Education Above All Foundation; Plan International; UNICEF; and UNESCO. Global Coalition
to Protect Education from Attack, GCPEA, Education Under Attack: A Global Study of Attacks on Schools,
Universities, Their Students and Staff, 2017-2019, Report (2020), pp. 8–13. Over two thirds of the attacks
directly targeted schools and included arson, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), airstrikes, ground strikes,
raids and looting.
62 Abu-Ghaida and Silva, ‘Educating the Forcibly Displaced: Key Challenges and Opportunities’, pp. 8–9.
63 For those who have completed their secondary education prior to flight, a lack of official school certificates
can be an additional barrier. UNHCR, Refugee Education 2030, p. 13; RRM for Higher Education in
Emergencies and Global Platform for Syrian Students, ‘Higher Education in Emergencies – On the Road to
2030’, Report (January 2020).
64 Rez Gardi, ‘Access to higher education for forcibly displaced persons: challenges, good practices and
suggestions for the future’, Reference Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention,
UNHCR (October 2021). Rez Gardi is a Kurdish New Zealander and spent the first six years of her life in a
refugee camp in Pakistan.
65 UNESCO, Global Education Monitoring Report 2019, p. 235.
66 Abu-Ghaida and Silva, ‘Educating the Forcibly Displaced: Key Challenges and Opportunities’, p. 10.
67 Secondary and tertiary education are more expensive, requiring specialized teachers, and demand exceeds
supply. In addition to not being able to afford the cost of post-primary education, forcibly displaced persons
may not be able to forego working in order to attend school for financial reasons. For more on this, see:
Abu-Ghaida and Silva, ‘Educating the Forcibly Displaced: Key Challenges and Opportunities’.
ENDNOTES 467
68 Programmes designed for this purpose are often referred to as accelerated education programmes which
UNHCR describes as “flexible, age-appropriate programmes, run in an accelerated timeframe, which aim to
provide access to education for disadvantaged, over-age, out-of-school children and youth – particularly
those who missed out on, or had their education interrupted due to poverty, marginalisation, conflict and
crisis”. UNHCR, ‘Accelerated Education’, website.
69 Abu-Ghaida and Silva, ‘Educating the Forcibly Displaced: Key Challenges and Opportunities’, p. 9.
70 Mohammed Al-Sabahi and Ghaidaa Motahar, ‘Using public schools as shelter for IDPs in Yemen’, Forced
Migration Review 55 (June 2017); Mercy Corps, ‘The promise of education brings Syrian and Jordanian girls
together’, blog (10 February 2015).
71 Financing of forced displacement responses is discussed in Part V.
72 IGAD is a regional intergovernmental platform in the East and Horn of Africa with the following members:
Djibouti; Eritrea; Ethiopia; Kenya; Somalia; South Sudan; Sudan; and Uganda. For more on the initiative, see:
UNHCR, Refugee Education 2030, p. 31.
73 The changes in the refugee gross enrolment ratio between 2018/19 and 2019/20 were from 73 per cent to
76 per cent for primary school and from 13 per cent to 11 per cent for secondary school. UNHCR Education
statistics.
74 In Ethiopia, the changes in the refugee gross enrolment ratio between 2018/19 and 2019/20 were from 67
per cent to 66 per cent for primary school and from 11 per cent to 13 per cent for secondary school. UNHCR
Education statistics.
75 UNHCR, ‘Kenya: Education’, website.
77 Source: Jennifer Roberts, UNHCR Senior Education Officer in reference to Turkey’s Ministry of Education
data; No Lost Generation, Continued Learning for All Syrian Children and Youth, Report (2020), p. 6. The
report provides a table showing trends 2017–2020.
78 Ibid., p. 5. Enrolment rates for refugee students overall are less. The most recent collection by UNHCR in
Egypt reported primary and secondary enrolment rates of 58 per cent and 54 per cent respectively. UNHCR
Education statistics. At the 2019 Global Refugee Forum, Egypt pledged to advance inclusion more uniformly
across all refugee groups. UNHCR, ‘Pledges & Contributions Dashboard’, Global Refugee Forum Digital
Platform.
79 No Lost Generation, Continued Learning for All Syrian Children and Youth, p. 6. This is a significant decline
from 280,000 in 2019 and reflects reductions in global refugee enrolment experienced due to COVID-19
in 2020.
80 No Lost Generation, Continued Learning for All Syrian Children and Youth, p. 6.
81 Ibid., pp. 4, 6.
82 Ibid., pp. 4, 6. Access and retention of school-aged Syrian refugee children in the Kurdistan region remains a
serious challenge despite efforts by the Kurdistan Regional Government Ministry of Education and education
partners. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, primary school enrolment rates were just 51 per cent in camps
and 29 per cent in urban areas. A substantial share was enrolled in non-formal education. A strategy to
support the inclusion of refugees in the national system has been developed by education partners and
the KRG Ministry of Education, which is still to be formally adopted by the Council of Ministers. No Lost
Generation, Continued Learning for All Syrian Children and Youth, pp. 4–6; Camille Le Coz et al., ‘A Bridge
to Firmer Ground: Learning from International Experiences to Support Pathways to Solutions in the Syrian
Refugee Context’, Research Report, Durable Solutions Platform and Migration Policy Institute (March 2021),
p. 55.
83 Source: Jennifer Roberts, UNHCR Senior Education Officer. Limited availability in the public system refers to
those schools where Arabic is the language of instruction.
84 In Brazil, the gross enrolment rate for grades 1–9 is around 74 per cent among Venezuelans compared to
100 per cent among Brazilians. In high school, it is 40 per cent for Venezuelans compared to 80 per cent
for Brazilians. See: Mrittika Shamsuddin et al., ‘Integration of Venezuelan Refugees and Migrants in Brazil’,
Policy Research Working Paper 9605, World Bank Group (March 2021), pp. 18–20. See also: UNHCR/World
Bank, ‘Brazil’s policies boost inclusion of Venezuelans, but challenges remain’, Joint Press Release (18 May
2021); On Colombia, see: UNHCR, Staying the Course, p. 12.
85 R4V Inter-Agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela, Regional Refugee
and Migrant Response Plan (RMRP) For Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela: January–December 2021
(December 2020), pp. 64–65, 88–89, 105–106, 129–130; Andrew Selee and Jessica Bolter, ‘An Uneven
Welcome: Latin American and Caribbean Responses to Venezuelan and Nicaraguan Migration’, Report,
Migration Policy Institute (February 2020), pp. 30–34.
86 Andrew Selee and Jessica Bolter, ‘An Uneven Welcome’, p. 31. The authors provide several examples, such
as Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uruguay. See also: Diana Rodríguez-Gómez, ‘Bureaucratic Encounters
and the Quest for Educational Access among Colombian Refugees in Ecuador’, Journal on Education in
Emergencies 5, no. 1 (2019): pp. 62–93.
87 Global Education Monitoring Report Team, Global Education Monitoring Report 2019, p. 236. This report
estimates on the basis of available data that the share of household spending on education is approximately
18 per cent in high-income, 25 per cent in middle-income and 33 per cent in low-income countries.
88 For a more detailed discussion on data needed in the education sector and why, see: Abu-Ghaida and Silva,
‘Educating the Forcibly Displaced: Key Challenges and Opportunities’.
89 As noted, most do not report systematically on IDPs. Of the 42 countries that reported progress on the
SDGs in 2019, only 13 mentioned refugees as meriting specific attention and none provided refugee-related
data in regard to meeting any of the Sustainable Development Goals’ targets.
ENDNOTES 469
90 Johannes Hoogeveen and Utz Pape (eds.), Data Collection in Fragile States: Innovations from Africa and
Beyond (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020): referenced in Abu-Ghaida and Silva, ‘Educating the Forcibly
Displaced: Key Challenges and Opportunities’, p. 15.
91 UNESCO, ‘Strengthening EMIS and Data for Increased Resilience to Crises – International Conference
2020’, Concept Note. Conference held in UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, 21–23 April 2020. Together with
Education Cannot Wait and NORCAP (Norwegian Refugee Council’s pool of expert personnel, who support
humanitarian, development and peacebuilding organizations). NRC, ‘About NORCAP’, website.
92 Abu-Ghaida and Silva, ‘Educating the Forcibly Displaced: Key Challenges and Opportunities’ p. 21.
93 World Bank, World Development Report 2018, p. 108. The report notes an example of this growth: “[T]
he number of impact evaluations of interventions intended to improve learning outcomes in developing
countries rose from 19 in 2000 to 299 by 2016.”
94 As Abu-Ghaida and Silva explain, “data collection has generally been treated as a by-product of the intervention
rather than a more deliberate activity to inform evidence-based policymaking”. “Data collection is generally
reflected through reporting to Education or Protection Clusters, or from individual organizations to donors.
This data tends to be program-specific and not entirely adequate to respond to data requirement for policy
design.” Abu-Ghaida and Silva, ‘Educating the Forcibly Displaced: Key Challenges and Opportunities’, p. 17.
95 On the need for more impact evaluations in forced displacement contexts generally, see: Paola Elice,
‘Impact Evaluations in Forced Displacement Contexts: A Guide for Practitioners’, Reference Paper for the
70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR (October 2021).
96 Ragui Assaad, Thomas Ginn, and Mohamed Saleh, ‘Impact of Syrian Refugees on Education Outcomes in
Jordan’, Working Paper 1214, Economic Research Forum (September 2018).
97 Semih Tumen, ‘The Effect of Refugees on Native Adolescents’ Test Scores: Quasi-Experimental Evidence
from Pisa’, Working Paper 1356, Economic Research Forum (October 2019).
98 Abu-Ghaida and Silva, ‘Educating the Forcibly Displaced: Key Challenges and Opportunities’, pp. 27–28.
The authors note that in 2016, combined humanitarian and developmental support to refugee education
(excluding Palestine refugees) amounted to $800 million, which is six times less than what is required
to support refugee children enrolment from kindergarten through grade 12. See also: Global Education
Monitoring Report Team, Global Education Monitoring Report 2019, p. 252.
99 World Bank and UNHCR, The Global Cost of Inclusive Refugee Education, Joint Report (January 2021),
p. 36. This does not include Palestine refugee children, for whom an estimated $443 million would be
required in addition per year.
100 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, ‘Global military expenditure sees largest annual increase
in a decade — says SIPRI — reaching $1917 billion in 2019’, Press Release (27 April 2020). In 2019, global
military expenditure stood at $1,917 billion, meaning that on average over $5 billion was spent on military
each day.
101 Education Cannot Wait (ECW), Winning the Human Race: 2020 Annual Results Report (July 2021), p. 12.
102 This includes the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). Launched in 2002, GPE is a global fund dedicated
to education in lower-income countries. It has made support to conflict-affected and fragile countries a
priority area of focus. GPE, ‘Education in Crisis Situations’, website. Also beginning over nine years ago,
Educate A Child (EAC), a programme of Education Above All, aims to trigger significant breakthroughs and a
material difference in the lives of children who have no access to primary education. EAC has been helping
millions of the hardest to reach out-of-school children (OOSC), including refugees, around the world
realize their right to a quality education.
103 These relatively new funding mechanisms known as IDA18 Sub-window for Refugee and Host Communities
and IDA-19 Window for Host Communities and Refugees are discussed more in Part V. The funding they
have provided for education represents some 15 per cent of the $2.2 billion accessed so far. ‘World Bank’s
Global Program on Forced Displacement – Brief for Partners Consultation, pp. 5–6.
104 For middle-income countries that may have less access to development aid, it promotes reduced lending
terms, and loan repayment guarantees to increase their access to financing. The Education Commission,
‘International Finance Facility for Education’, website; Abu-Ghaida and Silva, ‘Educating the Forcibly
Displaced: Key Challenges and Opportunities’, p. 32.
105 Global Compact on Refugees (2018).
107 Ibid.
108 World Bank Group, World Bank Group Strategy for Fragility, Conflict, and Violence 2020–2025, Board
Report (February 2020), p. 11.
109 This was also one of the commitments made at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit. The commitment
was made by all those engaged in development and humanitarian fields to work based on the “comparative
advantage among actors, whether local, national or international, public or private” towards collective
outcomes which reinforce national and local systems. UNGA, ‘One humanity: shared responsibility: Report
of the Secretary-General for the World Humanitarian Summit’, Annex: ‘Agenda for Humanity’ (2 February
2016), UN Doc A/70/709. The fact that many partners in education draw from the same donors also makes
coordination essential, a role some have suggested UNESCO could possibly play. Abu-Ghaida and Silva,
‘Educating the Forcibly Displaced: Key Challenges and Opportunities’.
110 Including those related to their legal status.
111 Isabel Arciniegas Guaneme et al., ‘COVID-19 and Forcibly Displaced People: addressing the impacts and
responding to the challenges’, Reference Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention,
UNHCR (October 2021), pp. 28–31.
ENDNOTES 471
112 Such as through television, radio, and interactive text messaging. UNICEF, ‘COVID-19: Are Children Able
to Continue Learning During School Closures’, Factsheet (August 2020). Another study estimates that
2.2 billion people aged below 25 years did not have internet access at home. UNICEF and International
Telecommunication Union, How Many Children and Young People Have Internet Access at Home?
Estimating digital connectivity during the COVID-19 pandemic, Report (2020).
113 Alastair Westgarth, ‘Saying goodbye to Loon’, Medium (21 January 2021).
114 Amy Lynn Smith (UNHCR Innovation Service), ‘The Pursuit of Refugees’ Inclusion in Digital Connectivity’,
Medium (6 August 2021).
116 Ibid. The qualifications of refugee teachers are often not recognized by host governments. This as well as
general prohibitions on refugees engaging in employment, means that they cannot help address teacher
shortages. Some qualified refugee teachers can support education informally and can be paid nominal
amounts of incentive pay by international and non-governmental organizations.
117 UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, ‘Sustainable Development Goals’, website, Goal 3.
118 Mercedes de Onis and Monika Blössner, ‘The World Health Organization Global Database on Child Growth
and Malnutrition: methodology and applications’, International Journal of Epidemiology 32, no. 4 (August
2003): pp. 518–526. Data shows that undernutrition impedes children’s physical growth as well as their
mental development. It also leaves them “more susceptible to infectious diseases, such as malaria, meningitis
and pneumonia”.
119 See, for example: World Bank, ‘Poverty and Health’, website.
120 Michael J. Toole and Ronald J. Waldman, ‘Prevention of Excess Mortality in Refugee and Displaced
Populations in Developing Countries’, Journal of the American Medical Association 263, no. 24 (27 June
1990): pp. 3296–3302. A study of four large humanitarian crises in the mid–2000s occurring in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan found significantly higher mortality rates in
IDPs than for refugees and host populations affected by the crises. The authors speculated that the reason
for the differences could be that humanitarian programmes faced fewer obstacles in reaching refugee
areas than areas of high IDP concentrations. Peter Heudtlass, Niko Speybroeck, and Debarati Guha-Sapir,
‘Excess mortality in refugees, internally displaced persons and resident populations in complex humanitarian
emergencies (1998–2012) – insights from operational data’, Conflict and Health 10, no. 15 (2016): pp. 1–11.
121 Máire A. Connolly et al., ‘Communicable diseases in complex emergencies: impact and challenges’, The
Lancet 364, no. 9449 (2004): pp. 1974–1983. In 2020, malaria was the single most common cause of
morbidity reported among refugees (20 per cent), followed by upper and lower respiratory tract infections.
UNHCR, 2020 Annual Public Health Global Review (June 2021); Oluwakemi C. Amodu, Magdalena S. Richter,
and Bukola O. Salami, ‘A Scoping Review of the Health of Conflict-Induced Internally Displaced Women in
Africa’, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17, no. 4 (2020): pp. 16–17.
122 An adequate level of health care, including immunizations can help to mitigate this along with monitoring
measures and control of infections. Angel N. Desai et al., ‘Infectious disease outbreaks among forcibly
displaced persons: an analysis of ProMED reports 1996–2016’, Conflict and Health 14, no. 49 (2020): p. 8.
ProMED is a programme of the International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID), launched in 1994 to
identify unusual health events related to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases and toxins affecting
humans, animals and plants. At the same time, there remains very little data or surveillance of tropical
diseases, like Dengue, Zika, Chagas, Chikungunya, Trypanosomiasis, to which forcibly displaced populations
are also exposed.
123 See, for example: WHO Regional Office for Europe, ‘Health of refugees and migrants: Regional situation
analysis, practices, experiences, lessons learned and ways forward’, Report (2018), pp. 8–11. The report
highlights that, despite differences in health needs resulting from displacement itself or the situation in
countries of origin, many health needs of refugees and migrants in the EU are shared with those of the host
population or the overall population in regions of origin more generally. For example, the report notes that
chronic and non-communicable diseases are important contributors to refugee and migrant morbidity in
Europe and are also increasingly prevalent among the general population globally and the population in
low- and middle-income countries, in particular.
124 In some contexts, this is not possible as displacement is in remote underserviced areas or areas of ongoing
conflict, and/or displaced populations distrust services provided by the State where the State is the cause
of their displacement.
125 By Dr Jina Swartz (FMedSci), Professor David Cantor (Internal Displacement Research Programme), and
Professor Bayard Roberts (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine). Their brief was based on
discussions held at an interdisciplinary workshop in February 2021 on key health issues facing IDPs, gaps
in knowledge and policy implications. ‘IDP Health and How it can be Improved’, workshop at Refugee
Law Initiative, ‘Panel Launch: Enabling Health Solutions for Internally Displaced Persons’ (19 April 2021); UK
Academy of Medical Sciences (AMS), Internal Displacement Research Programme (IDRP), and School of
Advanced Study (University of London), ‘Policy Brief: Internal Displacement and Health – Submitted to the
UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Internal Displacement’ (April 2021).
126 Global Compact on Refugees (2018), para. 72. Specifically: “States and relevant stakeholders will contribute
resources and expertise to expand and enhance the quality of national health systems to facilitate access by
refugees and host communities.”
127 Ibid., para. 73. Given the concern of host countries to not be compelled to adopt an inclusion strategy, the
Global Compact on Refugees also provides that inclusion in health systems is subject to national health care
laws and policies.
128 See, for example: G. B. Masefield, ‘Food and nutrition procedures in times of disaster’, FAO Nutritional
Studies, no. 21 (1967): pp. 1–96. As it turns out, these were not always inclusive of the specific nutritional
needs of women as discussed further in this Part.
129 Toole and Waldman, ‘Prevention of Excess Mortality in Refugee and Displaced Populations in Developing
Countries’: p. 3297.
ENDNOTES 473
130 Ibid.: pp. 3329–3301.
131 Marcos Cueto, ‘The ORIGINS of Primary Health Care and SELECTIVE Primary Health Care’, American Journal
of Public Health 94, no. 11 (November 2004): p. 1865.
132 International Conference on Primary Health Care, ‘Declaration of Alma-Ata’ (Alma-Ata, USSR: 1978).
133 See, for example: WHO, ‘Building the economic case for primary health care: a scoping review’ (2018).
134 Ninette Kelley, International NGO Working Group on Refugee Women, and International Consultation
on Refugee Women (eds.), Working with Refugee Women: A Practical Guide (Geneva: International NGO
Working Group on Refugee Women, 1989), pp. 26–27. Deirdre Wulf, Refugee Women and Reproductive
Health Care: Reassessing Priorities (New York: Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children,
1994), pp. 3, 8.
135 In regard to reproductive health, a 1999 review in forced displacement contexts found that, while
reproductive health was on the agenda for agencies and more resources were going to support it, there
were barriers to overcome. These included the hesitation of some organizations and “field workers to
prioritize reproductive health”. Celia Palmer, Louisiana Lush, and Anthony Zwi, ‘The emerging international
policy agenda for reproductive health services in conflict settings’, Social Science & Medicine 49, no. 12
(December 1999): pp. 1689–1703.
136 Discussed in Part V under Partnerships.
137 See, for example, Jordan: Jordan Times, ‘Refugee medics employed in Jordanian COVID-19 response’
(4 September 2021). In Canada, the Canadian Government announced a special programme for asylum-
seekers who have worked in the COVID-19 health-care response to be eligible to apply for permanent
residency. However, advocates for frontline workers, dubbed “guardian angels”, have raised concerns about
the low numbers approved for residency thus far. Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration
(CIMM), ‘Guardian Angels (Asylum Claimants Working on the Front Lines)’, Government of Canada website
(8 March 2021); Jacob Serebrin, ‘Few Quebec “guardian angels” who worked in health care during pandemic
granted residency’, The Canadian Press (24 March 2021); Stefan Christoff, ‘Canada is deporting its “guardian
angels”’, Al Jazeera (23 July 2021).
138 Liz Miller, ‘The Irony of Refuge: Gender-Based Violence against Female Refugees in Africa’, Human Rights
& Human Welfare: Minority Rights Digest (2011): pp. 77–90. In regard to the Balkan Wars, see: Caroline
Kennedy-Pipe and Penny Stanley, ‘Rape in War: Lessons of the Balkan Conflicts in the 1990s’, The
International Journal of Human Rights 4, no. 3–4 (2000): pp. 67–84. The authors also review how rape has
been a common feature of recorded histories of war generally. UNHCR, The State of The World’s Refugees
2000: Fifty Years of Humanitarian Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 87; Amodu, Richter,
and Salami, ‘A Scoping Review of the Health of Conflict-Induced Internally Displaced Women in Africa’:
pp. 4–10.
139 Comprehensive reproductive health services were further advanced through adherence to the Minimum
Initial Service Package to respond to reproductive health needs at the onset of a humanitarian crisis. See:
United Nations Population Fund, ‘Minimum Initial Service Package (MISP) for SRH in Crisis Situations’,
website (November 2020). Community-based prevention efforts can include strategies to promote positive
behaviours, communication activities to increase awareness on relevant legal rights, empower women and
girls and engage men and boys in understanding and promoting gender equality. For further examples and
evaluations of recent community-based activities designed to prevent sexual- and gender-based violence,
see: Teresa Hanley, ‘SGBV response, risk mitigation and prevention in humanitarian crises: A synthesis of
findings from evaluations of UNHCR operations 2019’ UNHCR Report, September 2019, pp. 17–18; N. Glass
et al., ‘Evaluating the communities care program: best practice for rigorous research to evaluate gender
based violence prevention and response programs in humanitarian settings’, Conflict and Health 12, no. 5
(2018): p. 5.
140 Inter-Agency Standing Committee, ‘Policy: Protection in Humanitarian Action’ (October 2016).
141 Evidence shows that working with communities to combat sexual- and gender-based violence tends
to lessen the incidence and improve safety overall. These can include strategies to promote positive
behaviours, communication activities to increase awareness on relevant legal rights, empower women and
girls and engage men and boys in understanding and promoting gender equality. For further examples and
evaluations of recent community-based activities designed to prevent sexual- and gender-based violence,
see: Hanley, ‘SGBV response, risk mitigation and prevention in humanitarian crises’, pp. 17–18; N. Glass et
al., ‘Evaluating the communities care program’; UNHCR, How Night-Time Street Lighting Affects Refugee
Communities – A population-based assessment of community lighting in Northern Uganda’s Rhino Camp
refugee settlement, Evaluation Report (December 2017). The assessment found that the lighting prevented
violence and stimulated productive night-time activity such as reading or studying. Equally important, the
community engagement and management helped to ensure the success of the initiative.
142 Among the early examples are refugees who fled from Ethiopia’s Ogaden region to Somalia in 1978–1980.
They were included in national tuberculosis prevention and response strategies. Paul Shears, ‘Tuberculosis
Control in Somali Refugee Camps’, Tubercle 65, no. 2 (1984): p. 112. In subsequent years, this approach
was systematically encouraged. WHO Global Tuberculosis Programme and UNHCR, Tuberculosis Control
in Refugee Situations: An Inter-Agency Field Manual (Geneva: WHO, 1997). The manual and its successor
edition also contain further examples of early government-led tuberculosis control programmes that
include refugees. WHO and UNHCR, Tuberculosis Care and Control in Refugee and Displaced Populations:
An Inter-Agency Field Manual (Geneva: WHO, 2007).
143 UNHCR maintains a dashboard that shows that almost all countries which receive funding from the Global
Fund include refugees in tuberculosis responses through national systems. UNHCR, ‘Public Health Services
Survey – Inclusion of Refugees into National Health Systems’, website.
144 See, for example: M. O. Santos-Ferreira et al., ‘A Study of Seroprevalence of HIV-1 and HIV-2 in Six Provinces
of People’s Republic of Angola: Clues to the Spread of HIV Infection’, Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndromes 3, no. 8 (1990): pp. 780–786.
145 Paul B. Spiegel, ‘HIV/AIDS among Conflict-Affected and Displaced Populations: Dispelling Myths and Taking
Action’, Disasters 28, no. 3 (2004): pp. 322–339. Note: The UN General Assembly special session on HIV/
AIDs in June 2001, made a declaration of commitment to support HIV/AIDS prevention and treatments of
ENDNOTES 475
“populations destabilized by armed conflict […]” including forcibly displaced persons. UNGA, ‘Declaration
of Commitment on HIV/AIDS’ (2001), pp. 36–37. In their study of ProMed reports, Desai et al. found that,
while the reported incidence of diseases in excess of what would normally be expected increased in forced
displacement contexts between 1996 and 2016, the majority were locally acquired. Desai et al., ‘Infectious
Disease Outbreaks among Forcibly Displaced Persons’: p 8.
146 UNAIDS, ‘About UNAIDS’, website; UN, ‘UNAIDS: Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS’, website.
147 In regard to guidance for humanitarian agencies, see: Inter-Agency Standing Committee, ‘Guidelines: HIV/
AIDS Interventions in Emergency Settings’ (2003); IASC, ‘Guidelines for Addressing HIV in Humanitarian
Settings’ (2010). UNAIDS, Global AIDS Strategy 2021–2026: End Inequalities. End AIDS. (2021).
148 United Nations Foundation and UNHCR, ‘Inclusion of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons in 2016–
2019 Global Fund Applications’, Report (2020). Established in 2002, the Global Fund is an international
financing instrument, which provides $4 billion each year to support programmes in over 100 countries.
Global Fund, ‘Overview’, website.
149 The study looked at applications received 2017–2019 as compared to those received 2014–2016. United
Nations Foundation and UNHCR, ‘Inclusion of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons in 2016–2019
Global Fund Applications’.
150 In March 2021, UNAIDS observed that there had been progress in the inclusion of refugees and IDPs in
programmes in humanitarian settings. It also noted that “a survey of 48 refugee hosting countries found
that in 90% of countries refugees living with HIV have the right to access ART through national health
systems” and, in 82 per cent of host countries, refugees were “receiving certain HIV services through Global
Fund grants”. However, it also found that more work was needed to achieve equitable access to national
programmes for refugees and IDPs. UNAIDS, Global AIDS Strategy 2021–2026, pp. 86–87.
151 United Nations Foundation and UNHCR, ‘Inclusion of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons in 2016–
2019 Global Fund Applications’.
152 Isabel Arciniegas Guaneme et al., ‘COVID-19 and Forcibly Displaced People’, pp. 17–19.
153 UN, ‘I Believe in Humanity – Jean-Nicolas Beuze Interviewed by Melissa Fleming’, Awake at Night podcast,
season 3, episode 18 (19 February 2021). He noted the tough choices people make daily — noting that, if
you have limited income and if people need to choose between using their meagre resources to buy soap
or rice — the choice was clear.
154 As of June 2021, UNHCR reported that “of the 126 countries with a refugee population of more than 500
people, […] 123 have either explicitly included refugees in their vaccination plans or provided assurances
that they will do so. […] refugees and asylum-seekers have begun receiving COVID-19 vaccinations in 91 of
the 162 countries monitored”. UNHCR, ‘UNHCR calls on states to remove barriers to access to COVID-19
vaccines for refugees’, Press Release (24 June 2021).
155 The IMF estimated that a further 95 million people have joined the ranks of the extreme poor as a result
of the pandemic. IMF, World Economic Outlook: Managing Divergent Recoveries (April 2021); World Bank,
‘COVID-19 to Add as Many as 150 Million Extreme Poor by 2021’, Press Release (7 October 2020).
156 For a review of health outcomes for populations exposed to torture and other trauma in conflict and
displacement setting, see: Zachary Steel et al., ‘Association of Torture and Other Potentially Traumatic
Events With Mental Health Outcomes Among Populations Exposed to Mass Conflict and Displacement:
A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis’, Journal of the American Medical Association 302, no. 5 (2009):
pp. 547–548.
157 Some of these are discussed in the following: Derrick Silove, Peter Ventevogel, and Susan Rees, ‘The
contemporary refugee crisis: an overview of mental health challenges’, World Psychiatry 16, no. 2 (June
2017): p. 132; Matthew Porter and Nick Haslam, ‘Predisplacement and Postdisplacement Factors Associated
With Mental Health of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons: A Meta-analysis’, Journal of the American
Medical Association 294, no. 5 (2005): pp. 602–612; Amodu, Richter, and Salami, ‘A Scoping Review of
the Health of Conflict-Induced Internally Displaced Women in Africa’: pp. 10–11; Maureen Seguin, ‘Aspects
of loss and coping among internally displaced populations: Towards a psychosocial approach’, in Elena
Fiddian-Qasmiyeh (ed.), Refuge in a Moving World: Tracing refugee and migrant journeys across disciplines
(London: UCL Press, 2020), pp. 300–301; Elisa Van Ee, Trudy Mooren, and Rolf Kleber, ‘Broken mirrors:
Shattered relationships within refugee families’, in Ruth Pat-Horenczyk, Danny Brom, Juliet M. Vogel (eds.),
Helping Children Cope with Trauma: Individual, Family and Community Perspectives (NY: Routledge, 2014),
pp. 146–147.
158 Silove, Ventevogel, and Rees, ‘The contemporary refugee crisis’: p. 134; Kenneth E. Miller and Andrew
Rasmussen, ‘War exposure, daily stressors, and mental health in conflict and post-conflict settings: Bridging
the divide between trauma-focused and psychosocial frameworks’, Social Science & Medicine 70, no. 1
(2010): pp. 7–16; Kenneth E. Miller and Andrew Rasmussen, ‘The mental health of civilians displaced by
armed conflict: an ecological model of refugee distress’, Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences 26, no. 2
(April 2017): pp. 129–138.
159 Silove, Ventevogel, and Rees, ‘The contemporary refugee crisis’: pp. 131–132.
160 Porter and Haslam, ‘Predisplacement and Postdisplacement Factors Associated With Mental Health of
Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons’.
161 Fiona Charlson et al., ‘New WHO prevalence estimates of mental disorders in conflict settings: a systematic
review and meta-analysis’, The Lancet 394, no. 10194 (20 July 2019): pp. 241, 245.
162 IASC, ‘Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings’ (2007). The guidelines
linked the provision of psychosocial support and mental health in an integrated manner.
163 UNHCR, Operational Guidance: Mental Health & Psychosocial Support Programming for Refugee Operations
(2013).
164 WHO and UNHCR, mhGAP Humanitarian Intervention Guide (mhGAP-HIG) (2015).
ENDNOTES 477
165 Such as depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorders.
166 Silove, Ventevogel, and Rees, ‘The contemporary refugee crisis’: p. 135.
167 In Silove, Ventevogel, and Rees, ‘The contemporary refugee crisis’. The authors make the point that “special
populations or vulnerable groups such as former child soldiers and survivors of gender-based violence may
require specifically designed programs” (p. 136). Examples of special programmes for vulnerable groups can
be found in the following: War Child, Reclaiming Dreams: Prioritising the Mental Health and Psychosocial
Wellbeing of Children in Conflict, Report (2018); UNFPA, ‘Healing when Crisis Strikes’, Report (2019).
168 Hippocrates, ‘Precepts’, in Hippocrates: Ancient Medicine. Airs, Waters, Places. Epidemics 1 and 3. The Oath.
Precepts. Nutriment, trans. W. H. S. Jones (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1923), pp. 303–334.
169 See, for example: Silove, Ventevogel, and Rees, ‘The contemporary refugee crisis’: p. 134. In discussing the
brief and structured cognitive behavioural therapies that have been devised for use amongst refugee and
post-conflict populations, they note some of the advantages. These include that “a) they can be adapted to
local cultures; b) they allow rapid training of front-line personnel; and c) they facilitate task-shifting, that is,
the transfer of skills from professionals such as psychologists to lay or community workers, a vital provision
to allow uptake and dissemination in settings where there is a severe lack of mental health specialists”. They
also note that they are time-limited and low cost which contributes to their dissemination and integration
within routine public health or community centre settings. Rasheed Hussein Rasheed, ‘Refugees deliver
mental health services to locked down camps in Iraq’, UNHCR News (8 July 2020); Victoria Thomas and
Emily Álvarez, ‘Venezuelan counsellors offer fellow refugees “Psychological First Aid”’, UNHCR News (14 May
2020).
170 Silove, Ventevogel, and Rees, ‘The contemporary refugee crisis’: p. 135.
171 Ibid.: p. 132.
172 World Health Organization, ‘The top 10 causes of death’, website (9 December 2020).
173 See the following for research on this in conflict-affected settings: Paul B. Spiegel et al., ‘Health-care needs
of people affected by conflict: future trends and changing frameworks’, The Lancet 375, no. 9711 (2010):
p. 342. See also: UNHCR, 2020 Annual Public Health Global Review; UNHCR, ‘Access to Healthcare’, website.
174 Jennifer Leaning, Paul Spiegel, and Jeff Crisp, ‘Public health equity in refugee situations’, Conflict and
Health 5, no. 6 (2011): p. 3. In the Middle East, for example, both host and forcibly displaced populations
suffer from a wide variety of non-communicable diseases, including hypertension, diabetes, heart disease
and cancers. In 2014, a survey of Syrian refugees and host communities was conducted in Lebanon and
identified the prevalence and responses to five non-communicable diseases: hypertension; cardiovascular
disease; diabetes; chronic respiratory disease; and arthritis. Over half of the host community and refugee
households (60.2 per cent and 50.4 per cent, respectively) reported a member with one of the five
non-communicable diseases. Shannon Doocy et al., ‘Prevalence, care-seeking, and health service utilization
for non-communicable diseases among Syrian refugees and host communities in Lebanon’, Conflict and
Health 10, no. 21 (2016).
175 WHO, ‘Noncommunicable diseases’, website (13 April 2021).
176 UNGA, Political declaration of the third high-level meeting of the General Assembly on the prevention and
control of non-communicable diseases (17 October 2018), UN Doc A/RES/73/2, paras. 5, 11.
177 Paul B. Spiegel et al., ‘Health-care needs of people affected by conflict’: p. 343.
178 Ibid.: p. 343.
179 Leaning, Spiegel, and Crisp, ‘Public health equity in refugee situations’: p. 3. For displacement figures during
the Kosovo crisis, see: Part III. In 2007, there were 2.3 million Iraqi refugees. UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
180 Leaning, Spiegel, and Crisp, ‘Public health equity in refugee situations’: p. 4.
181 UNHCR Public Health and HIV Section, UNHCR’s Principles and Guidance for Referral Health Care for
Refugees and Other Persons of Concern (2009).
182 Leaning, Spiegel, and Crisp, ‘Public health equity in refugee situations’: p. 6.
183 Ibid.: p. 6.
184 For example on the medical dilemmas confronting UNHCR in Lebanon during the Syria crisis and the use of
Exceptional Care Committees, see: Karl Blanchet, Fouad M. Fouad, and Tejendra Pherali, ‘Syrian refugees in
Lebanon: The search for universal health coverage’, Conflict and Health 10, no. 12 (2016). See also: UNHCR,
‘Guidelines to Referral Health Care in Lebanon’ (January 2014), pp. 11–16; UNHCR, ‘Guidelines for Referral
Health Care in Lebanon: Standard Operating Procedures’ (June 2020), pp. 17–18.
185 Paul Spiegel, Rebecca Chanis, and Antonio Trujillo, ‘Innovative health financing for refugees’, BMC Medicine
16, no. 90 (15 June 2018).
186 UNHCR, ‘Health Access and Utilization Survey: Access to Healthcare Services Among Syrian Refugees in
Jordan’, Report (December 2018); UNHCR, ‘Health access and utilization survey among Syrian refugees
in Lebanon’, Report (October 2020). See also: Emily Lyles et al., ‘Health service utilization and adherence
to medication for hypertension and diabetes among Syrian refugees and affected host communities in
Lebanon’, Journal of Diabetes & Metabolic Disorders 19, no. 2 (2020): pp. 1245–1259.
187 Of the 48 refugee host States that participated in UNHCR’s Public Health Inclusion survey, 29 have included
refugees in their national health plan/policy; two more States have included refugees partially. Of the 33
countries which had national health insurance schemes at the time of the survey, nine reported that they
include/cover refugees, and three additional countries reported that their national insurance schemes cover
refugees partially. UNHCR, ‘Inclusion of Refugees into National Health Systems’.
188 Subsidies can help cover the cost of premiums but are difficult to sustain. UNHCR, ‘A Guidance Note on
Health Insurance Schemes for Refugees and Other Persons of Concern to UNHCR’ (March 2012); Spiegel,
ENDNOTES 479
Chanis, and Trujillo, ‘Innovative health financing for refugees’: p. 4. The authors suggest that certain
circumstances where the number of refugees paying the premiums is sufficiently high could allow for
subsidizing or reducing the co-payments of those who have less financial means. Ibid.: p. 4.
189 Provided through the IDA18 Sub-window for Refugees and Host Communities and an additional $150 million
for other parts of the country. World Bank, ‘Health and Gender Support Project for Cox’s Bazar district’
(approved 31 March 2020), Project Overview, website. For refugee statistics in Bangladesh, see: UNHCR,
Refugee Data Finder. See also: UNHCR, ‘Bangladeshi authorities, aid agencies and refugee volunteers rush
to respond as massive fire leaves some 45,000 Rohingya refugees without shelter’, UNHCR News (23 March
2021).
190 See the following Project Overview websites from the World Bank: ‘Balochistan Human Capital Investment
Project’; ‘Cameroon – Health System Performance Reinforcement Project’; ‘Djibouti – Improving Health
Sector Performance Project’; and ‘Mauritania – Health System Support Project’.
191 World Bank, ‘Global Program on Forced Displacement – Brief for Partners Consultation’, pp. 5–6. These
mechanisms, IDA18 Sub-window for Refugees and Host Communities and IDA19 Window for Host
Communities and Refugees are discussed earlier under Education and in Part V.
192 For further details, see: Spiegel, Chanis, and Trujillo, ‘Innovative health financing for refugees’.
193 Filippo Dionigi and Domenico Tabasso, ‘Academic Trends in Forced Displacement’, Reference Paper for the
70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR (October 2021). See also health recommendations
in the report of the High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, Shining a Light on Internal Displacement.
194 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), art. 23: “Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of
employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.”
195 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (16 December 1966), UN Doc A/RES/
2200(XXI), art. 6: “The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right to work, which includes
the right of everyone to the opportunity to gain his living by work which he freely chooses or accepts,
and will take appropriate steps to safeguard this right.” Articles 17–19 of the Convention relating to the
Status of Refugees (adopted 25 July 1951) (1951 Convention), UN Doc A/CONF.2/108, obligate States to
provide refugees the most favourable treatment accorded to foreigners in regard to wage employment
and “treatment as favourable as possible and, in any event, not less favourable than that accorded to
aliens generally” with respect to self-employment and engagement in liberal professions. The Guiding
Principles on International Displacement underscore the right of IDPs to not be discriminated against in the
enjoyment of their rights, including their right to seek employment and participate in economic activities.
UN Commission on Human Rights, ‘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’ (11 February 1998), UN Doc E/CN.4/1998/53/Add.2.
197 Many people forced to flee do so suddenly and without all of their civil documentation and education and
skills certificates. Refugees generally face risks in retrieving documents from home. IDPs also can face
administrative obstacles. Council of Europe Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, ‘The role of local
and regional governments in protecting internally displaced persons (IDPs)’, Report (29 October 2019), p. 9.
198 Kirsten Schuettler and Laura Caron, ‘Jobs Interventions for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons’,
Jobs Group Working Paper 47, World Bank (2020), p. 12. Social networks can be helpful in finding jobs and
referrals to employers.
199 Utz Johann Pape and Ambika Sharma, Informing Durable Solutions for Internal Displacement in Nigeria,
Somalia, Sudan, and South Sudan vol. A: ‘Overview’, The World Bank Group (2019), pp. ix, x, 4, 21, 34.
200 Schuettler and Caron, ‘Jobs Interventions for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons’, p. 8.
201 UNHCR, ‘Livelihoods and Economic Inclusion’, website. Articles in the 1951 Convention pertaining to wage-
earning employment and labour legislation have also received some of the largest numbers of reservations
from States parties. For more on States’ restrictive approach to the right to work for refugees, see also:
Roger Zetter and Héloïse Ruaudel, ‘Refugees’ Right to Work and Access to Labor Markets – An Assessment’,
Part 1, KNOMAD (September 2016).
202 Ibid., pp. 12–13.
203 Ibid., p. 18. Dina Nayeri, whose mother had been a doctor in Iran before she became a refugee, describes
how she worked far below her skills level in the United States. She relates how difficult this was and how her
accent was often enough for people to assume she was not intelligent. Dina Nayeri, ‘The ungrateful refugee:
“We have no debt to repay”’, The Guardian (4 April 2017).
204 Zetter and Ruaudel, ‘Refugees’ Right to Work and Access to Labor Markets’, p. 16. Alexander Betts et al.,
Refugee Economies: Forced Displacement and Development (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 52;
see also: Joscha Albert et al., ‘Reckoning with Reality: Five Key Findings from the Finance in Displacement
Studies’, Joint Study, Tufts University, International Rescue Committee and Katholische Universität Eichstätt-
Ingolstadt (April 2021). Iran recently moved to formalize access to banking services – including debit cards,
for Afghan refugees in the country. UNHCR, ‘Iran policy change gives refugees access to banking services’,
UNHCR News (8 June 2021). The Economic and Research Policy Foundation of Turkey similarly found
that “access to banking systems and access to finance are two of the foremost obstacles limiting Syrian
entrepreneurs’ inclusion into the Turkish economy”. Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey,
‘Syrian Entrepreneurship and Refugee Start-ups in Turkey: Leveraging the Turkish Experience’, Final Report,
Tepav and EBRD (2018), p. 9.
205 Jordan and Lebanon are notable exceptions as well as smaller host countries, like Aruba and Curaçao.
UNHCR, Global Trends 2020, p. 2; World Bank, Forcibly Displaced, p. 57.
207 Zetter and Ruaudel, ‘Refugees’ Right to Work and Access to Labor Markets’.
ENDNOTES 481
209 Contributing factors and routes to Europe in 2015 are reviewed in OECD, ‘Is this humanitarian migration
crisis different?’, OECD Migration Policy Debates 7 (September 2015). See also: Peter Tinti and Tuesday
Reitano, Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Saviour (London: C. Hurst & Co, 2016).
210 See, for example: the responses of host countries to interviews conducted by the Word Bank as part of a
quantitative study in 2015. World Bank, Forcibly Displaced, pp. 58–59.
211 Ibid., p. 61. There are a number of examples in the 1990s of the problem of armed groups in refugee camps.
See, for example: Karen Jacobsen, ‘A “Safety-First” Approach to Physical Protection in Refugee Camps’,
Working Paper 4 (May 1999).
212 World Bank, Forcibly Displaced, p. 61. The authors recognize that it can be empirically difficult to separate
the presence of IDPs from the many factors that determine how conflict spreads during a war. However,
they note that IDPs are a consequence and not the cause of conflict already existing in the country.
213 An ambition expressed by United Nations Secretary-General Trygve Lie in 1950. UN Economic and Social
Council Ad Hoc Committee on Statelessness and Related Problems, Status of Refugees and Stateless
Persons, ‘Memorandum by the Secretary-General’ (3 January 1950), UN Doc E/AC.32/2.
214 See discussion in Part I and Part III.
215 Discussed in Part III.
216 Schuettler and Caron, ‘Jobs Interventions for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons’.
217 Ibid., p. 26–27. A UNHCR evaluation also found that vocational trainings that were not linked to job markets
did not deliver intended outcomes, see: UNHCR, ‘Evaluation of UNHCR’s Livelihoods Strategies and
Approaches’ (December 2018), p. 31.
218 Skills trainings offered without consideration of whether those who were to benefit from them had the
time, or the means to attend. Women, for example, may have been restricted due to social norms or lack of
childcare. Schuettler and Caron, ‘Jobs Interventions for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons’, p. 27.
219 Schuettler and Caron, ‘Jobs Interventions for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons’, p. 25. Specifically,
in Costa Rica, Kenya and Serbia. The authors refer to the following sources: Michelle Azorbo, ‘Microfinance
and refugees: lessons learned from UNHCR’s experience’, Research Paper No. 199, New Issues in Refugee
Research, UNHCR (January 2011); UNHCR, ‘Microfinance Programmes in UNHCR Operations: Innovative
Microlending in Kenya – Kiva Zip & RefugePoint’, Factsheet (2018).
220 Schuettler and Caron, ‘Jobs Interventions for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons’, p. 26. They note
the following studies: Christopher Blattman and Laura Ralston, ‘Generating Employment in Poor and Fragile
States: Evidence from Labor Market and Entrepreneurship Programs’, Social Science Research Network
(2015); Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), ‘Where
Credit Is Due’, Policy Bulletin, (February 2015); Abhijit Banerjee, Dean Karlan, and Jonathan Zinman, ‘Six
Randomized Evaluations of Microcredit: Introduction and Further Steps’, American Economic Journal:
Applied Economics 7, no. 1 (2015): pp. 1–21.
221 Schuettler and Caron, ‘Jobs Interventions for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons’, p. 26.
222 UNHCR, ‘Framework for Durable Solutions for Refugees and Persons of Concern’, Core Group on Durable
Solutions (May 2003); Betsy Lippman and Sajjad Malik, ‘The 4Rs: the way ahead?’, Forced Migration Review
21 (2004): pp. 9–11.
223 Global Compact on Refugees (2018), paras. 32, 64.
224 Ibid., paras. 70–71. Note also that (i) easing pressures on host countries and (ii) enhancing refugee self-
reliance are two of its four goals.
225 Paolo Verme and Kirsten Schuettler, ‘The Impact of Forced Displacement on Host Communities: A Review
of the Empirical Literature in Economics’, Policy Research Working Paper 8727, World Bank (February 2019),
p. 3. These authors note that, after 2011, the average number of studies per year increased tenfold.
226 Zara Sarzin, ‘The impact of forced migration on the labor market outcomes and welfare of host communities’,
Reference Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR (October 2021).
227 Ibid. The Mariel Boatlift refers to efforts of thousands of Cubans to enter the United States. For more on this
movement and the United States response, see: David Scott FitzGerald, Refuge beyond Reach: How Rich
Democracies Repel Asylum Seekers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 104–109. For more on the
causes of Jewish flight and migration to Israel, see: Larissa Remennick, ‘The Two Waves of Russian-Jewish
Migration from the USSR/FSU to Israel: Dissidents of the 1970s and Pragmatics of the 1990s’, Diaspora: A
Journal of Transnational Studies 18 (2015): pp. 8–13.
229 Markus Gehrsitz and Martin Ungerer, ‘Jobs, Crime, and Votes – A Short-run Evaluation of the Refugee Crisis
in Germany’, Discussion Paper No. 10494, IZA Institute for Labor Economics (January 2017), pp. 23–28;
Thomas Rogers, ‘Welcome to Germany’, The New York Review of Books (29 April 2021); The Economist,
‘Did they handle it? Five years after arrival, Germany’s refugees are integrating’ (29 August 2020). Rogers
notes that the challenges included that many of the refugees arrived with skills but were working in jobs well
below their qualifications. Women refugees were underrepresented in employment, in part because some
come from traditions where work outside the home is not encouraged.
230 Including through monetary or in-kind donations, public support, and active help like teaching language
classes or accompanying refugees to medical appointments. The report was commissioned by the Ministry
for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth. Rogers, ‘Welcome to Germany’; Bundesministerium für Familie,
Senioren, Frauen und Jugend, ‘Studie zeigt: Viele Menschen engagieren sich freiwillig für Flüchtlinge’
[German] (7 February 2018); Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend, ‘Engagement für
Geflüchtete’ [German] (7 February 2018).
ENDNOTES 483
231 Sebastian Braun and Toman Omar Mahmoud, ‘The Employment Effects of Immigration: Evidence from the
Mass Arrival of German Expellees in Postwar Germany’, The Journal of Economic History 74, no. 1 (2014):
pp. 69–72. Among the reasons was that the refugees were highly skilled and spoke the same language. For
further information on these movements, see: Philipp Ther, The Outsiders: Refugees in Europe since 1492
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019), ch. 3.
232 Erik Mäkelä, ‘The effect of mass influx on labor markets: Portuguese 1974 evidence revisited’, European
Economic Review 98 (2017): pp. 240, 242–243, 256–257, 260.
233 Mette Foged and Giovanni Peri, ‘Immigrants’ Effect on Native Workers: New Analysis on Longitudinal Data’,
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 8, No. 2 (2016): pp. 1–34.
234 See, for example: Sarit Cohen-Goldner and M. Daniele Paserman, ‘The dynamic impact of immigration
on natives’ labor market outcomes: Evidence from Israel’, European Economic Review 55, no. 8 (2011);
Francine D. Blau and Christopher D. Mackie (eds.), The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration
(Washington, D.C.: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2017).
236 Sarzin, ‘The impact of forced migration on the labor market outcomes and welfare of host communities’.
237 See, for example the literature reviews by Sarzin, ‘The impact of forced migration on the labour market
outcomes and welfare of host communities’; Verme and Schuettler, ‘The Impact of Forced Displacement
on Host Communities’.
239 In 2016, Syrians were permitted to apply for work permits. Don Murray, ‘High Commissioner welcomes
Turkish work permits for Syrian Refugees’, UNHCR News (18 January 2016). Yet, the majority of Syrian
workers continue to be concentrated in the informal sector. Luis Pinedo Caro, ‘Syrian Refugees in the
Turkish Labour Market’, Report, International Labour Organization (March 2020), p. 12.
240 Onur Altindag, Ozan Bakis, and Sandra V. Rozo, ‘Blessing or burden? Impacts of refugees on businesses
and the informal economy’, Journal of Development Economics 146 (2020): p. 17; Ximena V. Del Carpio
and Wagner Mathis, ‘The Impact of Syrians Refugees on the Turkish Labor Market’, Policy Research Working
Paper 7402, World Bank (August 2015); Evren Ceritoglu et al., ‘The impact of Syrian refugees on natives’
labor market outcomes in Turkey: evidence from a quasi-experimental design’, IZA Journal of Labor Policy 6,
no. 5 (2017): p. 4; Oğuz Esen and Ayla Oğuş Binatlı, ‘The Impact of Syrian Refugees on the Turkish Economy:
Regional Labour Market Effects’, Social Sciences 6, no. 4 (2017): p. 11; Semih Tumen, ‘The Economic Impact
of Syrian Refugees on Host Countries: Quasi-experimental Evidence from Turkey’, The American Economic
Review 106, no. 5 (May 2016): p. 459.
241 Yusuf Kenan Bağır, ‘Impact of the Syrian refugee influx on Turkish native workers: An ethnic enclave approach’,
Central Bank Review 18, no. 4 (2018): p. 139; Esen and Oğuş Binatlı, ‘The Impact of Syrian Refugees on the
Turkish Economy’: p. 3.
242 Bağır, ‘Impact of the Syrian refugee influx on Turkish native workers’: p. 139; Ceritoglu et al., ‘The impact of
Syrian refugees on natives’ labor market outcomes in Turkey’, p. 5; Tumen, ‘The Economic Impact of Syrian
Refugees on Host Countries’.
243 Ceritoglu et al., ‘The impact of Syrian refugees on natives’ labor market outcomes in Turkey’, p. 5; Ege
Aksu, Refik Erzan, and Murat Güray Kırdar, ‘The Impact of Mass Migration of Syrians on the Turkish Labor
Market’, Discussion Paper 12050, IZA Institute of Labor Economics (December 2018), p. 34–35. Del Carpio
and Mathis, ‘The Impact of Syrians Refugees on the Turkish Labor Market’, pp. 12–13. They found that those
with more than a high school education experienced a net increase in their employment rate, while the
“net negative labour market consequences” were limited to “Turkish workers with at most a high school
education”. Yusuf Emre Akgündüz and Huzeyfe Torun, ‘Two and a half million Syrian refugees, tasks and
capital intensity’, Journal of Development Economics 145 (2020): p. 12. The authors suggest that lower
educated workers may have been less able to transition to tasks that were complementary to Syrian workers,
which is why they were more negatively affected.
244 Esen and Oğuş Binatlı, ‘The Impact of Syrian Refugees on the Turkish Economy’: p. 10. These authors suggest
that more studies are needed in this area.
245 Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey, ‘Syrian Entrepreneurship and Refugee Start-ups in Turkey’,
p. 8; Selen Ucak, Jennifer P. Holt, and Kavya Raman (Building Markets), Another Side to the Story: A Market
Assessment of Syrian SMEs in Turkey, Report (20 June 2017), p. 9; Michael Clemens, Cindy Huang, and
Jimmy Graham, refer to Syrians hiring over 56,000 persons in formal enterprises, most of whom were hosts,
in ‘The Economic and Fiscal Effects of Granting Refugees Formal Labor Market Access’, Brief, Center for
Global Development and Tent, (October 2018), p. 19. For further information on jobs of refugees in Turkey,
see: Turkish Red Crescent and World Food Programme, ‘Refugees in Turkey: Livelihoods Survey Findings’,
Report, (25 July 2019).
246 Ucak, Holt, and Raman, ‘Another Side to the Story’, p. 17.
247 Supported by lower labour costs. Particularly in the construction, restaurant and hotel sectors. Altindag,
Bakis, and Rozo, ‘Blessing or Burden?’, p. 3.
248 Binnur Balkan and Semih Tumen, ‘Immigration and prices: quasi-experimental evidence from Syrian refugees
in Turkey’ Journal of Population Economics 29, issue 3, No 1 (2016): pp. 657–686; Tumen, ‘The Economic
Impact of Syrian Refugees on Host Countries’: p. 459.
249 Del Carpio and Mathis, ‘The Impact of Syrians Refugees on the Turkish Labor Market’. These authors found
that average Turkish wages rose, although this was likely because those who would have experienced
wage losses left the labour market, p. 19. Evren Ceritoglu et al., ‘The Impact of Syrian Refugees on Natives’
Labor Market Outcomes in Turkey’: p. 3. Those who remained employed experienced a marginal increase
in wages. Altindag, Bakis, and Rozo, ‘Blessing or burden?’, p. 2; Tumen, ‘The Economic Impact of Syrian
Refugees on Host Countries’: p. 458.
250 IMF, ‘Lebanon: 2014 Article IV Consultation Staff Report’, Country Report No. 14/237 (July 2014).
ENDNOTES 485
251 Anda David et al., ‘The economics of the Syrian refugee crisis in neighbouring countries: The case of
Lebanon’, Economics of Transition and Institutional Change 28, no. 1 (2020): p. 94. World Bank, The Fallout
of War, pp. 25–27.
253 Paolo Verme et al., The Welfare of Syrian Refugees: Evidence from Jordan and Lebanon (Washington, D.C.:
World Bank, 2016), p. xvi.
254 David et al., ‘The economics of the Syrian refugee crisis in neighbouring countries’: p. 95. In 2014, 60
per cent of Syrians were unemployed compared to 11 per cent of the Lebanese population (for whom
unemployment figures were only available for 2011).
255 Ibid., p. 104.
256 Ibid., p. 107. The Global Concessional Financing Facility was established by the United Nations, the Islamic
Development Bank (IsDB) and the World Bank and is discussed more in Part V. See also: Doreen Kibuka-
Musoke and Zara Sarzin, ‘Financing for Forced Displacement Situations’, Reference Paper for the 70th
Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR (October 2021), pp. 23–25.
257 UNHCR, ‘Syria: Regional Refugee Response’, Operational Data Portal. This represents Syrians registered with
UNHCR.
258 According to UNHCR statistics, there are close to 700,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan: UNHCR, ‘Jordan:
Statistics for Registered Syrian Refugees’, Operational Data Portal. Camp-based refugees are located in
Zaatari, Azraq and the Emirati Jordanian camp. Official Government of Jordan statistics suggest there
could be as many as 1.36 million Syrian refugees in Jordan, including those registered with UNHCR. The
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, Jordan Response Plan
for the Syria Crisis 2020-2022, p. 69.
259 Ali Fakih and May Ibrahim, ‘The impact of Syrian refugees on the labor market in neighboring countries:
empirical evidence from Jordan’, Defence and Peace Economics 27, no. 1 (2016): pp. 64–86; Belal Fallah,
Caroline Krafft, and Jackline Wahba, ‘The impact of refugees on employment and wages in Jordan’, Journal
of Development Economics 139 (2019).
260 Fakih and Ibrahim, ‘The impact of Syrian refugees on the labor market in neighboring countries’: p. 65.
261 World Bank, The Fallout of War, pp. 3, 14, 18, 26, 108.
262 Fakih and Ibrahim, ‘The impact of Syrian refugees on the labor market in neighboring countries’: pp. 71,
83–84; Fallah, Krafft, and Wahba, ‘The impact of refugees on employment and wages in Jordan’: p. 214.
263 World Bank, The Fallout of War, pp. 115–21. The World Bank report does not find systematic effects of
refugee presence on wages. However, another study suggests that declining wages in the informal sector
were associated with high refugee concentrations but also noted that Syrian refugees invested millions of
dollars in the Jordanian economy, “boosting domestic output and employment”. Salem Ajluni and Dorsey
Lockhart, ‘The Syrian Refugee Crisis and Its Impact on the Jordanian Labour Market’, Report, WANA Institute
(March 2019), p. 23.
264 World Bank Group, ‘Refugee Investment & Matchmaking Platform (RIMP): Progress, Results & Opportunities’,
Report (15 January 2021), p. 6.
265 Notably the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
266 Government of Jordan, ‘The Jordan Compact: A New Holistic Approach between the Hashemite Kingdom
of Jordan and the International Community to deal with the Syrian Refugee Crisis’, statement given at
Supporting Syria & the Region conference held in London (4 February 2016); World Bank, ‘Economic
Opportunities for Jordanians and Syrian Refugees – Questions and Answers’, Brief, World Bank website
(28 June 2016).
267 Center for Global Development and International Rescue Committee, Refugee Compacts: Addressing the
Crisis of Protracted Displacement, Final Report of the Forced Displacement and Development Study Group
(18 April 2017), p. 9.
268 For more on the Jordan Compact, see: Jennifer Gordon, ‘Refugees and decent work: Lessons learned
from recent refugee jobs compacts’, Employment Working Paper 256, ILO (17 December 2019), pp. 1–23;
For details on the Compact, see: European Commission, ‘Joint Proposal for a Council Decision on the
Union Position within the Association Council Set up by the Euro-Mediterranean Agreement establishing
an association between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and the
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, of the other part, with regard to the adoption of EU-Jordan Partnership
Priorities and annexed Compact’ (19 September 2016), JOIN/2016/041 final-2016/0289 (NLE).
269 Veronique Barbelet, Jessica Hagen-Zanker, and Dina Mansour-Ille, ‘The Jordan Compact: Lessons learnt
and implications for future refugee compacts’, Policy briefing, Overseas Development Institute (February
2018), p. 2; Cindy Huang and Kate Gough, ‘The Jordan Compact: Three Years on, Where Do We Stand?’,
Center for Global Development, website (11 March 2019).
270 95 per cent of the Syrian permit holders were men. Gordon, ‘Refugees and decent work’, p. 12.
271 Ibid., p. 13.
272 Ibid., p. 18.
273 Government of Jordan Ministry of Labour Syrian Refugee Unit, ‘Syrian Refugee Unit Work Permits Progress
Report December and annual 2020’ (January 2021).
274 ILO, Lessons Learned and Emerging Good Practices of ILO’s Syria Crisis Response in Jordan and Lebanon,
Report (2018), pp. 29–30.
275 Gordon, ‘Refugees and decent work’, p. 17; Huang and Gough, ‘The Jordan Compact’.
ENDNOTES 487
276 Gordon, ‘Refugees and decent work’, p. 18.
277 In 2020, the World Bank’s programme to improve employment opportunities for Jordanians and Syrian
refugees, which forms part of the Jordan Compact, was extended for an additional two years. Meriem Ait Ali
Shlimane et al., ‘New economic opportunities for Jordanians and Syrian refugees’, World Bank blog (29 July
2020).
278 Huang and Gough, ‘The Jordan Compact’.
279 Barbelet, Hagen-Zanker, and Mansour-Ille, ‘The Jordan Compact’, p. 3.
280 The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation ‘Jordan Response
Plan for the Syria Crisis 2016–2018’ (2015). It has been a positive example of improving protection outcomes
through partnerships between the international community and host countries.
281 UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. Colombia continues to report the highest number of IDPs, with 8.3 million at
the end of 2020, according to Government statistics. The Government has indicated its intention to review
these numbers with technical support from UNHCR and partners, as the large number of registered IDPs
comes from the total cumulative figure in the Government’s Victims Registry, which commenced in 1985.
UNHCR, Global Trends 2020, p. 24.
282 Valentina Calderón-Mejía and Ana María Ibáñez, ‘Labour market effects of migration-related supply shocks:
evidence from internal refugees in Colombia’, Journal of Economic Geography 16, no. 3 (1 May 2016):
pp. 695–713. This study examines the period between 2001 and 2005. Juan S. Morales, ‘The impact of
internal displacement on destination communities: Evidence from the Colombian conflict’, Journal of
Development Economics 131 (2017): pp. 132–150. This study concerns 1998–2005. For more on these and
other studies, see: Sarzin, ‘The impact of forced migration on the labor market outcomes and welfare of
host communities’.
283 Morales, ‘The impact of internal displacement on destination communities’: pp. 133, 142.
285 UNHCR, ‘Guidance Note on International Protection Considerations for Venezuelans – Update I’ (May
2019). See also: Dany Bahar and Meagan Dooley, ‘Venezuela refugee crisis to become the largest and most
underfunded in modern history’, Brookings Institution blog (9 December 2019).
286 German Caruso, Christian Gomez Canon, and Valerie Mueller, ‘Spillover effects of the Venezuelan crisis:
migration impacts in Colombia’, Oxford Economic Papers 73, no. 2 (April 2021).
287 On 1 March 2021, President Iván Duque signed a decree creating the Temporary Protection Status (TPS) for
Venezuelans in Colombia to facilitate their socioeconomic inclusion. Venezuelans can apply for the TPS
to regularize their stay in the country for a period of 10 years. Republic of Colombia, Ministry of External
Affairs, ‘Decree No. 216’ [Spanish] (2021), p. 11. Andrew Selee and Jessica Bolter, ‘An Uneven Welcome: Latin
American and Caribbean Responses to Venezuelan and Nicaraguan Migration’, Migration Policy Institute
(February 2020), p. 16.
288 Dany Bahar, Ana María Ibáñez, and Sandra V. Rozo, ‘Give me your tired and your poor: Impact of a large-
scale amnesty program for undocumented refugees’, Journal of Development Economics 151 (June 2021):
pp. 1–24. The authors consider several explanations, including the possibility that Venezuelans may have
taken up the permit to access services rather than seek employment. They discount this given that wages
in the formal sector are relatively high but acknowledged that Venezuelans may have difficulty in finding
formal employment. They also consider whether labour market outcomes could take longer to be observed
than the 18-month time frame of the study. They concluded that, even if this were so, observable negative
effects would be evident during the study time frame. Their overall conclusion is that their findings are
consistent with other studies that show little to no effect of migrant inflows on labour outcomes of native
populations.
289 Sergio Olivieri et al., ‘The Labor Market Effects of Venezuelan Migration in Ecuador’, Discussion Paper 13501,
IZA Institute for Labor Economics (July 2020), p. 7.
290 Cantons with 10 per cent higher income received 5 per cent more Venezuelans than otherwise similar
regions. Ibid., p. 3.
291 Olivieri et al., ‘The Labor Market Effects of Venezuelan Migration in Ecuador’, pp. 1, 3–4, 19.
292 Ibid., pp. 19–20.
293 UNHCR, ‘UN High Commissioner for Refugees praises Latin America for its commitment to the inclusion
of all those in need of protection’, Press Release (23 June 2021); Luc Cohen, ‘Ecuador to start new
“normalization process” for Venezuelan migrants’, Reuters (17 June 2021); For the number of those whose
status was irregular at the time of the announcement, see: UNHCR, ‘Ecuador Monthly Update: May 2021’,
p. 1. Discussed in Part III.
294 All of which are covered in more detail in Sarzin, ‘The impact of forced migration on the labor market
outcomes and welfare of host communities’.
295 For the total number of Burundian and Rwandan refugees in Tanzania during this time, see: UNHCR,
Refugee Data Finder. Further breakdowns are provided by Jean-François Maystadt and Gilles Duranton,
‘The development push of refugees: evidence from Tanzania’, Journal of Economic Geography 19, no. 2
(March 2019): pp. 299–334.
297 Maystadt and Duranton, ‘The development push of refugees’. By the end of June 2021, there were 253,040
refugees and asylum-seekers in Tanzania, primarily consisting of Burundians and Congolese (DRC), most
of whom are located in the Kigoma region, northwest Tanzania. The Kigoma region is one of the poorest
regions of Tanzania. The refugee camps in the Kagera region have since been closed. UNHCR, ‘Operational
Update: United Republic of Tanzania’, Brief (June 2021). For further up-to-date information, see also:
UNHCR, ‘Refugee Situations: Tanzania’, Operational Data Portal.
298 Maystadt and Duranton, ‘The development push of refugees’: p. 304.

ENDNOTES 489
299 Ibid.; Chiara Kofol, and Maryam Naghsh Nejad, ‘Child Labor and the Arrival of Refugees: Evidence from
Tanzania’, Discussion Paper 11242, IZA Institute for Labor Economics (December 2017); Isabel Ruiz and
Carlos Varga-Silva, ‘The impact of hosting refugees on the intra-household allocation of tasks: A gender
perspective’, Review of Development Economics 22, no. 4 (2018): pp. 1461–1488.
300 Maystadt and Duranton, ‘The development push of refugees’: p. 304; Beth Elise Whitaker, ‘Refugees in
Western Tanzania: The Distribution of Burdens and Benefits Among Local Hosts’, Journal of Refugee Studies
15, no. 4 (2002): pp. 342.
301 Whitaker, ‘Refugees in Western Tanzania’: p. 348.
302 Ibid.: p. 347.
303 Kofol and Nejad, ‘Child Labor and the Arrival of Refugees’, p. 24.
304 Whitaker, ‘Refugees in Western Tanzania’: p. 342.
305 According to Maystadt and Verwimp, the local effect of this is ambiguous as there were more opportunities
but some were seized by business operators from other parts of Tanzania, which may have led to the
closure of some local businesses. Jean-François Maystadt and Philip Verwimp, ‘Winners and Losers among
a Refugee-Hosting Population’, Economic Development and Cultural Change 62, no. 4 (July 2014): p. 777.
306 Maystadt and Verwimp, ‘Winners and Losers among a Refugee-Hosting Population’: pp. 776–777. Ruiz and
Vargas-Silva, ‘The impact of hosting refugees on the intra-household allocation of tasks’: pp. 1463, 1479.
This included women who could read and perform simple mathematical operations. However, this study
also found that women were less likely to engage in outside employment than men. This was likely due to
the environmental impact of refugees, which meant that women had to walk farther, spending more time to
collect firewood and fetch water. Whitaker, ‘Refugees in Western Tanzania’: pp. 342–344, 347.
307 Overall, host communities experienced an increase in their welfare measured through their individual
consumption. Maystadt and Verwimp, ‘Winners and Losers among a Refugee-Hosting Population’: pp. 778,
803; Maystadt and Duranton, ‘The development push of refugees’: p. 328.
308 Maystadt and Verwimp, ‘Winners and Losers among a Refugee-Hosting Population’: p. 803; Kofol and
Nejad, ‘Child Labor and the Arrival of Refugees’, p. 23.
309 UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder; UNHCR, ‘Kenya: Registered Refugees and Asylum-Seekers’, Operational Data
Portal (31 July 2021).
310 Jedediah Rooney Fix et al., ‘Understanding the Socioeconomic Conditions of Refugees in Kenya’, vol. A:
‘Kalobeyei Settlement: Results from the 2018 Kalobeyei Socioeconomic Profiling Survey’, Joint Report,
World Bank Group and UNHCR (2019) p. x.
311 Apurva Sanghi, Harun Onder and Varalakshmi Vemuru “Yes” In My Backyard? –The Economics of Refugees
and Their Social Dynamics in Kakuma, Kenya, Joint Report, UNHCR and World Bank (2016), pp. 5–6.
312 Jennifer Alix-Garcia et al., ‘Do refugee camps help or hurt hosts? The case of Kakuma, Kenya’, Journal of
Development Economics 130 (January 2018): pp. 66–83; Sanghi, Onder and Vemuru, “Yes” In My Backyard?;
UNHCR, ‘Kenya: Registered Refugees and Asylum-Seekers’.
313 UNHCR, ‘Kenya: Overview’, Operational Data Portal; Jennifer Alix-Garcia, Erhan Artuc, and Harun Onder,
The Economics of Hosting Refugees: A Host Community Perspective from Turkana, World Bank (2017),
p. 64.
314 UNHCR, ‘Kakuma & Kalobeyei Population Statistics’, Operational Data Portal, (31 December 2020).
315 Those who work tend to be engaged in small trades, have small- or medium-sized enterprises or are
engaged as incentive workers. Income can also come from foreign cash remittances. UNHCR, ‘Kakuma
Refugee Camp and Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement’, website; Refugees have expressed their frustrations
at barriers to receiving work permits. Refugee Consortium of Kenya, ‘Refugees and Asylum Seekers Lament
Limited Access to Work Permits in Kenya’, website (January 2019); UNHCR, ‘Kenya: Livelihoods’, website.
316 Alix-Garcia et al., ‘Do refugee camps help or hurt hosts?’: p. 68. Sanghi, Onder and Vemuru, “Yes” In My
Backyard?, pp. 3, 8, 10.
317 From the invasive Prosopis trees. Indigenous trees are protected against charcoal and firewood use.
318 Sanghi, Onder and Vemuru, “Yes” In My Backyard?, p. 11.
319 Ibid., p. 54; Alix-Garcia et al., ‘Do refugee camps help or hurt hosts?’: p. 76.
320 Sanghi, Onder and Vemuru, “Yes” In My Backyard?, pp. 29, 32.
321 This could include skills acquisition and technical support to improve farm cultivation and livestock
production for more sustainable development. Alix-Garcia et al., ‘Do refugee camps help or hurt hosts?’:
p. 76. Moving from short humanitarian emergency funding to more long-term development investment
would be beneficial. Sanghi, Onder and Vemuru, “Yes” In My Backyard?, p. 55. A subsequent 2019 UNHCR-
World Bank socioeconomic survey of refugees and hosts in Kakuma found that, although 62 per cent
of Turkana hosts are employed compared to just 20 per cent of working age refugees, both groups lived
in overcrowded dwellings with little access to electricity and inadequate sanitation. Secondary school
attendance was low for both groups and food insecurity high. It recommends targeted investments to
address these shortfalls, as well as investments in skills training to match market needs, and eased access
to financial services to improve employment prospects for both refugees and host populations. Utz Pape et
al., ‘Understanding the Socio-Economic Conditions of Refugees in Kenya’, vol. B: ‘Kakuma Camp : Results
from the 2019 Kakuma Socioeconomic Survey’, Joint Report, World Bank Group and UNHCR (March 2021).
322 UNHCR, ‘Kenya: Kalobeyei Settlement’, website. Planning figures expected a population of 20,000 host
community members and 60,000 refugees. As of December 2020, the majority of the settlement’s residents
were refugees (40,000). See: UNHCR, ‘Kakuma & Kalobeyei Population Statistics’; UN Habitat, Kakuma and
Kalobeyei: Spatial Profile, Report (June 2021), p. 50.
ENDNOTES 491
323 Pascal Zigashane, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who heads a refugee-led
initiative, describes the positive changes in Kakuma. Examples include new initiatives, such as food catering
businesses run by women, the provision of tools and seeds, and the operation of a greenhouse which
economically benefited refugees and members of the host community. This helped foster social cohesion.
Pascal Bahati Zigashane, ‘Strengthening Refugee Human Capital in Displacement’, Reference Paper for the
70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR (October 2021), p. 9.
324 Alexander Betts, Naohiko Omata, and Olivier Sterck, ‘The Kalobeyei Settlement: A Self-Reliance Model for
Refugees?’, Journal of Refugee Studies 33, no. 1 (March 2020): pp. 189–223. Zigashane, ‘Strengthening
Refugee Human Capital in Displacement’, p. 10.
325 Fix et al., ‘Understanding the Socioeconomic Conditions of Refugees in Kenya’, vol. A.
326 The self-reliance strategy (SRS) was introduced in 1998 initially to assist Sudanese refugees who were
primarily located in three districts in the West Nile Region. It was later adopted as the main policy framework
for refugee assistance in the country. In 2004, following a review of the SRS which revealed successes but
also several shortcomings, it started to be transitioned into a Development Assistance for Refugee-Hosting
Areas (DAR) programme. Shortly thereafter, the 2006 Refugees Act was drafted, requesting the Ugandan
Commissioner for Refugees to “promote self-reliance among refugees and sustainable development in
the affected areas”. A decade later, the Refugee and Host Community Empowerment (ReHoPE) strategy
was devised to again build on lessons learned from the previous approaches and further strengthen self-
reliance prospects of refugees and host communities. UNHCR, Handbook for Planning and Implementing
Development Assistance for Refugees (DAR) Programmes (2005), p. 25; World Bank Group, ‘An Assessment
of Uganda’s Progressive Approach to Refugee Management’ (May 2016), pp. 20–25; Government of Uganda,
‘The Refugees Act’ (2006), Act 21, para. 44.4(b).
328 Office of the Prime Minister of Uganda and UNHCR, ‘Revised Inter-Agency Uganda Country Refugee
Response Plan, July 2020–December 2021’ (August 2020), p. 10.
329 See, for example: Alexander Betts et al., Refugee Economies in Uganda: What Difference Does the Self-
Reliance Model Make?, Report, Refugee Studies Centre (21 January 2019), pp. 18, 36. Only very limited
support is available for vulnerable refugees in Kampala.
330 Merle Kreibaum, ‘Their Suffering, Our Burden? How Congolese Refugees Affect the Ugandan Population’,
World Development 78 (February 2016): pp. 262–287.
332 The decrease in poverty was evidenced by an increase in consumption. Education services improved with
the assistance of non-governmental and private agencies assisted by the Government. Kreibaum, ‘Their
Suffering, Our Burden?’: pp. 270, 272.
333 Ibid.: p. 271.

334 Ibid.: p. 275. A study published a few years later found that refugee businesses were of value in providing
goods and services to host communities. For example, in Nakivale settlement near the border with Tanzania,
host community members reported buying and selling goods and services in the settlement. As found in
earlier studies, the benefits were not equally distributed, however, with some local workers struggling to
compete with refugee labour, while others benefited from their demand for specific goods and housing,
and others found employment in refugee-run businesses or households. Betts et al., Refugee Economies
in Uganda, pp. 29–33.
335 For all refugees in Rwanda at the time, see: UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. For refugees from the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, see: UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
336 Craig Loschmann, Özge Bilgili, and Melissa Siegel, ‘Considering the benefits of hosting refugees: evidence
of refugee camps influencing local labour market activity and economic welfare in Rwanda’, IZA Journal of
Development and Migration 9, no. 1 (2019): pp. 5–6.
337 Ibid.: p. 6. The exceptional instance of camp-based schooling is noted in a separate paper which the same
scholars co-authored: Özge Bilgili et al., ‘Is the Education of Local Children Influenced by Living near a
Refugee Camp? Evidence from Host Communities in Rwanda’, International Migration 57, no. 4 (2019):
p. 295.
338 Loschmann, Bilgili, and Siegel, ‘Considering the benefits of hosting refugees’: p. 6.
339 Ibid.: p. 19.
340 Ibid.: pp. 1, 3, 19.
341 Bilgili et al., ‘Is the Education of Local Children Influenced by Living near a Refugee Camp?’: pp. 305–306.
342 IDP figures from UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
343 Jennifer Alix-Garcia and Anne Bartlett, ‘Occupations under fire: the labour market in a complex emergency’,
Oxford Economic Papers 67, no. 3 (July 2015): p. 688.
344 Ibid.: pp. 687, 710.
345 Ibid.: p. 710.
346 Ibid.: p. 711.
347 Verme and Schuettler, ‘The Impact of Forced Displacement on Host Communities’, pp. 11–12.
348 Ibid., p. 13.
349 Ibid., p. 16. The authors note the range in which positive and significant results are found is from 12–20 per
cent and that of negative and significant results from 22–25 per cent.
ENDNOTES 493
350 The authors explain that some of the positive results could be a consequence of “the inflow of international
aid and its relative importance in a poor country”. Ibid.
351 Ibid., pp. 16–17. Also noted in Part III – this could shed light to the extent to which IDPs for example have
attained a solution.
352 Clemens, Huang, and Graham, ‘The Economic and Fiscal Effects of Granting Refugees Formal Labor Market
Access’, p. 20.
353 Ibid, p. 15. However, the authors note that, in many countries, a lack of education, skills and social norms
can prevent women from working in the formal sector causing them to benefit less.
354 Ibid., p. 18.
356 This is reflected in paras. 33–37 of the Global Compact on Refugees which note the importance of engaging
a broad coalition of stakeholders and the critical role of development actors and development support.
PART V: Bridging the Gap
1 World Bank-UNHCR assessment mission, June 2021.
2 It also includes helping to prevent and prepare for man-made crises. Good Humanitarian Donorship
Initiative, ‘24 Principles and Good Practice of Humanitarian Donorship’, website.
3 Contributions rose by 12 per cent annually between 2011 and 2019. They did not rise in 2020, despite the
increased need due to COVID-19. Development Initiatives, ‘Global Humanitarian Assistance Report 2021’
(June 2021), pp. 33–35.
4 Ibid., pp. 49, 61–62. The top government donors in recent years have been the United States, Germany and
the United Kingdom. The top 10 recipient countries in 2019–2020 were: Syria; Yemen; Lebanon; South
Sudan; the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Somalia; Sudan; Ethiopia; Turkey; and Iraq.
5 Ibid., p. 32.
6 Ibid., pp. 52–53. Specifically for the years 2015–2019.

...PART V: Bridging the Gap...
7 Bringing the total number in need to some 244 million people across 75 countries. Ibid., pp. 12–13, 33.
8 In the past, some host countries have tried to capture this. But there has not been an agreed methodology
for doing so. In 2017, the United Nations General Assembly requested UNHCR to “coordinate an effort
to measure the impact arising from hosting, protecting and assisting refugees, with a view to assessing
gaps in international cooperation and promoting burden- and responsibility-sharing that is more equitable,
predictable and sustainable, and to begin reporting on the results to Member States in 2018”. UN General
Assembly, (19 December 2017), UN Doc A/RES/72/150, para. 20. This was further taken up in UNGA, Global
Compact on Refugees (2 August 2018), UN Doc A/73/12 (Part II), para. 103. UNHCR issued its first report
1 July 2020. UNHCR, ‘Progress report: Measuring the impact of hosting, protecting and assisting refugees’
(1 July 2020).
9 Global Compact on Refugees (2018), para. 32.
10 World Humanitarian Summit, ‘FAQ’, website. For previous efforts by UNHCR to engage more development
responses, see: Part III. One of the earliest efforts was by High Commissioner, Sadruddin Aga Khan, pursued
also by subsequent High Commissioners. Sadruddin Aga Khan, ‘Statement by Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan,
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, to the Third Committee of the United Nations General
Assembly at Its 1519th Meeting’ (20 November 1967), UNHCR website.
11 UN High-Level Panel on Humanitarian Financing, Report to the Secretary-General: Too important to

fail: addressing the humanitarian financing gap (January 2016). The panel was co-chaired by Kristalina
Georgieva, then European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, and HRH Sultan
Nazrin Shah, Ruler of Merak, Malaysia. The Grand Bargain has 63 signatories: 25 member States; 22 NGOs; 12
United Nations agencies; 2 inter-governmental organizations; and the International Committee of the Red
Cross (ICRC) and International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). The signatories
represent over 80 per cent of all donor humanitarian contributions in 2019, and two thirds of humanitarian
aid received by agencies. Inter-Agency Standing Committee, ‘The Grand Bargain: A Shared Commitment to
Better Serve People in Need’ (23 May 2016).
12 UNGA, New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants (3 October 2016), UN Doc A/RES/71/1, para. 38.
14 Victoria Metcalfe-Hough et al., ‘Grand Bargain annual independent report 2020’, Humanitarian Policy Group
Commissioned Report, Overseas Development Institute (June 2020), p. 17.
15 Ibid.; Victoria Metcalfe-Hough et al., ‘The Grand Bargain at five years: An independent review’, HPG
Commissioned Review, ODI (June 2021), pp. 47, 49, 57, 109. For example, more organizations are investing
in the capacities of local and national responders and additional donors are providing flexible and predictable
funding.
16 Metcalfe-Hough et al., ‘Grand Bargain annual independent report 2020’, p. 18.

ENDNOTES 495
17 Funding that is earmarked is provided for a specific purpose, programme and/or location. The agency
cannot use the funds for other reasons, even for meeting more prioritized needs. For more on the role of
earmarked funding and suggestions for improvement, see: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development, ‘Earmarked funding to multilateral organisations: how is it used and what constitutes good
practice?’, Brief (October 2020).
18 Metcalfe-Hough et al., ‘Grand Bargain annual independent report 2020’, pp. 15, 18; Metcalfe-Hough et al.,
‘The Grand Bargain at five years’, p. 113. As of March 2021, just nine of the 37 signatories that provide funds
to international organizations or to implementing partners were using the common reporting template as
the standard format.
19 Barnaby Willitts-King and Alexandra Spencer, Reducing the humanitarian financing gap: review of progress
since the report of the High-Level Panel on Humanitarian Financing, HPG Commissioned Report, ODI (April
2020), p. 8.
20 Metcalfe-Hough et al., ‘The Grand Bargain at five years’, p. 47.
21 Ibid., pp. 38, 79–80.
22 Ibid., pp. 59, 69–70; Metcalfe-Hough et al., ‘Grand Bargain annual independent report 2020’, pp. 15, 34,
54–56, 68–71, 104. This is discussed later in this Part under the section on Partnerships.
23 IFIs are established by more than one country and subject to international law. The most well-known,
the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, were established after World War II to assist in the
reconstruction of Europe. The largest IFI is the European Investment Bank. See: European Investment Bank,
‘Who we are’, website.
24 World Bank, Forcibly Displaced: Toward a Development Approach Supporting Refugees, the Internally
Displaced, and Their Hosts (Washington, D.C: World Bank, 2017).
25 As of the end of the fiscal year ending 30 June 2021, “IDA commitments totaled $36 billion, with about 70
percent going to Africa”. International Development Association ‘What is IDA?’ website.
26 IDA, ‘Information Statement: International Development Association’, Report, World Bank (24 September
2020), p. 5; IDA, ‘What is IDA?’.
27 World Bank Group, ‘IDA18 Regional Sub-Window for Refugees and Host Communities’, IDA-World Bank
website.
28 ‘Window for Refugees and Host Communities’, IDA-World Bank website. The COVID-19 funding is all in
grants.
29 Notably, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency
(MIGA), both of which are discussed under the section on private sector financing below. These are two
of the five institutions of the WBG. The other three are: the International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (IBRD); the International Development Association (IDA); and the International Centre for
Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). The WBG is comprised of all five, while the World Bank is made
up of the IBRD and IDA.
30 IDA, ‘IDA18 Retrospective: Investing in Growth, Resilience, and Opportunity through Innovation’, Report,
IDA-World Bank (April 2021), pp. 16, 66.
31 Ibid., p. 16. Discussed further under Application.
32 Ibid. Social protection programmes comprise social assistance or safety nets, such as cash transfers and
food assistance, as well as social insurance schemes, such as old-age pensions, disability pensions and
unemployment insurance. World Bank Group, Resilience, Equity, and Opportunity: Social Protection and
Labor Strategy 2012–2022 (2012), Part IV.
33 Between 2016 and 2020, the proportion of refugees and asylum-seekers, excluding Venezuelans, displaced
abroad in middle-income countries dropped from 58 per cent to 55 per cent. However, the proportion
of all cross-border displaced persons of concern to UNHCR, including refugees, asylum-seekers and
Venezuelans displaced abroad increased from 58 per cent to 59 per cent. UNHCR Refugee Population
Statistics Database. Income groups are from the World Bank List of Economies (June 2020).
34 Global Concessional Financing Facility (GCFF), GCFF Annual Report 2018–2019 (2019), p. 5; GCFF, ‘Progress
Report: 1 July–31 December 2020’, December 2020.
35 The MDBs are: IsDB; European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; WBG; and the European
Investment Bank. See: GCFF website.
36 GCFF, ‘Progress Report: 1 July–31 December 2020’, pp. 9–10. In addition, close to $130 million in grants
from supporting countries were available or pledged for further projects.
37 Discussed in Part IV. See also: Doreen Kibuka-Musoke and Zara Sarzin, ‘Financing for Forced Displacement
Situations’, Reference Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR (October
2021).
38 Discussed in Part II and Part III. Weiyi Wang and Ozan Cakmak, ‘Private Sector Initiatives in Forced
Displacement Contexts: Constraints and Opportunities for a Market-Based Approach’, Reference Paper for
the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR (October 2021). UNHCR, ‘UNHCR’s support
to the Temporary Protection Status in Colombia’, Press Release (12 May 2021).
39 Ecuador is discussed in Part III: Solutions. In Lebanon, political and economic challenges as well as the
COVID-19 pandemic have stalled progress on project approval and implementation. GCFF, ‘Progress
Report: 1 July–31 December 2020’, pp. 15–19; GCFF, Annual Report 2019–2020 (2021), pp. 12–13, 19–21.
ENDNOTES 497
40 Participating members of the Global Forum are: African Development Bank (AfDB); Asian Development
Bank (ADB); European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD); European Investment Bank (EID);
Inter-American Development Bank (IADB); and IsDB and the WBG.
41 African Development Bank Group et al., ‘Joint Commitments by the MDB Coordination Platform on Economic
Migration and Forced Displacement’, Statement, Global Refugee Forum in Geneva, 17–18 December 2019.
42 World Bank Group, ‘MDBs launch new platform to coordinate support for economic migration and forced
displacement’, Press Release (20 April 2018).
43 OECD, ‘60th Anniversary Timeline’, website.
44 OECD, ‘Development Assistance Committee (DAC)’, website.
45 OECD DAC International Network on Conflict and Fragility (INCAF), ‘INCAF Common Position on supporting
comprehensive responses in refugee situations’, Document (2019). The INCAF common position was based
on: OECD, ‘Financing for refugee situations’, Development Policy Paper no. 24 (December 2019).
46 Nibal Zgheib, ‘Multilateral development banks stepping up support for refugees’, European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) News (16 December 2019).
47 In its refugee response programme, the EBRD “promotes a strong role for the private sector” to boost
employment for hosts and refugees alike and spur improvements to infrastructure, urban life, the
environment and the overall economy. EBRD, ‘Refugees: building host countries’ resilience’, website.
48 Senidu Fanuel, ‘Ethiopia: Jobs Compact Project’, Program-For-Results Information Document, World Bank
(8 July 2017), pp. 2–3, 7.
49 World Bank, ‘Ethiopia: World Bank Pledges $202 Million to Provide Better Economic Opportunities for
Refugees and Host Communities’, Press Release (26 June 2018); Ndiaye Jade Elena Garza, ‘Ethiopia
Economic Opportunities Program’, Implementation Status and Results Report, World Bank (4 May 2021).
50 Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, ‘Refugees Proclamation’ (27 February 2019), Proclamation
No. 1110/2019; UNHCR, ‘UNHCR welcomes Ethiopia law granting more rights to refugees’, Press Release
(18 January 2019).
51 Global Compact on Refugees, ‘Development Actors’, website (15 December 2020); IDB, ‘IDB approves grant
funds for countries receiving migrants in Latin America and Caribbean’, IDB News (7 May 2019).
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid.
54 AfDB, ‘Transition Support Facility: About the Facility’, website (17 April 2019). The facility was previously
known as the Fragile States Facility.
55 However, through its Africa Development Fund, the Bank has provided concessional financing to low-income
countries including those with significant forcibly displaced populations. This has supported energy for
cooking and environmental restoration in refugee camps in Burundi; livelihoods in Zimbabwe; women’s
empowerment in East Africa; and a major regional COVID-19 support project in the G5 Sahel countries
(Burkina Faso; Chad; Mali; Mauritania; and Niger). African Development Bank Group Data Portal, 2020.
56 Independent Development Evaluation, Evaluation of the AfDB’s Strategy for Addressing Fragility and Building
Resilience in Africa (2014–2019), Summary Report, AfDB Group (June 2020), pp. 14, 28; Transition Support
Department (ORTS), ‘African Development Bank Group Strategy for Addressing Fragility and Building
Resilience in Africa (2014-2019)’, AfDB Group (n.d.), p. 43.
57 Kibuka-Musoke and Sarzin, ‘Financing for Forced Displacement Situations’, pp. 27–28. Financing for these
programmes comes from the GCFF.
58 See, for example: World Bank, ‘Uganda Support to Municipal Infrastructure Development Program’,
Development Project, 2013; World Bank, ‘Economic Opportunities for Jordanians and Syrian Refugees’,
Program for Results Project, 2016; World Bank, ‘Ethiopia Economic Opportunities Program’, Development
Project, 2018; World Bank, ‘Improving Quality of Health Care Services and Efficiency in Colombia’,
Development Project, 2020.
59 See, for example: Global Compact on Refugees (2018), paras. 32, 71; UN Secretary-General’s High-Level
Panel on Internal Displacement, Shining a Light on Internal Displacement: A Vision for the Future, Report
(September 2021), pp. 17, 24–27, 30.
60 World Bank et al., ‘The Role of the Private Sector in Economic Integration of Refugees: Charter of Good
Practice’ (2019).
61 World Economic Forum, ‘Humanitarian Investing – Mobilizing Capital to Overcome Fragility’, White Paper
(September 2019).
62 Ibid., pp. 4, 11, 14–15. Among the areas of focus are: water and sanitation, agriculture and food security,
health, energy, employment and education, financial inclusion and capital markets, and technology.
63 International Finance Corporation and The Bridgespan Group, ‘Private Sector & Refugees—Pathways to
Scale’, Report (2019), p. 8. The report surveyed over 170 private sector initiatives in displacement contexts.
Around half of those for whom detailed information was available invested less than $1 million and reached
a maximum of 10,000 refugees, pp. 3, 7–8.
64 The Jordan Compact is an example discussed in Part IV and later in this Part.
65 The World Bank’s “Ease of Doing Business” ranking scores countries in categories, such as “enforcing
contracts”, “trading across borders”, “getting electricity”, “registering a property” or “getting credit”. The best
score is one and the worst is 190. Among the 16 million refugees living in the largest host countries at the
end of 2019, nearly 8 million lived in countries that scored 108–182 in the latest index. The situation is even
ENDNOTES 499
worse in internal displacement situations. Among the 35 million internally displaced persons who were
hosted in the top 10 largest host countries at the end of 2019, 27 million lived in countries which scored
131–190 with most IDPs in countries that are within the last 25 rankings in the list. Data from: World Bank,
‘Ease of Doing Business Rankings’, website; UNHCR, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2019, Report
(2019).
66 Ibid. pp. 6, 10, 20, 22.
67 Wang and Cakmak, ‘Private Sector Initiatives in Forced Displacement’.
68 Ibid., pp. 7–8.
69 See, for example, the situation in Dadaab, Kenya: UNHCR and ILO, Doing Business in Dadaab Report: Market
Systems Analysis for Local Economic Development in Dadaab, Kenya, Report (January 2019), p. 17.
70 Many refugee businesses operate informally and, because they are not registered with the authorities, they
cannot engage easily with medium or large legal enterprises. Wang and Cakmak, ‘Private Sector Initiatives
in Forced Displacement’, pp. 7–10.
71 Ibid., p. 7–10.
72 Ibid., p. 10.
73 See: endnote 29.
74 IFC, Kakuma as a Marketplace – A consumer and market study of a refugee camp and town in northwest
Kenya, Report (April 2018).
75 Firms that seek to maximize social and environmental objectives as well as profits.
76 IFC, Kakuma as a Marketplace, pp. 79–80.
77 BFA Global, UNHCR, and AFR, Refugees and Their Money: The Business Case for Providing Financial
Services to Refugees, Report (March 2018), pp. 9–11. The study found that financial service providers are
likely to generate similar levels of profit from serving refugees as from serving typical low-income Rwandan
customers. The demand among refugee communities and access to banking yields the potential to improve
income-generating opportunities through savings and microcredit options. It recommended that Rwanda’s
national bank issue a directive that expands the list of acceptable identity documentation to reduce access
barriers.
78 UNHCR and ILO, Doing Business in Dadaab, pp. viii, 17–19, 42, 59–60.
79 Irene Yuan Sun and Cindy Huang, Designing a Medium-Term Response to the Rohingya Refugee Crisis:
Ideas for Bangladesh, the International Community, and the Private Sector, Report, Center for Global
Development (December 2019), pp. vii–x, 7–14, 21–24.
80 The number of Somali refugees in Dollo Ado reached and surpassed 200,000 in 2014 and remained on this
level until mid-2019. UNHCR, ‘Horn of Africa Somalia Situation’, Operational Data Portal.
81 Alexander Betts et al., ‘Building Refugee Economies: An evaluation of the IKEA Foundation’s programmes in
Dollo Ado’, Report, Refugee Studies Centre (May 2020), pp. 23–24.
82 Ibid., pp. 10–14. The environment-friendly income-generating project intended to reduce reliance on
firewood for energy, cooking and income. The aim was to reduce the negative impact on the environment,
reduce risks for women who are traditionally relied upon to collect wood from remote locations, and
establish a commercially viable production of an alternative energy source (Prosopis). However, the results
of this particular intervention have been mixed.
83 The cooperatives function on a self-employment basis, whereby each member generates her/his own
income but deposits an agreed share into a joint savings account. However, the savings are not yet sufficient
to cover the cost of productive inputs for the cooperative. Alexander Betts and Raphael Bradenbrink, ‘The
IKEA Foundation and livelihoods in Dollo Ado: Lessons from the cooperatives model’, RSC Research in Brief
17 (December 2020): pp. 1, 4.
84 Betts et al., ‘Building Refugee Economies’, pp. 10–12, 50–52, 139–140; Wang and Cakmak, ‘Private Sector
Initiatives in Forced Displacement Contexts’, p. 19.
85 GSMA, Mobile Is a Lifeline: Research from Nyarugusu Refugee Camp, Tanzania, Report (2017), p. 2.
86 UNHCR, ‘Tanzania Refugee Population Update’, Factsheet (30 June 2021).
87 GSMA, Mobile Is a Lifeline, pp. 12–13; UNHCR Innovation Service, ‘How to Work With Mobile Network
Operators – Lessons from Tanzania’, UNHCR website (10 November 2018). For more on Vodacom, see:
Vodacom, ‘About us’, website.
88 Turkcell, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility: Refugees’, website.
89 World Bank, ‘The World Bank Group’s Experience with the IDA Private Sector Window: An Early-Stage
Assessment’, Report (July 2021). Recent findings point to: the possible need to adjust terms depending
on the market context; the potential use of alternative approaches to mitigate non-financial risks; and the
importance of technical assistance to the private sector in the implementation of projects.
90 See, for example: OECD, ‘Blended Finance’, website.
91 The acronym FMO stands for Nederlandse Financierings-Maatschappij voor Ontwikkelingslanden N.V.
92 FMO, ‘NASIRA: A new chance guaranteed’, NASIRA/FMO News.
93 Investment made in one economy by the resident of another foreign economy with the aim to establish a
lasting management interest there.
ENDNOTES 501
94 Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), ‘What We Do’, website. Hard currency refers to United
States Dollars, Euro or Yen. Inability to transfer refers to situations resulting from a government action or
failure to act.
95 Wang and Cakmak, ‘Private Sector Initiatives in Forced Displacement Contexts’, p. 18.
96 World Bank Group, ‘Refugee Investment & Matchmaking Platform (RIMP): Progress, Results & Opportunities’,
Report (15 January 2021), pp. 6–9, 67, 70. In Jordan, the RIMP studied the status of Syrian-owned businesses,
their contributions to the Jordanian economy as well as potential for growth. Its methodology is to work
closely with the Government in the preparation phase and to build local capacities to sustain the initiative,
and improve transparency and accountability of joint enterprises.
97 The Jordan Compact is more fully covered in Part IV.
98 Kibuka-Musoke and Sarzin, ‘Financing for Forced Displacement Situations’; Heliodoro Temprano Arroyo,
‘Promoting Labour Market Integration of Refugees with Trade Preferences: Beyond the EU-Jordan Compact’,
EUI Working Papers, RSCAS 2018/42, European University Institute (2018), pp. 8–12, 25–27, 33; Kimberly
Ann Elliott and Heliodoro Temprano Arroyo, ‘Using Trade Preferences to Support Refugees and their Hosts’,
CDG Note (December 2019), pp. 3, 11.
99 UNHCR Zakat Program, ‘Refugees: The Most in Need of Zakat Fund – Assessing How Zakat Can Drastically
Improve the Lives of the World’s Displaced Population’, Launch Report (2019), p. 14.
100 Ibid., pp. 23–24. Sadaqah is also a form of Islamic charity, involving voluntary donations, and UNHCR has
taken a similar approach in regard to its potential.
101 UNHCR Zakat Program, ‘About The Refugee Zakat Fund’, website.
102 UNHCR, ‘Islamic Philanthropy: Transforming the Lives of the World’s Displaced’, Annual Impact Report
(2021), p. 8.
103 Based on 2020 estimates. Market Data Forecast, ‘Global Crowdfunding Market Research Report:
Segmentation by Product (Awards-Based Crowdfunding, Crowdfunding Auctions, and others), End-users
(Cultural Industries, Technology, Product, Healthcare, Others), Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends
& Forecast To 2026’ (April 2021).
104 Ibid.
105 Business Wire, ‘Global Crowdfunding Market: Insights, Trends and Outlook 2020–2025 –ResearchAndMarkets.
com’, website (July 2020). For examples and information on crowdfunding campaigns related to COVID-19,
see: Sameh Nagui Saleh, Christoph U. Lehmann, and Richard J. Medford, ‘Early Crowdfunding Response to
the COVID-19 Pandemic: Cross-Sectional Study’, Journal of Medical Internet Research 23, no. 2 (February
2021): p. e25429; Ann Danaiya Usher, ‘WHO Launches Crowdfund for COVID-19 Response’, The Lancet
395, no. 10229 (March 2020): p. 1024; Greater London Authority, ‘Mayor launches new fund to help local
communities drive Covid recovery’, website (3 December 2020).
106 Kiva, ‘World Refugee Day’, website; Kiva ‘Our Impact’, Kiva Refugees website.
107 Kiva ‘Our Impact’.
108 Business Wire, ‘Kiva to Scale Lending to Refugees with the Launch of the Kiva Refugee Investment Fund’,
website (20 June 2019).
109 Kibuka-Musoke and Sarzin, ‘Financing for Forced Displacement Situations’, p. 31.
110 Cameroon, Chile, Congo, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Niger and the Republic of Korea. Unitaid,
‘About Us’, website.
111 Unitaid, ‘French levy on airline tickets raises more than one billion euros for world’s poor since 2006’, Unitaid
News (25 January 2013).
112 Allan Rock, ‘Using Frozen Assets to Assist the Forcibly Displaced: A Policy Proposal for Canada’, Discussion
Paper, World Refugee Council (10 April 2018); Selim Can Sazak, ‘An Argument for Using Frozen Assets for
Humanitarian Assistance in Refugee Situations’, Journal of International Affairs 68, no. 2 (Spring/Summer
2015): pp. 305–318.
113 UN Security Council, ‘Sanctions’, website.
114 UNSC, Res. 778 (1992), UN Doc S/RES/778; UNSC, Res. 721 (1991), UN Doc S/RES/721; UNSC, Res. 706
(1991), UN Doc S/RES/706. For a discussion of the Security Council powers in this regard, as well as the
potential for it to secure compensation in other untried means, see: Guy S. Goodwin-Gill and Selim Can
Sazak, ‘Footing the Bill: Refugee-Creating States’ Responsibility to Pay’, Foreign Affairs (29 July 2015); United
Nations Charter (1945), Chapter VII, arts. 39, 41 and 42.
115 The Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (2016) authorizes the US President to impose
sanctions on, and deny entry to, foreign nationals who have engaged in significant corruption or engaged
directly or indirectly in serious human rights abuses. In 2003, the United States confiscated $1.7 billion
dollars in frozen Iraqi assets to assist in the reconstruction of Iraq. For more on this, see: Allan Rock, ‘Using
Frozen Assets to Assist the Forcibly Displaced’, pp. 3–4, 9.
116 Phil Orchard, ‘International, Regional, and Domestic Mechanisms to Hold States to Account for the Causes
of Forced Displacement’, Reference Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention,
UNHCR (October 2021), p. 24; Council of the European Union, ‘concerning restrictive measures against
serious human rights violations and abuse’ (7 December 2020), Decision (CFSP) 2020/1999; Council of the
European Union, ‘EU adopts a global human rights sanctions regime’, Press Release (7 December 2020).
117 Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, ‘Criminality, corruption and impunity:
should Australia join the Global Magnitsky movement?: An inquiry into targeted sanctions to address human
rights abuses’, Report, Parliament of Australia (December 2020); Reuters, ‘Australia to adopt Magnitsky style
sanctions law’, website (5 August 2021).
ENDNOTES 503
118 The Swiss Confederation, Federal Act on the Freezing and the Restitution of Illicit Assets Held by Foreign
Politically Exposed Persons (2015), SR 196.1, arts. 1–4 and art. 17; François Membrez and Matthieu Hösli,
How to Return Stolen Assets: The Swiss policy pathway, Report, Centre for Civil and Political Rights and
Anti-Corruption and Human Rights Initiative (February 2020); World Refugee Council, A Call to Action:
Transforming the Global Refugee System, Report (January 2019), p. 64.
119 Ben Parker, ‘Saving lives and making money: Can humanitarian impact bonds marry the two?’, The New
Humanitarian (15 August 2019).
120 Ibid. Under the terms of an ICRC bond to fund medical centres, if the project fails to meet its objectives, the
outcome funders pay no interest and only pay back 50 per cent of the investor’s principal, and ICRC must
pay back a further 10 per cent of the investors’ original stake. See also: Kibuka-Musoke and Sarzin, ‘Financing
for Forced Displacement Situations’, p. 36.
121 According to the Brookings Institution, just 19 of 214 Impact Bonds contracted globally were in developing
countries. Emily Gustafsson-Wright and Sarah Osborne, ‘Brookings Impact Bonds Snapshot: August 1,
2021’, Factsheet, Brookings Institution website. For more information on impact bonds, see: Government
Outcomes Lab, ‘Impact bonds’, website.
122 Burton Bollag, ‘ICRC launches world’s first Humanitarian Impact Bond’, Devex News, September 8, 2017.
International Committee of the Red Cross, ‘The world’s first “Humanitarian Impact Bond” launched to
transform financing of aid in conflict-hit countries’, Press Release (6 September 2017); Parker, ‘Saving lives
and making money’.
123 Kay Lau et al., Findings from the second research wave of the Independent Evaluation of the FCDO
Development Impact Bonds Pilot Programme, Report, Ecorys (February 2021).
124 See, for example: Parker, ‘Saving lives and making money’. The United Kingdom-funded evaluation of the
ICRC mechanisms included suggestions to lower transaction costs, while also recognizing that some of
the benefits of impact bonds could be achieved through other well-defined grants. Kay Lau, et al., Findings
from the second research wave of the Independent Evaluation of the FCDO Development Impact Bonds
Pilot Programme, pp. 74, 87, 91; Kibuka-Musoke and Sarzin, ‘Financing for Forced Displacement Situations’.
125 Refugee Investment Network, ‘Kois Invest’, website; Parker, ‘Saving lives and making money’.
126 The Commission on International Development investigated the effectiveness of the World Bank’s
development assistance. Commission on International Development, Partners in Development: Report of
the Commission on International Development (London: Pall Mall Press, 1969). In the 1990s, as part of the
revised System of National Accounts, “gross national product was replaced by gross national income (GNI),
an equivalent concept”. OECD, ‘The 0.7% ODA/GNI Target – a history’, website.
127 UNGA, ‘International Development Strategy for the Second United Nations Development Decade’ (1970),
A/RES/262 (XXV), para. 43.
128 The countries reaching it by 1980 were Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. Subsequently,
Finland achieved it once, Luxembourg more continuously and, as of 2016, the United Kingdom for a period.
But as of 2016, “no other DAC country has met the target since it was established, and the weighted average
of DAC members’ ODA has never exceeded 0.4% of GNP”. DAC, ‘History of the ODA Target’, DAC Journal 3,
no. 4 (2002): pp. III-9–III-11.
129 The 2005 World Summit was convened to take decisions in the areas of development, security, human
rights and United Nations reform and was attended by 170 Heads of State and government actors. In its
outcome document, the ambition to reach 0.7 per cent of GDP for official development assistance was
reaffirmed. United Nations, ‘The 2005 World Summit High-Level Plenary Meeting of the 60th session of the
UN General Assembly’, held in New York, 14–16 September 2005; UNGA, ‘2005 World Summit Outcome’
(16 September 2005), UN Doc A/RES/60/1, para. 23 (a), (b).
130 G8, ‘The Gleneagles Communiqué’ (2005), Annex II.
131 OECD, ‘COVID-19 spending helped to lift foreign aid to an all-time high in 2020 but more effort needed’,
OECD News (April 13 2021). Turkey, which is not among the DAC donors, reported that it provided aid
equivalent to more than 1 per cent of its GNI.
132 Charley Coleman, ‘Reduction in the UK’s 0.7 percent ODA target’, House of Lords Library website (18 June
2021).
133 For example, for much of the last decade, over 95 per cent of humanitarian funding came from 20 donors,
and three of them contributed over half of the total. Kibuka-Musoke and Sarzin, ‘Financing for Forced
Displacement Situations’, pp. 14–15; Development Initiatives, ‘Global Humanitarian Assistance Report 2021’,
p. 49.
134 Similarly, most analyses on global humanitarian financing are based on United Nations coordinated appeals,
which account for an estimated 66 per cent of all international humanitarian funding requests. They too
provide only global amounts and are not specific to forced displacement contexts. They also do not include
all donors. For more on the limitations of available data, see: Kibuka-Musoke and Sarzin, ‘Financing for
Forced Displacement Situations’, pp. 8–9, 14.
135 The data is comparable, verified by the OECD and regularly collected (on a yearly basis). OECD, ‘In-donor
refugee costs’, website.
136 OECD, ‘Financing for Refugee Situations’; OECD, ‘COVID-19 spending helped to lift foreign aid to an all-time
high in 2020 but more effort needed’. Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (TOSSD) is designed
to monitor all official resources flowing into developing countries for their sustainable development, as well
as private resources mobilized through official means. See: TOSSD website.
137 DAC Working Party on Development Finance Statistics, ‘Adjusting Development Co-operation Modalities to
Track Support to Refugees in Developing Countries and Refugees Returning to Their Countries of Origin’,
Document, OECD (November 2020).
ENDNOTES 505
138 The relevant Global Compact on Refugees indicators are: number of donors providing ODA to, or for the
benefit of, refugees and host communities in refugee-hosting countries (1.1.2); proportion of ODA provided
to, or for the benefit of refugees and host communities, channelled to national actors in refugee-hosting
countries (1.2.1); volume of ODA provided to, or for the benefit of, refugee returnees in the country of origin
(4.1.1); number of donors providing ODA to, or for the benefit of, refugee returnees in the country of origin
(4.1.2). UNHCR, ‘Global Compact on Refugees: Indicator Framework’, Report (July 2019), p. 10.
139 UNHCR, ‘Elements of the oral update on UNHCR’s coordination efforts to measure the impact arising from
hosting, protecting and assisting refugees’, 81st meeting of the Standing Committee, 5–7 July 2021; UNHCR,
‘Oral update on UNHCR’s coordination efforts to measure the impact arising from hosting, protecting and
assisting refugees’, 78th meeting of the Standing Committee, 7–9 July 2020.
140 Development Initiatives, Global Humanitarian Assistance Report 2021, p. 32.
141 Global Compact on Refugees (2018), paras. 45–47, 58, 82.
142 This includes registration, population movement tracking systems, national population censuses and
population registrars, as well as sample and estimation methods for producing statistics when adequate and
reliable data on individuals is unavailable. UN Economic and Social Council, ‘Report of Statistics Norway and
the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on Statistics on refugees and internally
displaced persons’ (8 December 2014), UN Doc E/CN.3/2015/9, pp. 6–7.
143 Registration is resource-intensive and many States do not have sufficient resources or technical expertise.
In such situations, UNHCR supports the registration of refugees. This is recognized in UNHCR’s Executive
Committee Conclusions. See, for example: UNGA, ‘Report of the Fifty-second Session of the Executive
Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme’, Conclusion on registration of refugees and asylum-
seekers (5 October 2001), UN Doc A/AC.96/959, III B. Some of the world’s largest refugee-hosting States,
such as Iran, Pakistan and Turkey, register refugees, but many others rely on UNHCR.
144 The importance of identity documents has also been emphasized by UNHCR’s Executive Committee. See,
for example: UNGA, ‘Addendum to the Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’,
Conclusion of the Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme on identity documents for
refugees (5 November 1984) UN Doc A/39/12/Add.1, Part IV, para. 87 (3).
145 UNHCR, Guidance on Registration and Identity Management, chapter 3.2, ‘Design a registration strategy’.
UNHCR’s Biometric Identity Management System (BIMS) is a centralized database that securely stores
registration data. It allows real-time consolidation and verification of identity across all UNHCR operations.
It provides a swift means to check identity and verify refugee numbers.
146 The value of national data management systems, current gaps and recommendations for remedying
them are discussed in the report of the High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement. Recommendations
include prioritizing State-led efforts, ensuring interoperability across government departments, aligning
national with international reporting frameworks, and increased financial support from the international
community. UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, Shining a Light on Internal
Displacement, pp. 37–39.
147 See: Part II. See also: Natalia Krynsky Baal, ‘Forced Displacement Data: Critical gaps and key opportunities
in the context of the Global Compact on Refugees’, Reference Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951
Refugee Convention, UNHCR (October 2021), p. 8.
148 In its submission to the High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, the World Bank commented on
definitional ambiguity and specifically in regard to solutions. One of the criteria is “when people have an
adequate standard of living and access to employment”. According to the World Bank, this places the bar
so high that it “is almost impossible to reach it in many developing countries”, including for those who are
not forcibly displaced. The World Bank recommended a durable solution to be defined as “the point where
IDPs are living in conditions that are similar to the rest of the population, including in terms of progress
towards key SDGs”. World Bank, ‘Issues for Consideration’, Submission to the High-Level Panel on Internal
Displacement, p. 4.
149 Specific needs can include: legal status; loss of assets; trauma experienced; as well as physical disabilities
and other health vulnerabilities.
150 In some situations, it might not be necessary or possible to safely collect individual data due to protection,
financial and/or time constraints. In such situations, collecting detailed data from a representative sub-group
of the displaced population can provide relevant information about the overall population. To ensure the
sample is representative, other data (for example from registration) may also be needed. Krynsky Baal,
‘Forced Displacement Data’, pp. 16–21.
151 Zara Sarzin, ‘Stocktaking of Global Forced Displacement Data’, Policy Research Working Paper no. 7985,
World Bank (February 2017), p. 8. For examples on how socioeconomic data can inform evidence-based
programming, policy and advocacy, see: UNHCR, Using Socioeconomic Evidence for Action in Forcibly
Displaced Contexts vol. 1, Report (June 2021).
152 UNHCR’s guidance makes a distinction between data to be collected in the context of an emergency, which
is far less than more in-depth data collected in a more stable context. UNHCR, Guidance on Registration
and Identity Management, chapter 3.4, ‘Define the data set’.
153 UNHCR is also undertaking steps to expand data when refugees come to UNHCR subsequently or when
UNHCR is notified of significant events, such as births, deaths and marriages. Verification exercises also
provide an additional opportunity. Verification exercises are a means to determine whether those who
originally registered have remained in the country, and to update their personal data and further ascertain
their needs. They are a time-bound registration activity conducted in a specific area and/or for a specific
population. This entails verifying and updating individual registration records and collecting additional
information, as necessary, such as level of assets, health and employment status, and degree of access
to safe water, sanitation and appropriate accommodation. UNHCR, Guidance on Registration and Identity
Management, chapter 8.3, ‘Verification exercises’.
154 Discussed earlier in Parts III and IV. Other examples include the annual inter-agency vulnerability assessments
of Syrian refugees in Lebanon (VASyR) and Jordan (VAF). The VASyr has been carried out since 2013 and
the VAF since 2014. Annual Reports available on: The VASyR Hub website; VAF Working Group available on
UNHCR Operational Data Portal.
ENDNOTES 507
155 Krynsky Baal, ‘Forced Displacement Data’, p. 12.
156 Krynsky Baal, ‘Forced Displacement Data’, p. 7.
157 IASC, ‘The Grand Bargain’, p. 8. UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, Shining
a Light on Internal Displacement, pp. 38–39; Krynsky Baal, ‘Forced Displacement Data’, p. 6.
158 IASC, ‘The Grand Bargain’, pp. 7–9.
159 In its 2019–2020 annual report, the JDC also provides additional examples of collaborative work on surveys
and welfare studies in Bangladesh, Ethiopia and the Mashreq, as well as across multiple countries in regard
to the impact of COVID-19. Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement, Annual Report 2019–2020 (2021),
pp. 4, 14–19, 22–23. The IASC has developed a ‘Joint Intersectoral Analysis Framework (JIAF)’ which is
applied in 28 countries. Feedback received will inform further refinements to it. See: IASC, ‘Workstream
5 on Joint Needs Analysis: Application of the Joint Intersectoral Analysis Framework underway’, website
(27 January 2021).
160 See: Part III. Karen Jacobsen and Therese Bjørn Mason, Measuring Progress Towards Solutions in Darfur,
Review, UK Aid and Durable Solutions Working Group, (May 2020); Varalakshmi Vemuru, Aditya Sarkar,
and Andrea Fitri Woodhouse, Impact of Refugees on Hosting Communities in Ethiopia: A Social Analysis,
Report, World Bank (2020); Utz Johann Pape and Ambika Sharma, Informing Durable Solutions for Internal
Displacement in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan vol. A: ‘Overview’, World Bank Group (2019).
161 In 2018, a socioeconomic profiling exercise of refugees in Kalobeyei, Kenya was designed to align to
Kenya’s national household survey. This was important for it enabled comparisons to be made with Kenyan
households in Turkana County. The exercise found that proportionately more refugee children were
enrolled in school than host community children from Turkana County and both groups had lower levels
of school enrollment and literacy than the Kenyan national average. In regard to economic activity, 35 per
cent of non-refugee Turkana residents were out of work, compared to 26 per cent nationally. Refugees
fell much further behind, with 59 per cent not engaged in economic activity. The profiling exercise was
important to help guide humanitarian and development efforts. Jedediah Rooney Fix et al., ‘Understanding
the Socioeconomic Conditions of Refugees in Kenya’, vol. A: ‘Kalobeyei Settlement: Results from the 2018
Kalobeyei Socioeconomic Profiling Survey’, Joint Report, World Bank Group and UNHCR (2019), pp. 13–17.
162 World Bank, ‘Informing the Refugee Policy Response in Uganda: Results from the Uganda Refugee and Host
Communities 2018 Household Survey’, Factsheet (2019).
163 As part of its IDA18 Regional Sub-Window (RSW) for Refugees and Host Communities discussed earlier. For
more on allocations within it, see: Kibuka-Musoke and Sarzin, ‘Financing for Forced Displacement Situations’.
164 Joint Data Center and UN Statistical Division, ‘Written Submission for the High-Level Panel on Internal
Displacement from the Expert Group on Refugee and IDP Statistics’ (February 2021), p. 4; Krynsky Baal,
‘Forced Displacement Data’, p. 8.
165 Refugees also often do not have access to civil registration systems.
166 World Bank and WHO, Global Civil Registration and Vital Statistics: Scaling up Investment Plan 2015–2024
(May 2014, updated 2018), pp. xii, 8–9.
167 The need for interoperability across ministries is highlighted by the High-Level Panel on Internal Displace-
ment. UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, Shining a Light on Internal
Displacement, pp. 37–39.
168 EGRIS consists of statistical experts from national authorities of some 45 countries and territories and
around 25 regional and international organizations. For more on its work and Steering Committee, see:
Natalia Krynsky Baal, Emi Suzuki and Caroline Sergeant, ‘World Bank’s ongoing engagement through the
Expert Group on Refugee and IDP Statistics (EGRIS)’, World Bank Data blog (15 March 2021).
169 EGRIS, International Recommendation on Refugee Statistics (IRRS) (March 2018); EGRIS, International
Recommendations on Internally Displaced Persons Statistics (IRIS) (March 2020).
170 Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement, ‘Who We Are’, website.
171 This includes Armenia, Central African Republic, Colombia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Somalia,
Uganda and Ukraine. The Kurdistan Region of Iraq has also taken such measures. Krynsky Baal, ‘Forced
Displacement Data’, p. 15. Joint Data Center and UN Statistical Division, ‘Written Submission for the High-
Level Panel on Internal Displacement’, pp. 13–14.
172 Sustainable Development Goal 17: “Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global
Partnership for Sustainable Development”. Target 17.18 notes the need for data disaggregation “by income,
gender, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability, geographic location and other characteristics
relevant in national contexts”. UNGA, Transforming our world: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development (25 September 2015), UN Doc A/RES/70/1, pp. 14, 27. The Global Compact on Refugees calls
for “the development of harmonized or interoperable standards for the collection, analysis, and sharing
of age, gender, disability, and diversity disaggregated data on refugees and returnees”. Global Compact
on Refugees (2018), para. 46. See also: EGRIS and JIPs, Building Capacity to Improve Statistics on Forced
Displacement, Conference Report (8 September 2020), p. 23.
173 Joint Data Center, Annual Report 2019–2020, p. 30. The report provides examples of such support in a
range of countries, including the Central African Republic and Ethiopia.
174 Identified as an obstacle in the Joint Data Center, Annual Report 2019–2020, p. 8. A lack of awareness of
the potential benefits can also play a part.
175 Ibid., p. 11. The World Bank supports the creation of UNHCR’s Microdata Library through the Joint Data
Center. The World Bank, Microdata Library; UNHCR, Microdata Library.
176 UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, ‘Issues and Challenges before the
Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement’, Concept Paper (12 February 2020), pp. 3,
10–11. The Panel also acknowledges and seeks to account for multiple displacements affecting the same
ENDNOTES 509
persons, as well as vulnerabilities and capacities of displaced populations through the disaggregation of data
and a shared understanding of risks and vulnerabilities.
177 UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, Shining a Light on Internal Displacement,
pp. 7, 37–39.
178 There are several different types of impact evaluations. The most rigorous is a randomized control trial
(RCT). In RCT, the group selected for the programme is randomly selected among a larger group of similarly
situated individuals. This is to eliminate any unconscious bias in the selection. For more on impact evaluation
methodologies, see: Nessa Kenny and Laura Benrey, ‘Filling the Forced Displacement Evidence Gap: Taking
Stock on World Refugee Day’, Innovations for Poverty Action blog (18 June 2020).
179 Paola Elice, ‘Impact Evaluations in Forced Displacement Contexts: A Guide for Practitioners’, Reference
Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR (October 2021). See, in particular:
Appendix 3 of this reference paper, which describes several ongoing impact evaluations and refers to the
systematic reviews, such as those found here: International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie), ‘Evidence
Use’, website.
180 Edward Miguel and Michael Kremer, ‘Worms: Identifying Impacts on Education and Health in the Presence
of Treatment Externalities’, Econometrica 72, No. 1 (January 2004): pp. 159–217.
181 For more on the impact of deworming in other countries, see: Evidence Action, ‘Deworm the World’,
website.
182 Jessica Cohen and Pascaline Dupas, ‘Free Distribution or Cost-Sharing? Evidence from a Randomized
Malaria Prevention Experiment’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics 125, no. 1 (February 2010): pp. 1–45;
The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), ‘Free bednets to fight malaria’, website.
183 Elice, ‘Impact Evaluations in Forced Displacement Contexts’.
184 Micro-lending is an illustrative example, given the initial promise of these programmes, many of which were
found not to have the desired impact. Abhijit Banerjee, Dean Karlan, and Jonathan Zinman, ‘Six Randomized
Evaluations of Microcredit: Introduction and Further Steps’, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
7, no. 1 (January 2015): pp. 1–21. For other examples of how impact evaluations have led to programme and
policy changes, see: Elice, ‘Impact Evaluations in Forced Displacement Contexts’; Kirsten Schuettler and
Laura Caron, Jobs Interventions for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons, Jobs Working Paper No. 47,
World Bank Group, (2020).
185 Drew B. Cameron, Anjini Mishra, and Annette N. Brown, ‘The growth of impact evaluation for international
development: how much have we learned?’, Journal of Development Effectiveness 8, no. 1 (January 2016):
pp. 1–21. The authors documented 2,259 between 1981 and 2012 with a significant acceleration from 2008
onward. These were concentrated in South Asia, East Africa, South and Central America and Southeast Asia,
p. 1. See also: Elice, ‘Impact Evaluations in Forced Displacement Contexts’, pp. 8–10.
186 Kenny and Benrey, ‘Filling the Forced Displacement Evidence Gap’.
187 For a discussion of the challenges with impact evaluations and some methods for overcoming them, see:
Elice, ‘Impact Evaluations in Forced Displacement Contexts’.
188 Notably, the United Kingdom, the United States, as well as financial institutions like the World Bank.
189 Elice, ‘Impact Evaluations in Forced Displacement Contexts’. For World Bank examples, see: World Bank,
‘Building Evidence on Forced Displacement: Impact Evaluations’, website. Other specialized agencies
include the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), Behavioural
Insights Team (BIT), the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) and ALNAP among others. The IRC,
with support from the LEGO Foundation, leads a consortium of programmes for play-based learning in East
Africa. Impact evaluation is a part of the roll-out of the work being undertaken as part of this partnership.
BIT, ‘BIT included in consortium to bring play to refugee children with $100 million grant from the LEGO
Foundation’, blog.
190 Kenny and Benrey, ‘Filling the Forced Displacement Evidence Gap’. For impact evaluations more broadly in
low- and middle-income countries, see: 3ie, ‘Evidence use: Briefs’, website.
191 Elice, ‘Impact Evaluations in Forced Displacement Contexts’, Appendix 3. See also: Innovations for Poverty
Action, ‘Published RCTs with Forcibly Displaced Populations in LMICs’, Spreadsheet; World Bank, ‘Impact
Evaluations’. Also of note is that, in 2017, the Foreign Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) of the
United Kingdom commissioned the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and Innovations for
Poverty Action (IPA) to conduct a review of RCTs examining strategies for reducing crime, violence and
conflict. In 2019, the results of the review were published, highlighting the effective policies of J-Pal, IPA
and UKAid. The review is a living document that is regularly updated to reflect recent changes. J-Pal, IPA and
UKAid, ‘Governance, Crime and Conflict Initiative Evidence Wrap-Up: Lessons from randomized evaluations
on managing and preventing crime, violence, and conflict’, Report (June 2021).
192 Global Compact on Refugees (2018), art. 3.1.
193 UNHCR, Agenda for Protection (Third Edition) (October 2003), Goal 3.4: “Refugee communities empowered
to meet their own protection needs”; UNGA, ‘Outcome of the World Humanitarian Summit’ (23 August
2016), UN Doc A/71/353, paras. 28–32; New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants (2016), paras. 15
and 31, Annex I 12d and 12e; Global Compact on Refugees (2018), paras. 13, 51, 75, 77, 84, 106.
194 See: Part I.
195 Tristan Harley, ‘Refugee Participation Revisited: The Contributions of Refugees to Early International Refugee
Law and Policy’, Reference Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR (October
2021); Claudena Skran, Refugees in Inter-War Europe: The Emergence of a Regime (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1995), pp. 82–84; Peter Gatrell, The Making of the Modern Refugee (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2013), p. 57; Paula Worby, ‘Lessons Learned from UNHCR’s Involvement in the Guatemala Refugee
Repatriation and Reintegration Programme (1987–1999)’, Evaluation, UNHCR (December, 1999).
ENDNOTES 511
196 See: Part I. See also: Harley, ‘Refugee Participation Revisited’.
197 One of the means used in UNHCR is through participatory assessments. See: UNHCR, ‘UNHCR Tool for
Participatory Assessment in Operations’, (May 2006).
198 UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, ‘Summary of Key Trends from
Consultations with IDPs and Affected Communities’, Document (November 2020), p. 4. Feeling excluded
was particularly prevalent among women, youth, indigenous, marginalized populations, host community
members and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons. In its report, the High-Level Panel
noted the need to recognize the rights and agency of internally displaced persons as citizens and residents
of their country. This includes enabling them to be involved in setting policies related to displacement. UN
Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, Shining a Light on Internal Displacement,
pp. 11, 21.
199 For examples, see: Christa Kuntzelman and Robert Hakiza, ‘Forging a new path, RLOs as Partners: Lessons
from the Africa Refugee Leaders Summit’, Reference Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee
Convention, UNHCR (October 2021).
200 Asia Pacific Summit of Refugees (APSOR), ‘Outcomes Report’ (February 2019), p. 6. Najeeba Wazefadost is
the Executive Director and one of the founding members of the Asia Pacific Network of Refugees (APNOR)
and the Co-Founder of the Global Refugee-led Network (GRN) and the Global Independent Refugee
Women Leaders (GIRWL).
201 Jacobsen and Bjørn Mason, Measuring Progress Towards Solutions in Darfur.
202 A number of studies that incorporate this methodology are discussed in Part III.
203 See, for example, the following strategy documents, all of which refer to innovation as part of their strategic
efforts: UNHCR, UNHCR’s Strategic Directions: 2017–2021 (January 2017); World Food Programme, WFP
Strategic Plan (2017–2021) (July 2017); UNICEF, UNICEF Strategic Plan: 2018–2021, Executive Summary
(January 2018); Norwegian Refugee Council, NRC Global Strategy 2018–2020 (December 2017).
204 The Localization Lab is an organization that supports the development of innovative technologies to
ensure access, security, digital literacy and anonymity of individuals seeking safe avenues to access online
information. Localization Lab, ‘Homepage’.
205 Among the examples are many apps designed during the 2015 European refugee crisis. For these and other
examples of challenges and lessons learned in involving “end-users” in innovations, see: Dragana Kaurin,
‘Developments and Lessons Learned in Humanitarian Innovation for Forced Displacement’, Reference Paper
for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR (October 2021); Charles Martin-Shields,
‘Digitalization in Displacement Contexts: Technology and the implementation of the Global Compact on
Refugees’, Reference Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR (October
2021).
206 See, for example: UNHCR, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) Prevention, Risk Mitigation and
Response: Promising practices, Report (December 2019), pp. 9, 26, 37; UNHCR, Action against Sexual and
Gender-Based Violence: An Updated Strategy (June 2011), pp. 5, 17.
207 The Lorena stove, created by MIT D Lab, is one example. It was created with refugees in Burkina Faso
who had previously not been able to adapt to a solar-powered stove, which had been introduced without
their consultation and did not meet their needs. Dragana Kaurin, ‘Developments and Lessons Learned
in Humanitarian Innovation’, pp. 21–22. For further examples on the importance of understanding user
preferences and specific contexts in innovative cooking interventions, see: Laura Patel and Katie Gross,
‘Cooking in Displacement Settings: Engaging the Private Sector in Non-wood-based Fuel Supply’, Research
Paper, Moving Energy Initiative (January 2019); Samer Abdelnour, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott, and Dirk
Deichmann, ‘Clean cooking interventions: Towards user-centred contexts of use design’, Energy Research
& Social Science 70 (December 2020); Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves and D-Lab, Handbook for
Biomass Cookstove Research, Design, and Development: A Practical Guide to Implementing Recent
Advances (July 2017).
208 They are also known as Refugee/Internally Displaced Person Led Organizations or Refugee Community
Organizations.
209 Global Refugee-led Network, ‘Meaningful Refugee Participation As Transformative Leadership: Guidelines
for Concrete Action’ (2019), p. 5. On the value of organizations led by internally displaced persons, see:
Delina Abadi, ‘IDP-led Women’s Assistance: New Roles for Traditional Groups’, Article, Rethinking Refuge
Platform (8 October 2021).
210 UNHCR, ‘Awards honour refugee-led response to COVID-19 pandemic’, UNHCR News (25 March 2021);
Robert Hakiza et al., ‘Refugee groups fill gaps in COVID-19 response, and they need support’, The New
Humanitarian (29 April 2020); Laura Angela Bagnetto, ‘World Refugee Day: Grassroots groups support African
refugees in COVID-19 struggle’, RFI (20 June 2020); Amnesty International, ‘Refugee-led organizations
need support and funding so they can continue their vital work’, Amnesty International News (19 August
2020); Fernando Duarte, ‘The Burundian refugee soap maker who is fighting coronavirus in Kenya’, BBC
World Service (9 January 2021).
211 UNHCR, ‘Awards honour refugee-led response to COVID-19 pandemic’; Kuntzelman and Hakiza, ‘Forging a
New Path, RLOs as Partners’, p. 3. They make the point that refugees want to make similar contributions to
regular programmes and contribute to policies at every stage “from design to implementation to monitoring
and evaluation”. Internally displaced persons also participated in the pandemic responses – see, for example,
the work of the Jeel Albena Association for Humanitarian Development, ‘Face Mask Making Project’, website.
212 Kuntzelman and Hakiza, ‘Forging a New Path, RLOs as Partners’, p. 12.
213 Ibid., p. 12; Kate Pincock, Alexander Betts, and Evan Easton-Calabria, The Global Governed?: Refugees as
Providers of Protection and Assistance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 2, 110–111.
214 This was among the recommendations at the 2019 African Refugee Summit, which brought together
refugee leaders across Africa. For more, see: Kuntzelman and Hakiza, ‘Forging a New Path, RLOs as Partners’,
ENDNOTES 513
pp. 12–15. Kuntzelman and Hakiza also point to a few NGOs that are investing in capacitating refugee
organizations, like Oxfam and Urban Refugees.
215 This is a recommendation made by Pincock, Betts, and Easton-Calabria, but of relevance too for organizations
led by internally displaced persons. Pincock, Betts, and Easton-Calabria, The Global Governed?, pp. 119–120.
Some commentators have also noted the need to look closely at representation and consider how the
leadership of these organizations are selected, and to whom they are accountable. Will Jones, ‘Refugee
Voices’, Research Paper No. 8, World Refugee Council (February 2019), pp. 7–9.
216 Harley, ‘Refugee Participation Revisited’, pp. 10–15.
217 Global Refugee-led Network, ‘Meaningful Refugee Participation As Transformative Leadership: Guidelines
for Concrete Action’ (2019), p. 6. The Network came out of the June 2018 Global Refugee Summit that
was convened by the Australian National Committee on Refugee Women (ANCORW) and the Network
for Refugee Voices (NRV). James Milner and Amanda Klassen, ‘Civil Society and the Politics of the Global
Refugee Regime’, Reference Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR
(October 2021).
218 NGOs contributed to the work of the AdHoc Committee established by ECOSOC to draft the 1951
Convention. For more on the early role of civil society, see: Part I. See also: Skran, Refugees in Inter-War
Europe; Gil Loescher, The UNHCR and World Politics: A Perilous Path (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2001); Philipp Ther, The Outsiders: Refugees in Europe Since 1492 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2019); Gatrell, The Making of the Modern Refugee; Milner and Klassen, ‘Civil Society and the Politics
of the Global Refugee Regime’; Elizabeth G. Ferris, ‘The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations in
the International Refugee Regime’, in Mark Gibney, Gil Loescher, and Niklaus Steiner (eds.), Problems of
Protection: The UNHCR, Refugees, and Human Rights (New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. 117–137.
219 For more on the definitions of civil society, and also suggestions to define them in a way that distinguishes
between those working for a collective interest or good and those that may be set up to advance a political
interest or the interest of a State, see: Milner and Klassen, ‘Civil Society and the Politics of the Global Refugee
Regime’, pp. 2–3. For more on civil society actors in the Asia-Pacific region, see: Alice M. Nah, ‘Networks
and norm entrepreneurship amongst local civil society actors: advancing refugee protection in the Asia
Pacific region’, The International Journal of Human Rights 20, no. 2 (2016): pp. 223–240.
221 The International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA) is a global network of 130 NGOs that protect and
assist people in emergencies in 160 countries at global, regional, national and local levels. ICVA, Annual
Report 2020 (2021). See also: Milner and Klassen, ‘Civil Society and the Politics of the Global Refugee
Regime’, pp. 4–5, 10.
222 For example, The Network for Empowered Aid Response (NEAR) is a collective of local and national
organizations working in the humanitarian, development and peacebuilding fields. Formed in 2016, it now
has a network of 96 organizations working across the Global South, advocating for systematic change in the
international humanitarian and development aid systems. NEAR, Strategic Plan 2021–2023 (2021), p. 3. The
Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN) consists of some 200 organizations and over 200 individual
members committed to advance the rights of refugees in the Asia Pacific region, APRRN, Annual Report
2018 (2019), p. 3; Nah, ‘Networks and norm entrepreneurship amongst local civil society actors’: pp. 10–16.
223 Milner and Klassen, ‘Civil Society and the Politics of the Global Refugee Regime’, pp. 3–4; Nah, ‘Networks
and norm entrepreneurship amongst local civil society actors’: pp. 5–6.
224 As noted in Part I and accompanying references, this evidence stretches as far back as the ancient period,
with consistent examples since then. Note as well the role of the cities was expressly acknowledged in the
2004 Mexico Plan of Action, marking the 20th anniversary of the Cartagena Declaration, discussed in Part II.
One of the three pillars of the Plan, “Solidarity Cities”, was established to foster coherent strategies and
cooperation, including to enhance the self-sufficiency and local integration of forcibly displaced persons.
On the 30th anniversary of the Cartagena Declaration, States acknowledged the work of the Solidarity
Cities and the importance of incorporating the lessons learned in the promotion of inclusive service delivery
and local integration. Mexico Declaration and Plan of Action to Strengthen the International Protection of
Refugees in Latin America (16 November 2004); Brazil Declaration and Plan of Action: “A Framework for
Cooperation and Regional Solidarity to Strengthen the International Protection of Refugees, Displaced and
Stateless Persons in Latin America and the Caribbean” (3 December 2014).
225 UNHCR estimate, based on the demographic information available in the 2020 annual statistical report. This
is consistent with larger global trends towards growing urbanization. By 2050, an estimated two thirds of the
world’s population will live in urban and peri-urban settings. UNDESA, World Urbanization Prospects: The
2018 Revision, Report (2019), pp. xix, 10.
226 This was the finding of a good practice review published in 2016. It also found that municipalities and
local actors lacked resources and coordination mechanisms to adequately respond to crises. IMPACT and
UCLG, ‘Consultations on Humanitarian Responses in Urban Areas: Perspectives from Cities in Crisis’, World
Humanitarian Summit (May 2016), pp. 3, 7–8.
227 Evan Easton-Calabria, ‘Urban Displacement, Local Engagement: Examining the past, current and future role
of cities in forced displacement’, Reference Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention,
UNHCR (October 2021), pp. 4–5, 8. Among the recommendations of the High-Level Panel on Internal
Displacement is that States allocate funds for solutions from domestic budgets, including to support local
and city authorities, and “ensure that funding allocations are based on current regional and municipality
population figures (including IDPs) and the distinct service needs of IDPs”. UN Secretary-General’s High-
Level Panel on Internal Displacement, Shining a Light on Internal Displacement, pp. 17, 64.
228 Evan Easton-Calabria, ‘Urban Displacement, Local Engagement’, pp. 4–5, 8. She notes, for example, that
some municipal budgets are determined on the basis of censuses, which generally do not account for
refugees. For a review of several examples of the ways cities around the world are responding to forcibly
displaced persons in an inclusive manner, see: Special edition ‘Cities and Towns’, Forced Migration Review
63 (February 2020).
229 Bruce Katz and Luise Noring, ‘In Europe, integrating refugees falls to cities’, Brookings Institution blog
(13 June 2016).
ENDNOTES 515
230 The 2016 Grand Bargain had the ambition of 25 per cent of humanitarian funds being allocated to local
and national partners by 2020. By 2020, the goal had not been reached. See: IASC, ‘The Grand Bargain’;
Metcalfe-Hough et al., The Grand Bargain at Five Years, p. 47. The OECD also notes that: “Few actors
channel aid through host governments in fragile contexts or refugee situations”, OECD, ‘Financing for
refugee situations’, Development Policy Paper 24 (December 2019), p. 21.
231 OECD, ‘Localising the Response: World Humanitarian Summit’, Policy Paper (2017), pp. 7–8.
232 The Red Cross and Red Crescent movement is a network of more than 190 national societies. Since its
inception, it has stressed the importance of complementarity between national, regional and international
humanitarian responses. In 2015, its Council of Delegates agreed to a resolution that included support for
greater reliance on local partners. Council of Delegates of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent
Movements, ‘Message to the World Humanitarian Summit’ (2015) Res. CD/15/R3.
233 The United Nations and international NGOs, both of which work across multiple countries globally.
234 UNGA, ‘Outcome of the World Humanitarian Summit’, paras. 36, 37, 51, 52. Already in 2003, it was a core
principle of Good Humanitarian Donorship (an informal donor forum and network): “Strengthen the capacity
of affected countries and communities to prevent, prepare for, mitigate and respond to humanitarian
crises, with the goal of ensuring that governments and local communities are better able to meet their
responsibilities and co-ordinate effectively with humanitarian partners.” Good Humanitarian Donorship, ‘24
Principles and Good Practice of Humanitarian Donorship’, Principle 8.
235 UN High-Level Panel on Humanitarian Financing, Too Important to Fail, pp. 3, 19.
236 Ibid., p. 20.
237 Ibid., p. 19.
238 IASC, ‘The Grand Bargain’, p. 5. Localization is also part of the European Commission’s strategy. European
Commission, ‘Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the
European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Action Plan on Integration
and Inclusion 2021–2027’ (24 November 2020), COM(2020) 758 final, pp. 16–17, 19–20.
239 Metcalfe-Hough et al., The Grand Bargain at Five Years, pp. 46–47. Examples include guidance on capacity
strengthening, financing, partnership, coordination, gender equality and the role of intermediaries, drawing
on research, field consultations and good practice.
240 Ibid., pp. 18, 47.
241 Ibid., p. 52. They noted that this includes Christian Aid and the Catholic international development charity
(CAFOD), with 73 per cent and 72 per cent of their respective humanitarian funding channelled to local
partners in 2020. The other signatories are ActionAid, the Czech Republic, IFRC, New Zealand, OCHA (for
CBPFs), Slovenia, Spain, UNFPA, UNHCR, UNICEF and WFP. They noted, however, that not all signatories
track this in their financial systems and, among those that do, there is a lack of standardization.
242 Ibid., pp. 23–24. They noted good examples, including: a promising IRC strategy to significantly enhance
the scale and quality of operational partners; positive practices funded by the European Civil Protection and
Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) and Germany for community-based initiatives in Turkey; and the work
of the NRC through the expert pool NORCAP to strengthen local actors’ capacities in the Lake Chad Basin.
The latter includes training on monitoring and evaluation, programme and financial management and, in
the areas of protection, gender-based violence and accountability to affected populations. Ibid., pp. 49–50.
243 Ibid., p. 51. They noted that some agencies had internal policies to standardize this, like Catholic Relief
Services, UNFPA, UNHCR and the Rapid Response Facility (RRF) in the United Kingdom.
244 Ibid., p. 59. The reviewers also discussed the use and potential of pooled funds, such as those managed
by OCHA to help mitigate risks, p. 55. The Global Protection Cluster also highlighted the importance of
strengthening capacities in areas, such as human resources, finance and administration to advance
localization. Anthony Nolan and Marie-Emilie Dozin, ‘Advancing the Localisation Agenda in Protection
Coordination Groups’, Learning Paper, Global Protection Cluster (April 2019), p. 20. Save the Children and
Street Child also pointed out that local actors required a level of core funding beyond project-based funds
to develop their capacities. Save the Children and Street Child, ‘Innovation for Localization: Exploring the
impact of channelling unrestricted funding to NNGOs in Emergency Contexts’, Research Report (October
2020), p. 7.
245 Led by UNHCR and the Somali NGO Consortia, the IASC Result Group 1 Sub-Group is developing the
guidance. Metcalfe-Hough et al., The Grand Bargain at Five Years, pp. 47–48. As of 2021, national and local
humanitarian actors constituted 8 per cent of leadership of cluster/sector coordination at the subnational
level; this is exclusive of coordination mechanisms for refugee situations. Guidance was issued by the IASC
in July 2021: IASC, ‘Strengthening Participation, Representation and Leadership of Local and National Actors
in IASC Humanitarian Coordination Mechanisms’, Guidance Document (July 2021).
246 5th Mayoral Forum on Human Mobility, Migration and Development, ‘Marrakech Mayors Declaration: Cities
Working Together for Migrants and Refugees’ (8 December 2018).
247 It was initially established to advance the development of cities and upgrading of slums. Among the initial
large donors was the United Kingdom and the World Bank. It now has 29 members that provide strategic
direction, finance the Fund, and engage in advocacy and operational activities. Independent Evaluation
Group, ‘Global Program Review: Cities Alliance’, Report, (28 June 2007); COWI, ‘Independent Evaluation of
the Cities Alliance’, Final Report (April 2012); Cities Alliance, ‘Who We Are’, website.
248 United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), ‘Join the #ItTakesACommunity global campaign for
community-driven approaches to human mobility and diversity’, UCLG News (23 April 2021). The UCLG
reports working with over 240,000 “towns, cities and regional metropolises” and “175 local and regional
government associations”. UCLG, ‘Who are We?’, Factsheet.
249 Eurocities, ‘Statement on asylum in cities’ (2015); Eurocities, ‘A better quality of life for all: strategic framework
2020–2030’, website; Eurocities, ‘About us’, website.
ENDNOTES 517
250 European Commission, ‘Action Plan on Integration and Inclusion 2021–2027’, pp. 16–17 and 19–20;
Eurocities, ‘Cities rally for integration’, Eurocities News (16 December 2020).
251 The sector encompasses a diverse array of groups, from private citizens, philanthropic foundations and
trusts to corporate for-profit commercial enterprises and business associations and coalitions. There are
many factors that motivate private sector actors to engage, and these are not mutually exclusive. They can
include: sustaining or generating sales of goods and services; expanding markets; widening brand recognition
and demonstrating good global citizenship. For the business case for working with and employing refugees,
see: International Chamber of Commerce, ‘Private Sector for Refugees (PS4R)’, website; PwC Global Crisis
Centre, ‘Managing the refugee and migrant crisis: The role of governments, private sector and technology’,
Report (2017), pp. 16, 30; Somini Sengupta, ‘Mark Zuckerberg Announces Project to Connect Refugee
Camps to the Internet’, New York Times (27 September 2015).
252 UNGA, ‘World Summit Outcome’ (2005), para. 22(e). It articulated areas including financing, investment,
innovation, delivery of services and infrastructure support, paras. 23(d), 23(e), 24(d), 25(c). See also: OHCHR,
‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and
Remedy” Framework’ (2011); World Economic Forum and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), ‘Guiding Principles for Public-Private Collaboration for Humanitarian Action’
(December 2007). Then, more recently: United Nations Global Compact, ‘Guidelines on a Principle-Based
Approach to the Cooperation between the United Nations and the Business Sector’, Report (2015).
253 Stephen O’Brien, ‘Coming of age for humanitarians and the private sector’, Devex (5 July 2016); UNGA,
‘One humanity, shared responsibility: Report of the Secretary-General for the World Humanitarian Summit’,
Annex ‘Agenda for Humanity’ (2 February 2016), UN Doc A/70/709.
254 New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants (2016).
255 Including in the areas of: finance; job creation and commercial business ventures; infrastructure development
and use of innovative technologies; access to financial services; national risk monitoring and preparedness
measures; the expansion of complementary pathways. Global Compact on Refugees (2018), paras. 3, 27,
32, 42, 53, 71, 79.
256 Including in the areas of: migration governance; investment in sustainable development and human capital;
information-sharing; skills-matching; promotion of decent work conditions; capacity-building of national
authorities; and facilitation of remote work and learning. UNGA, Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and
Regular Migration (19 December 2018), UN Doc A/RES/73/195, paras. 15(j), 18(d), 18(e), 19(e), 21(c), 22(e),
23(d), 34(e), 34(f), 34(h), 35(i), 35(j), 36, 39(d), 44.
257 UNHCR, ‘Private sector steps up for refugees as Global Refugee Forum opens in Geneva’, Press Release
(16 December 2019); UNHCR, ‘Outcomes of the Global Refugee Forum’, Report (2019).
258 Tent Partnership for Refugees, ‘Our Members’, website.
259 Tent, ‘Resources’, website.

260 Tülin Erdem et al., ‘How Helping Refugees Helps Brands: An Analysis of French, German, and Italian
Consumer Perceptions’, Report, NYU Stern and Tent (June 2019), pp. 17–19.
261 Tent, ‘Airbnb.Org, DoorDash, IKEA, and Teleperformance recognized for their efforts to integrate refugees at
first-ever awards’, Tent News (17 June 2021); Tent, ‘Major Dutch companies on track to fulfill commitments
to support refugees’, Tent News (8 April 2021).
262 Tent, ‘Tent joins Vice President Harris’s Call to Action in Support of the Northern Triangle’, Tent News (27 May
2021).
263 The World Economic Forum is the ‘International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation’, established in
1971. The core group of stakeholders that it brings together are businesses, governments and international
organizations, civil society, Young Leaders, academia and science communities, and media. World Economic
Forum, ‘Our Mission’, website; World Economic Forum, A Platform for Impact, Brochure (2019). In 2016, the
WEF Global Risks Report highlighted forced displacement as the highest risk affecting the world in terms
of likelihood and the fourth highest in terms of impact after climate change-related risks, weapons of mass
destruction and water crises. World Economic Forum, The Global Risks Report 2016, Insight Report (2016),
pp. 11, 15–16.
264 See, for example: UNHCR et al., Evaluation of UNHCR’s Engagement with the Private Sector (December
2019); UNICEF, ‘UNICEF corporate partnerships’, website; Norwegian Refugee Council, ‘Corporate
partnerships’, website; Danish Refugee Council, ‘Partner up’, website.
265 As noted previously, a Tent European consumer study found that consumers, particularly millennials, are
more likely to purchase from companies that support refugees in different ways, such as hiring them,
investing in refugee enterprises, and delivering services to refugees. Tülin Erdem et al., ‘How Helping
Refugees Helps Brands’.
266 Cindy Huang, ‘Global Business and Refugee Crises: A Framework for Sustainable Engagement’, Report,
Center for Global Development and Tent Foundation (September 2017), pp. 9–10; The B Team, ‘Refugees
and Migrants: An Opportunity for Humanity’, Report (2016), p. 19; Marta Martinez, ‘More businesses commit
to helping refugees thrive with new jobs, trainings, investment’, UNHCR News (26 September 2018);
Michael Levitin, ‘Investing in people: how brands are stepping up to the refugee crisis’, Reuters (7 August
2019). Other examples include: IKEA, People & Planet Positive, IKEA Sustainability Strategy (August 2020),
pp. 16–17; UPS Foundation, Humanitarian Relief & Resilience Program, Overview (2019), pp. 2, 22–24;
Starbucks, ‘2020 Global Environmental & Social Impact Report’ (April 2021), p. 9; Unilever, ‘Disasters and
emergencies’, website; Airbnb.Org, ‘Opening homes in times of crisis’, website.
267 UNHCR, ‘Procurement in UNHCR’, Brochure (2021), p. 22; UNHCR, Global Report 2020 (2021), p. 19. In
2020, UNHCR’s total expenditure amounted to $4.84 billion.
268 The Instant Network Schools project was set up in 2013 by the Vodafone Foundation and UNHCR. As of
August 2021, the programme had reached over 126,456 students and 1,638 teachers in six African countries.
For more, see: Vodafone, ‘Instant Network Schools’, website.
ENDNOTES 519
269 Including the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Sesame Workshop, Education Cannot Wait (ECW), and
BRAC. The LEGO Foundation, ‘Humanitarian’, website. In March 2021, the LEGO Foundation and UNHCR
came together to bring the power of learning through play to 37,500 refugee and host community children
in Ethiopia.
270 Mastercard Foundation, ‘Scholars Program’, website; Mastercard Foundation, ‘Mastercard Foundation
Scholars Program Commitment to Education for Refugees’, website (17 December 2019).
271 Mastercard Foundation, ‘1,000 Entrepreneurs within Refugee Communities in Rwanda to Benefit from
Economic Recovery Grants on World Refugee Day’, website (19 June 2020).
272 Netzwerk Unternehmen integrieren Flüchtlinge translates as “Network Companies Integrate Refugees”.
273 The network facilitates the exchange of information on relevant laws, as well as promising practices, such as
language training, skills development and ongoing mentorship. Eva Degler and Thomas Liebig, Finding Their
Way: Labour Market Integration of Refugees in Germany, Report, OECD (March 2017), p. 62; NETZWERK
Unternehmen integrieren Flüchtlinge, ‘Netzwerk’ [German], website.
274 Its work focused on promoting a more positive narrative on refugees, hiring refugees and encouraging their
staff to engage in voluntary activities in support of refugees. Irina Mosel et al., ‘Public narratives and attitudes
towards refugees and other migrants: Germany country profile’, Briefing, ODI (November 2019), p. 8; Angeli
Mehta, ‘Refugee Crisis: German firms heed Merkel’s plea for help’, Reuters (26 June 2017); Wir zusammen,
‘Integrations-Initiativen der deutschen Wirtschaft’ [German], website.
275 Tent, ‘Resources’.
276 Ingka Group, Annual Summary & Sustainability Report FY20 (2020), p. 92.
277 UNHCR, ‘Clean Energy Challenge’, UNHCR website.
278 As of March 2021, some 2.7 million refugees had been registered using IrisGuard. IrisGuard, ‘Iris biometrics
facilitate change in aid sector worth hundreds of billions’, website (March 2021); Alison Buckholtz and
Andrew Raven, ‘Eyeing a More Secure Future for Refugees’, IFC Blogs (May 2019); Wang and Cakmak,
‘Private Sector Initiatives in Forced Displacement Contexts’, pp. 13–14.
279 UNHCR, ‘IKEA Brighter Lives for Refugees Campaign raises 30.8 million euros for renewable energy sources
for refugee families’, UNHCR News (18 January 2016).
280 IKEA, ‘Power for a brighter future’ [Video], YouTube, 2017.
281 UNHCR, ‘Join our TikTok challenge to show the world why #EveryoneCounts’, UNHCR News (10 December
2019); UNHCR, ‘Searching for Syria? Google and UNHCR offer answers to five top questions’, Press Release
(22 May 2017); Omer Elnaiem, ‘UNHCR X CAREEM: Together We Can Make a Difference’, Careem blog
(22 April 2018); H&M Foundation, ‘$3.3 Million to education for refugee children’, website (24 February 2017).
282 Private sector partners include WeWork, Sierra Nevada and Caracol Televisión. Somos Panas Colombia, ‘Our
Partners’ [Spanish], website.
283 For more on complementary pathways, see: Part III.
284 A 2019 evaluation of UNHCR’s engagement with the private sector found that, while it engages with over
250 private sector entities in over 60 countries on initiatives aimed to improve protection and overall well-
being of forcibly displaced communities, improving engagement beyond fundraising objectives remains
a challenge. For details, see: UNHCR et al., Evaluation of UNHCR’s Engagement with the Private Sector.
A first year report on WFP’s 2020–2025 strategy for private sector partnerships and fundraising revealed
progress on all key objectives and improved relationships with private sector partners. WFP, ‘Private-sector
partnerships and fundraising strategy (2020–2025): Cooperation with the private sector, foundations and
individuals for the achievement of zero hunger’, Strategy Document (14 November 2019); WFP, ‘Quarterly
report on private sector partnerships and fundraising strategy: Quarter 4: September to December 2020’,
Informal Consultation (March 2021).
285 Of note is that, while many initiatives say they are for the benefit of forcibly displaced persons, the majority
of publicized examples are for refugees. Further efforts to raise their profile could contribute to a greater
public understanding of the scale and impact of internal displacement.
286 Between 1990 and 1999, the approximate number of published studies concerning forced displacement in
each of those subject areas was: sociology (700); anthropology (700); legal studies (500); and health (400).
Filippo Dionigi and Domenico Tabasso, ‘Academic Trends in Forced Displacement’, Reference Paper for the
70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR (October 2021), pp. 5–8, 32–34.
287 The increase in the number of published studies on forced displacement in each of those two decades in
these fields was approximately: sociology from 1,500 to 2,700; economics from 90 to 570; and education
from 180 to 460. Ibid. pp. 4–8.
288 Dionigi and Tabasso, ‘Academic Trends in Forced Displacement’, p. 8.
289 Ibid., p. 9.
290 Refugees in Towns, ‘Refugees in Towns’, website; Refugees in Towns, ‘What Facilitates Refugee Integration?
Report’, Feinstein International Center (July 2020).
291 See: Part III.
292 For example, in 2018, the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) established the Mixed Migration Centre (MMC) as
a platform for data collection, research and analysis with the objective to contribute to a more nuanced
and balanced understanding of mixed movements and to contribute to evidence-based policymaking. The
Centre also offers an external bibliography of research publications on mixed movements. Mixed Migration
Centre, ‘About MMC’, website.
ENDNOTES 521
293 Overviews available at: Integrated Refugee Health Information System, ‘iRHIS Home’, website. See also:
Part IV.
294 Some of this work is noted in the Education section of Part IV.
295 An unpublished literature review by UNHCR and partners in 2021 found a mere handful of studies examining
the specific impact of inclusion on host communities.
296 Dina Abu-Ghaida and Karishma Silva, ‘Educating the Forcibly Displaced: Key Challenges and Opportunities’,
Reference Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR (October 2021);
Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement, ‘Forced Displacement and Educational Outcomes: Evidence,
Innovations, and Policy Indications’, JDC Quarterly Digest 2 (December 2020).
297 UNESCO, ‘Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in and through education: taking stock for improved
implementation’, Concept Note (February 2021).
298 World Bank, ‘Building Evidence on Forced Displacement: Overview’, website.
299 Dionigi and Tabasso, ‘Academic Trends in Forced Displacement’. These include the following: Refugee
Research Network (RRN) and International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM); Institute
for the Study of International Migration (Georgetown University); Refugee Studies Centre (University of
Oxford); Center for Migration and Refugee Studies (American University in Cairo); Colloquium for Refugees,
Migrants, and Statelessness (Northwestern University); the Refugee Law Initiative (University of London);
Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law and the Forced Migration Network (University of New South
Wales); Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (LERRN) (Carleton University); and Centre for
Refugee Studies (York University). The High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement has called for more efforts
to create and expand research networks in internal displacement, especially in displacement-affected
countries. UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, Shining a Light on Internal
Displacement, pp. 5, 22–23.
300 For reflections on how to enhance ethical and collaborative research of impact to policymakers, practitioners,
and advocates, see: Susan McGrath and Julie E.E. Young (eds.), Mobilizing Global Knowledge: Refugee
Research in an Age of Displacement (Calgary: Alberta University of Calgary Press, 2019).
301 AZ Quotes, ‘Lidia Yusopova Quotes’, website. Yusupova was the coordinator of the Grozny office of
‘Memorial’, a Moscow-based human rights organization. She is the recipient of the Martin Ennals award in
2003, the Rafto Prize in 2005, and a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008. For more on her, see:
Martin Ennals Award, ‘Lidia Yusupova’, website; Oslo Freedom Forum, ‘Lidia Yusupova: Chechen lawyer and
human rights activist’, website; Rafto Prize, ‘2005 Laureate: Lidia Yusupova’, website; European Parliament,
‘Memorial human rights activist Lidia Yusupova on the “Virus” of fear’, Article (16 April 2010).
302 It does not look at wider accountability of those whose actions less directly contribute to forced displacement,
such as through the sale of arms. This book also does not cover issues pertaining to prevention, sustaining
peace and transitional justice – all important and weighty topics but beyond the scope of this volume.
303 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (adopted 25 July 1951) (1951 Convention), UN Doc A/CONF.2/
108, art. 1(f).
304 International Center for Transitional Justice, ‘What is Transitional Justice?’, website; ICTJ Research Unit and
Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement, ‘Transitional Justice and Displacement: Challenges and
Recommendations’, Report (June 2012).
305 Robert H. Jackson, ‘Opening Statement before the International Military Tribunal’, Palace of Justice at
Nuremburg, Germany (21 November 1945).
306 Established by act of treaty initially with France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United
States following the unconditional surrender of Germany. Other allies subsequently joined. William Schabas,
Unimaginable Atrocities: Justice, Politics, and Rights at the War Crimes Tribunals (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2012), p. 10.
307 It was not established by treaty but by a proclamation of General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Allied
Commander in the Pacific. M. Cherif Bassiouni et al. (eds.), The Legislative History of the International
Criminal Court: Second Revised and Expanded Edition (Leiden: Brill Nijhoff, 2016), p. 29. As these authors
explained, the allies also agreed to prosecute under their national laws and procedures persons believed to
have committed “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” and who were within their respective zones
of occupation. France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States cumulatively prosecuted an
estimated 15,000 persons. Similar arrangements were made in the Far East. Ibid.
308 For more on the Cold War and other reasons for the lack of State agreement for a permanent tribunal during
this time, see: Schabas, Unimaginable Atrocities. Ethnic cleansing, while not defined as an independent
crime under international law, includes acts that are serious violations of international human rights and
humanitarian law that may themselves amount to one of the recognized atrocity crimes, in particular crimes
against humanity. UN, ‘Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes: A Tool for Prevention’ (2014), p. 1.
309 UN, Charter of the International Military Tribunal – Annex to the Agreement for the prosecution and
punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis (London Agreement) (8 August 1945), art. 6;
Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, Special Proclamation: Establishment of an International Military
Tribunal for the Far East (19 January 1946), art. 5.
310 International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal,
Nuremberg, 14 November 1945–1 October 1946 vol. 1 (Nuremberg: IMT, 1947), pp. 179, 342, 365–367.
311 Charges were dropped for one defendant because he was found to be mentally unfit, and two died of natural
causes during the trials. The National WWII Museum (New Orleans), ‘Tokyo War Crimes Trial’, website.
312 Twelve received the death penalty, including Hermann Göring who committed suicide prior to the execution
of his sentence. IMT, Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, pp. 6, 365–367;
International Court of Justice, Nuremberg Trial Archives. The International Court of Justice: Custodian of
the archives of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, Booklet (2018), pp. 12–14, 86. Of the 25
ENDNOTES 523
men convicted by the IMTFE, seven were executed, 16 received life imprisonment and two received lesser
sentences. Edward Drea, ‘Introduction’, in Researching Japanese War Crimes Records: Introductory Essays
(Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration for the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese
Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group, 2006), p. 6; The National WWII Museum, ‘Tokyo
War Crimes Trial’.
313 UNGA, ‘Extradition and Punishment of War Criminals’ (13 February 1946), UN Doc A/RES/3(I).
314 UNGA, ‘The Crime of Genocide’ (1 December 1946), UN Doc A/RES/96(I).
315 UNGA, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (9 December 1948), UNTS
vol. 78, no. 1021, art. II. The offence includes any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy,
in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group: killing members of the group; causing
serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of
life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to
prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
316 International Committee of the Red Cross, ‘What Is International Humanitarian Law?’, Factsheet (July 2004),
p. 2.
317 ICRC, ‘Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Additional Protocols, and Their Commentaries’, Collected
Documents, ICRC website.
318 The first three replaced earlier conventions and the fourth supplemented relevant provisions in the Hague
Conventions. ICRC, ‘Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Additional Protocols, and Their Commentaries’.
319 For example, the Fourth Geneva Convention contains two provisions expressly for the benefit of refugees.
The first provides that refugees should not be treated as enemy aliens, solely on the basis of their nationality.
The second addresses the situation where the State from which the refugee fled occupies the State of
asylum. It provides that refugees may only be arrested, prosecuted, convicted or deported by the occupying
power for offences committed after the outbreak of hostilities, and not punished for acts, such as political
offences, which may have been the cause of their flight and recognition of their status as refugees. The
Additional Protocol I also provides that refugees are “protected persons” within the meaning of the Fourth
Convention. For a more in-depth analysis, see: Emanuela-Chiara Gillard, ‘Humanitarian Law, Human Rights
and Refugee Law – Three Pillars’, Statement, ICRC (23 April 2005).
320 For more on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1951 Refugee Convention, see: Part I.
321 Schabas, Unimaginable Atrocities, pp. 2, 12–14.
322 “Including reports of mass killings, massive, organized and systematic detention and rape of women, and the
continuance of the practice of ‘ethnic cleansing’, including for the acquisition and the holding of territory”.
UN Security Council, Res. 827 (1993) (25 May 1993), UN Doc S/RES/827, p. 1.
323 For an analysis of “victor’s justice” at the International Military Tribunal, the International Military Tribunal for
the Far East, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda, and the selection of situations at the International Criminal Court, see: Chapter 3: ‘Victor’s
Justice? Selecting Targets for Prosecution’, in Schabas, Unimaginable Atrocities, pp. 73–97.
324 UNSC, Statute of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, adopted by Security Council Res. 827
(1993) of 25 May 1993 and amended by Security Council resolutions 1166 (1998) of 13 May 1998, 1329
(2000) of 30 November 2000, 1411 (2002) of 17 May 2002 and 1431 (2002) of 14 August 2002; UN, Updated
Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (September 2009).
325 Philippe Sands, East West Street: On the Origins of ‘Genocide’ and ‘Crimes against Humanity’ (New York:
Vintage Books, 2017), p. 363. Milosovic died in 2006 before the conclusion of his trial.
326 ICTY, ‘ICTY Facts & Figures’, Infographic.
327 ICTY, ‘About the ICTY’ and ‘ICTY Remembers: The Srebrencia Genocide’, website.
328 UNSC, Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, as established by Security Council Res. 955
(1994) of 8 November 1994 and last amended by Security Council Res. 1717 (2006) of 13 October 2006.
329 International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, ‘About the ICTR’, Legacy website for the Interna-
tional Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
330 Ibid.
331 International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, ‘Functions of the Mechanism’, ICTR website.
332 The ILC was established by the UN General Assembly in 1947 for the promotion of the progressive
development and codification of international law. It is comprised of independent legal experts whose
numbers have grown from 15 to 34. UNGA, Establishment of an International Law Commission (17 November
1947), UN Doc A/RES/174(II). They are elected by the General Assembly every five years. ILC, ‘Membership’,
website.
333 ILC, ‘Draft Code of Offences against the Peace and Security of Mankind’, Yearbook of the International
Law Commission vol. II (1954), pp. 408–412; UN, Report of the 1953 Committee on International Criminal
Jurisdiction, (27 July–20 August 1953), UN Doc A/2645.
334 Bassiouni et al., The Legislative History of the International Criminal Court, pp. 33–35.
335 UN, ‘Report of the International Law Commission on the work of its forty-sixth session’ (2 May–22 July
1994), UN Doc A/45/10.
336 Ad Hoc Committee on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court and Preparatory Committee
on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court; Bassiouni et al., The Legislative History of the
International Criminal Court, pp. 39–40.
ENDNOTES 525
337 Human Rights Advocacy and the History of Human Rights Standards, ‘Individual Criminal Accountability’,
website; Coalition for the International Criminal Court, ‘About the Coalition’, website; Heidi Nichols Haddad,
The Hidden Hands of Justice: NGOs, Human Rights, and International Courts (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2018).
338 Seven countries voted against: China; Iraq; Israel; Libya; Qatar; the United States; and Yemen. Bassiouni et
al., The Legislative History of the International Criminal Court, pp. 101; UN, Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court (17 July 1998), UNTS vol. 2187, no. 38544.
339 Rome Statute (1998). Both Russia and the United States initially signed the Rome Statute but neither ratified
it. In 2002, the United States officially notified the UN Secretary-General that the United States did not intend
to become a party. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John R. Bolton,
‘International Criminal Court: Letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’ (6 May 2002). In 2016, Russia
also formally notified the Secretary-General of the same. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian
Federation, ‘Statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry’ (16 November 2016).
340 Rome Statute (1998), art. 70. In 2016, five persons were found guilty by the ICC of offences against the
administration of justice. Their offenses included corruptly influencing witnesses and having solicited false
witness testimonies in another case before the ICC. ICC, ‘Situation in the Central African Republic: The
Prosecutor v. Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, Aimé Kilolo Musamba, Jean-Jacques Mangenda Kabongo, Fidèle
Babala Wandu and Narcisse Arido’, Case Information Sheet (September 2018).
341 International Centre for Truth and Justice, ‘What Is Complementarity? National Courts, the ICC and the
Struggle Against Impunity’, website.
342 ICC, Elements of Crimes, Collected Documents (2013).
343 Rome Statute (1998), art. 7(1).
344 ICC, Elements of Crimes, p. 3. For further commentary, see: Chapter 13: ‘Part 2 Jurisdiction, Admissibility,
and Applicable Law: Compétence, Recevabilité, Et Droit Applicable, art. 10’, in Schabas, The International
Criminal Court.
345 Rome Statute (1998), art. 8.
346 Ibid.
347 Ibid., arts. 12 and 13. For an explanatory overview, see also: ABA-ICC Project, ‘How the ICC Works’, website.
348 ICC, Situation in the People’s Republic of Bangladesh/Republic of the Union of Myanmar (14 November
2019) Pre-Trial Chamber III, Decision, ICC-01/19.
349 Orchard, ‘International, Regional, and Domestic Mechanisms to Hold States to Account for the Causes of
Forced Displacement’, pp. 10–11.
350 The Trust Fund for Victims is independent of the Court, created in 2004 by the Assembly of States Parties, in
accordance with Article 79 of the Rome Statute. The Trust Fund for Victims, ‘Providing reparative value for
victims and survivors’, website.
351 ICC, ‘About the Court’, website; ICC, ‘Defendants’, website.
352 Administration of justice offences are set out in: Rome Statute (1998), art. 70.
353 Lubanga was released in 2020 having served his sentence, which included time served prior to sentencing.
ICC, ‘Situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: The Prosecutor v. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo’, Case
Information Sheet (July 2021).
354 Ibid.
355 Ibid.
356 International Criminal Court, ‘Situation in the Republic of Mali: The Prosecutor v. Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi’,
Case Information Sheet (July 2021).
357 ICC, ‘Situation in Uganda: The Prosecutor v. Dominic Ongwen’, Case Information Sheet (July 2021).
358 Afghanistan, Bangladesh/Myanmar, Burundi, Central African Republic, Central African Republic II, Côte
d’Ivoire, Sudan (Darfur), Democratic Republic of Congo, Georgia, Kenya, Libya, Mali, State of Palestine, the
Philippines and Uganda. ICC, ‘Situations under Investigation’, website. It was also conducting preliminary
examinations to determine whether a full investigation was warranted in Bolivia, Colombia, Guinea, Nigeria,
Ukraine and Venezuela. For further information on these, see: ICC, ‘Preliminary examinations’, website.
359 ICC, ‘Cases’, website.
360 Including Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi of Libya, Omar Al-Bashir, former President of Sudan, and the Ugandan
rebel leader Joseph Kony of the Lord’s Resistance Army. For the full list of defendants at large, see: ICC,
‘Defendants at large’, database.
361 See, for example: Schabas, Unimaginable Atrocities, pp. 83–89; Geoff Dancy et al., ‘What Determines
Perceptions of Bias toward the International Criminal Court? Evidence from Kenya’, Journal of Conflict
Resolution 64, no. 7–8 (August 2020): pp. 1443–1469; Chatham House, ‘Beyond the ICC: The Role of
Domestic Courts in Prosecuting International Crimes Committed in Africa’, Meeting Summary (30 April
2010); Laurel Hart, ‘The International Criminal Court: biased or simply misunderstood?’, UNA-UK (28 October
2018). For a response from the ICC to these allegations, see for example: ICC, Helping build a more just
world: Understanding the International Criminal Court, Booklet (The Hague: ICC, 2020), p. 15.
362 Since the ICC issued arrest warrants against Al-Bashir in 2009 and 2010, he travelled to several countries,
including Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Jordan, Kenya, Malawi and Uganda. Despite
several notifications from the ICC to the UN Security Council and the Assembly of States Parties to the
ENDNOTES 527
Rome Statute, none of the countries he visited arrested him. See: ICC, ‘Non-Cooperation’, website. In 2019,
he was convicted in Sudan of corruption and sentenced to imprisonment. Sudan has since announced it
will transfer him to the ICC. Nima Elbagir, Hamdi Alkhshali, and Yassir Abdullah, ‘Sudan to hand Ex-President
Omar al-Bashir to ICC’, CNN (11 August 2021).
363 The Prosecutor v. Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta (2015), ICC, No. ICC-01/09-02/11. In an analysis of the case,
Daniel Mburu writes that the political campaign in Kenya and regionally against the ICC created a hostile
and intimidating atmosphere for witnesses that led to their withdrawal from the case so that the collected
evidence would not have been sufficient to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt against the new
President Kenyatta. Daniel M. Mburu, ‘The Lost Kenyan Duel: The Role of Politics in the Collapse of the
International Criminal Court Cases against Ruto and Kenyatta’, International Criminal Law Review 18, no. 6
(November 2018): pp. 1041–1046.
364 Schabas, Unimaginable Atrocities, p. 92.
365 ICC Assembly of States Parties, ‘Review of the International Criminal Court and the Rome Statute system’
(6 December 2019), ICC-ASP/18/Res.7.
366 Known as the Independent Expert Review (IER), ICC Assembly of State Parties, ‘Independent Expert Review
of the International Criminal Court and the Rome Statute System’, Final Report (30 September 2020).
367 ICC Review Mechanism, ‘Proposal for a Comprehensive Action Plan for the assessment of the
recommendations of the Group of Independent Experts, including requirements for possible further action’,
Introductory Note (30 June 2021). Stakeholders included States parties, the Prosecutor, the International
Criminal Court Bar Association, and civil society organizations. Ibid. I(5).
368 UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder. Estimates for the number of fatalities vary. See, for example: World Peace
Foundation, ‘Mass Atrocity Endings: Sierra Leone’, website (8 July 2015); Mary Kaldor and James Vincent,
‘Case Study: Sierra Leone – Evaluation of UNDB Assistance to Conflict-Affected Countries’, UNDP Evaluation
Office (2006), p. 4; Jennifer Pagonis, ‘Refugee status for Sierra Leoneans to end’, UNHCR News (6 June
2008).
369 UN Economic and Social Council, ‘Situation of human rights in Sierra Leone: Report of the High Commissioner
for Human Rights pursuant to Commission on Human Rights resolution 1999/1’ (22 December 1999), UN
Doc E/CN.4/2000/31; Rachel Kerr and Jessica Lincoln, ‘The Special Court for Sierra Leone: Outreach,
Legacy and Impact’, Final Report, King’s College, London (February 2008), p. 4.
370 Sierra Leone and United Nations, Agreement between the United Nations and the Government of Sierra
Leone on the establishment of a Special Court for Sierra Leone (12 April 2002), UNTS vol. 2178; UNSC,
Res. 1315 (2000), UN Doc S/RES/1315 (2000).
371 Limited to crimes committed after 30 November 1996, the date of the first peace agreement, the Abidjan
Peace Accord, which failed. Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone, ‘Homepage’.
372 The Court also conducted trials for the contempt charges which involved administration of justice offenses,
such as tampering and threatening a witness. Ibid.
373 Prosecutor v. Charles Ghankay Taylor (2013) Special Court for Sierra Leone, Appeals Chamber, SCSL-03-
01-A.; ‘Prosecutor welcomes UN-backed court’s decision to uphold Charles Taylor conviction’, UN News
374 RSCSL, ‘Homepage’.
375 The Office of the High Representative has the status of a diplomatic mission. It is made up of diplomats
seconded by the governments of the Peace Implementation Council (international body guiding the peace
process) and nationals from Bosnia Herzegovina, international staff hired directly, and national staff from
Bosnia and Herzegovina. Office of the High Representative, ‘General Information’.
376 Initially, the War Crimes Chamber was responsible for trying lower to mid-level perpetrators referred to it by
the ICTY, but its mandate was subsequently broadened.
377 The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, ‘Statistics on judgements of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina for
the period of 2004–2020’, website.
378 Joanna Korner, ‘Processing of War Crimes at the State Level in Bosnia and Herzegovina’, Report, Organization
for Security and Co-operation in Europe (2016), pp. 16, 24–25, 29–33, 39–41, 44; Joanna Korner, ‘Improving
War Crimes Processing at the State Level in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Follow Up Report’, British Embassy
Sarajevo and Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (2020), p. 54.
379 Bogdan Ivanišević, The War Crimes Chamber in Bosnia and Herzegovina: From Hybrid to Domestic Court,
Report, International Center for Transitional Justice (2008), p. 1; James Meernik and Josue Barron, ‘Fairness
in National Courts Prosecuting International Crimes: The Case of the War Crimes Chamber of Bosnia-
Herzegovina’, International Criminal Law Review 18, no. 4 (November 2018): pp. 732–733.
380 Known formally as the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK). This period is discussed in Part III, with
accompanying references.
381 Editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica, ‘Khmer Rouge’, Encyclopedia Britannica online.
382 Prosecutor v. Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan 002/01 (2014) Trial Chamber, Extraordinary Chambers in the
Courts of Cambodia, No. 002/19-09-2007/ECCC/TC. For further information on refugees from Cambodia
during this time, see: Part III. Refugee data can be found here: UNHCR, Refugee Data Finder.
383 The Law on the Establishment of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for the Prosecution
of Crimes Committed during the Period of Democratic Kampuchea (2001) and the Agreement between the
United Nations and the Royal Government of Cambodia concerning the prosecution under Cambodian
law of crimes committed during the period of Democratic Kampuchea (ECCC Agreement) (2003). Both are
available at: ECCC, ‘Legal Documents: Agreements’, Collection of Documents.
ENDNOTES 529
384 Schabas, Unimaginable Atrocities, p. 19.
385 Prosecutor v. Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan 002/01, pp. 532, 556, 579; Prosecutor v. Nuon Chea and Khieu
Samphan 002/02 (2018) Trial Chamber, Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, No. 002/19-
09-2007/ECCC/TC.
386 Ieng Thirith who had served as the Minister of Social Action under the Khmer Rouge regime was assessed
as mentally unfit for trial and removed from the proceedings early on. Her husband, Ieng Sary, who has
served as Minister of Foreign Affairs, died in 2013 less than one and a half years into the trial. Open Society
Justice Initiative, Performance and Perception: The Impact of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of
Cambodia, Report (2016), p. 23.
387 ECCC, ‘Accused/Charged Person: Ao An’; ‘Accused/Charged Person: Meas Muth’; ‘Accused/Charged
Person: Yim Tith’; ‘Accused/Charged Person: Im Chaem’, website.
388 ECCC, Decision on international Co-Prosecutors’ immediate appeal of the trial chamber’s effective
termination of case 004/2 (October 2020), No. E004/2/1/1/2.
389 Open Society Justice Initiative, ‘Recent Developments at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of
Cambodia: Deadlock Continues in Ao An Case’, Briefing Paper (January 2020); Howard Varney and Katarzyna
Zduńczyk, ‘Advancing Global Accountability: The Role of Universal Jurisdiction in Prosecuting International
Crimes’, Research Report, International Center for Transitional Justice (December 2020), p. 5.
390 Open Society Justice Initiative, ‘Performance and Perception’, p. 16.
391 Ignaz Stegmiller, ‘Legal Developments in Civil Party Participation at the Extraordinary Chambers in the
Courts of Cambodia’, Leiden Journal of International Law 27, no. 2 (June 2014), p. 473; Ken Gee-kin Ip,
‘Fulfilling the Mandate of National Reconciliation in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia
(ECCC) – An Evaluation through the Prism of Victims’ Rights’, International Criminal Law Review 13, no. 4
(November 2013), p. 886.
392 International Crimes Tribunal, Bangladesh, ‘About ICT-BD’, website.
393 Ibid.; Morten Bergsmo and Elisa Novic, ‘Justice after decades in Bangladesh: national trials for international
crimes’, Journal of Genocide Research 13, no. 4 (November 2011): pp. 503–504; Caitlin Reiger, ‘Fighting
Past Impunity in Bangladesh: A National Tribunal for the Crimes of 1971’, Briefing Paper, International Center
for Transitional Justice (July 2010), pp. 3–4.
394 See: Part III.
395 As of September 2020, 74 cases had been investigated and judgments delivered in 42 cases. These involved
70 sentences. Six executions had been carried out. ICT-BD, ‘Case Statistics’, Chart. Examples include Mir
Qasem Ali, a member of the Jamaat-e-Islaami party, who was sentenced to death by the ICT in November
2014, and Abdul Qader Mollah, another Jamaat-e-Islaami leader, who was sentenced to life imprisonment
in February 2013 for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Human Rights Watch, ‘Bangladesh: War
Crimes Verdict Based on Flawed Trial’, HRW News (22 March 2016); HRW, ‘Bangladesh: Death Sentence
Violates Fair Trial Standards’, HRW News (18 September 2013).
396 HRW, ‘Letter to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Re: International Crimes (Tribunals) Act’, HRW News (8 July
2009); M. N. Schmitt, Louise Arimatsu, and T. McCormack, ‘Correspondents’ Reports’, in Yearbook of
International Humanitarian Law 2010 (The Hague: T.M.C. Asser Press, 2011), p. 463; Anbarasan Ethirajan,
‘Bangladesh finally confronts war crimes 40 years on’, BBC News (20 November 2011); Lydia Polgreen,
‘Bangladesh Faces Atrocities of Its Independence Era’, The New York Times (3 May 2002).
397 Abdus Samad, ‘The International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh and International Law’, Criminal Law Forum
27, no. 3 (2016): pp. 276–277, 280–281, 286, 290; Surabhi Chopra, ‘The International Crimes Tribunal in
Bangladesh: silencing fair comment’, Journal of Genocide Research 17, no. 2 (June 2015): pp. 212–214;
UN, ‘UN Human Rights experts urge Bangladesh to ensure fair trials for past crimes’, UN News (2 July 2013);
Amnesty International, ‘Bangladesh: Fresh death sentences show urgent need to end executions’, Amnesty
International News (3 November 2013); HRW, ‘Bangladesh: War Crimes Verdict Based on Flawed Trial’.
398 Open Society Justice Initiative, Judging a Dictator: The Trial of Guatemala’s Ríos Montt, Report (November
2013); International Justice Monitor, ‘Efrain Rios Montt & Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez: Background’, website;
HRW, ‘Guatemala: Rios Montt Convicted of Genocide’, HRW News (5 October 2013); Hanna Bosdriesz and
Sander Wirken, ‘An Imperfect Success – The Guatemalan Genocide Trial and the Struggle against Impunity
for International Crimes’, International Criminal Law Review 14, no. 6 (December 2014): pp. 1067–1094.
They argue that the fact “the trial was undertaken by the domestic justice system led to a societal impact
more profound than any international trial could have had”. For further information on the displacement
resulting from the civil war in Guatemala, see: Part III.
399 This action was reportedly taken in response to the decision of Senegal to try Hissène Habré in Chad,
discussed more fully under the section on universal jurisdiction in this Part.
400 BBC News, ‘Mahamat Djibrine: Chadians hail ex-police chief’s arrest’ (16 May 2013); HRW, ‘Q&A: The Case
of Hissène Habré before the Extraordinary African Chambers in Senegal’, HRW News (3 May 2016); HRW,
‘Chad: Alleged Habré Accomplices to Stand Trial’, HRW News (10 November 2014).
401 Theodor Meron, ‘Closing the Accountability Gap: Concrete Steps Toward Ending Impunity for Atrocity Crimes’,
American Journal of International Law 112, no. 3 (2018): p. 434. For a further review of constraints, see for
example: Antonio Cassese (ed.), ‘Part A: Major Problems of International Criminal Justice, IV International
Criminal Trials, The Rationale for International Criminal Justice’, in The Oxford Companion to International
Criminal Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 125; Alex Obote-Odora, ‘Transfer of cases from
the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to Domestic Jurisdictions’, African Journal of Legal Studies
5, no. 2 (January 2012): pp. 154–159.
402 Orchard, ‘International, Regional, and Domestic Mechanisms to Hold States to Account for the Causes of
Forced Displacement’, pp. 21–23. Máximo Langer and Mackenzie Eason, ‘The Quiet Expansion of Universal
Jurisdiction’, The European Journal of International Law 30 no. 3 (2019): pp. 779–817. Langer and Eason
consider a prosecuting state that does “not have a territorial, national or national interest link with a crime
ENDNOTES 531
at the time of its commission” can have a jurisdictional claim “based on customary international law or a
treaty”, p. 789, footnote 22. For more on universal jurisdiction in general, see: Robert Cryer, Darryl Robinson,
and Sergey Vasiliev, An Introduction to International Criminal Law and Procedure (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2019), pp. 56–68; Antonio Cassese and Paola Gaeta, Cassese’s International Criminal
Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 278–281. TRIAL International, Evidentiary Challenges in
Universal Jurisdiction Cases: Universal Jurisdiction Annual Review 2019 (March 2019).
403 In 1960, Eichmann was kidnapped by Israeli agents from Argentina where he had been living and transported
to Israel undercover. Argentina raised the issue of the abduction in the UN Security Council on grounds of
violation of its sovereignty. Israel held that the actions of the individuals who apprehended Eichmann had
broken Argentinian law, but that this was not an act of the Israeli State. It further noted that the incident
had to be viewed in “light of the exceptional and unique character of the crimes attributed to Eichmann”.
On 23 June 1960, the UNSC adopted a resolution in which it acknowledged the “concern of people in all
countries that Eichmann should be brought to appropriate justice” while also noting that such acts “affect
the sovereignty of a Member State and therefore cause international friction, may, if repeated, endanger
international peace and security”. The matter was declared closed in a joint statement issued by both
countries on 3 August 1960. UNSC, ‘Question Relating to the Case of Adolf Eichmann’ (23 June 1960),
UN Doc S/RES/138 (1960); UNSC, ‘Chapter VIII: Consideration of Questions Considered by the Security
Council under its Responsibility for the Maintenance of International Peace and Security’, in Repertoire of
the Practice of the Security Council (1959–1963), p. 161; Attorney General v. Adolf Eichmann (1962), District
Court of Jerusalem, Israel, No. 40/61.
404 Amnesty International, ‘Chile: 40 years on from Pinochet’s coup, impunity must end’, Amnesty International
News (9 October 2013).
405 UNHCR, The State of The World’s Refugees 2000: Fifty Years of Humanitarian Action (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2000), pp. 126–127.
406 UK Courts and Tribunals Judiciary, ‘The Supreme Court’, website.
407 UNGA, Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
(10 December 1984), UNTS vol. 1465, no. 24841, arts. 2 and 5.
408 Regina v. Bartle and Regina v. Evans (1999), House of Lords (On Appeal from a Divisional Court of the
Queen’s Bench Division). See also: Robert Dubler SC and Matthew Kalyk, Crimes Against Humanity in
the 21st Century: Law, Practice and Threats to International Peace and Security (Boston, MA: Brill, 2018),
pp. 1001–1002. Prior to the enactment of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 and the resultant creation
of the Supreme Court for the United Kingdom, the 12 most senior judges termed the Lords of Appeal in
Ordinary or “Law Lords” sat in the House of Lords, making the House of Lords the highest court of appeal in
the United Kingdom. UK Courts and Tribunals Judiciary, ‘The Supreme Court’.
409 Jonathan Power, ‘The Pinochet Case’, in Ending War Crimes, Chasing the War Criminals (Leiden: Brill Nijhoff,
2017), pp. 90–92.
410 HRW, ‘Q&A: The Case of Hissène Habré’.

411 Ministère Public v Hissein Habré (2016), Extraordinary African Chambers. A subsequent appeal was
dismissed in 2017, and the Court confirmed the previous judgment. The Prosecutor v Hissein Habré (2017),
Extraordinary African Chambers. Habré died in August 2021.
412 This includes complaints initiated and completed trials.
413 Langer and Eason, ‘The Quiet Expansion of Universal Jurisdiction’: p. 785. There were 503 cases between
1998 and 2007 and 342 cases between 1988 and 1997.
414 Ibid. Thirty-four universal jurisdiction cases were completed between 2008 and 2017.
415 TRIAL International, Universal Jurisdiction Annual Review 2021: A year like no other? The impact of
coronavirus on universal jurisdiction (April 2021), p. 13. In terms of charges: 81 are for crimes against
humanity; 76 for war crimes; 40 for torture; and 18 for genocide. By region of commission, there were 14
cases in West and Central Africa, 11 in East and Horn of Africa and Great Lakes, three in Southern Africa,
three in the Americas, five in Asia and the Pacific, two in Europe, 30 in the Middle East and North Africa and
one civil universal jurisdictional case prosecuted in the United States (Note: The case of Mahamat Nouri
includes both Chad and Sudan as the “countries of commission”).
416 Amnesty International, Universal jurisdiction: A preliminary survey of legislation around the world, 2012
update, Report (2012), p. 1. Some jurisdictions, however, impose limitations including reserving its application
only to situations where the State is required by treaty law to exercise it, or only in circumstances where
the State in which the crime was committed is unwilling or unable to prosecute. Kevin Jon Heller, ‘What Is
an International Crime? (A Revisionist History)’, Harvard International Law Journal 58, no. 2 (Spring 2017):
pp. 40–41.
417 Thirteen countries globally have specialized programmes established to investigate and prosecute war
crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and deny a safe haven to perpetrators: Belgium; Canada;
Croatia; Denmark; France; Germany; the Netherlands; Norway; South Africa; Sweden; Switzerland; the
United Kingdom; and the United States. Devika Hovell, ‘The Authority of Universal Jurisdiction’, European
Journal of International Law 29, no. 2 (23 July 2018): p. 448; Orchard, ‘International, Regional, and Domestic
Mechanisms to Hold States to Account for the Causes of Forced Displacement’, p. 22. While the set-up of
the units differs, some feature specialized police, prosecution, or immigration units, which are dedicated
to international crimes. In some cases, such as Denmark and the United Kingdom, specific personnel are
dedicated to grave international crimes. HRW, ‘The Long Arm of Justice: Lessons from Specialized War
Crimes Units in France, Germany, and the Netherlands’, Report (September 2014).
418 Langer and Eason, ‘The Quiet Expansion of Universal Jurisdiction’: pp. 781–782.
419 Ibid.: pp. 781, 792–795.
420 Ibid.: pp. 793–796; Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh/
ISIL (UNITAD), ‘Harnessing Technology to Deliver Justice for War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity and
Genocide’ [Video], UN, 12 May 2021.
ENDNOTES 533
421 TRIAL International, Universal Jurisdiction Annual Review 2021, pp. 46–51.
422 According to Langer and Eason, most defendants that have been tried on the basis of universal jurisdiction
in recent years had sought asylum status in the prosecuting State prior to proceedings being initiated against
them. Langer and Eason, ‘The Quiet Expansion of Universal Jurisdiction’: p. 797.
423 TRIAL International, Universal Jurisdiction Annual Review 2019, p. 9.
424 Ibid., p. 7.
425 Jenna B. Russo, ‘R2P in Syria and Myanmar: Norm Violation and Advancement’, Global Responsibility to
Protect 12, no. 2 (May 2020): p. 219; UNGA, ‘International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism to Assist
in the Investigation and Prosecution of Persons Responsible for the Most Serious Crimes under International
Law Committed in the Syrian Arab Republic since March 2011’ (21 September 2016), UN Doc A/RES/71/248;
IIIM, ‘International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism’, website. It was supported by a vote of 105 to 15,
with 52 abstentions, Russo, ‘R2P in Syria and Myanmar’, p. 219.
426 IIIM, ‘Mandate’, website.
427 UNGA, ‘International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism to Assist in the Investigation and Prosecution
of Persons Responsible for the Most Serious Crimes under International Law Committed in the Syrian Arab
Republic since March 2011’, para. 30. This was the first General Assembly-mandated investigation since
1999, when the General Assembly asked the Secretary-General and the United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights to investigate fully reports of mass killings of prisoners of war and civilians, rape and cruel
treatment in Afghanistan. UNGA, ‘Question of Human Rights in Afghanistan’ (29 February 2000), UN Doc
A/RES/54/185.
428 The number of such bodies has increased in the past decade. From 2006 to 2010, the HRC mandated seven
commissions in four countries/territories. During the next decade, it mandated 32 commissions and missions
in regard to events in 18 States/territories or regional situations. OHCHR, ‘International Commissions of
Inquiry, Fact-Finding Missions: Chronological List’, OHCHR Library Database.
429 For more on these and related documents, see: OHCHR, ‘International Commissions of Inquiry, Fact-Finding
Missions: Mandating Authority’, OHCHR Library Database.
430 OHCHR, ‘Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar’, HRC website. The Mechanism is to make
use of the information provided by the earlier mandated International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar.
The explicit link to prosecutions stands in contrast with the mandate of other HRC resolutions mandating
human rights examinations. See, for example: HRC, ‘Situation of human rights in Belarus in the run-up to the
2020 presidential election and in its aftermath’ (24 March 2021), UN Doc A/HRC/46/20.
431 UNSC, Res. 2379 (21 September 2017), UN Doc S/RES/2379 (2017).
432 Specifically, the attacks against the Yazidi community in the Sinjar region and the 2014 mass killing of
unarmed cadets and military personnel at Tikrit Air Academy. UNSC, ‘Sixth Report of the Special Adviser and
Head of the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh/
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant’, (3 May 2021), UN Doc S/2021/419, p. 2. In June 2021, Karim A. A. Khan
was sworn in as the Prosecutor for the ICC.
433 Including with individual courts and investigating judges to strengthen national capacity in regard to the
storage and preservation of evidence and the development of case files as a basis for future prosecutions.
Ibid., pp. 15–17.
434 Nadia’s Initiative, ‘Nadia Murad Addresses UN Security Council at UNITAD Briefing’ [Video], 10 May 2021.
435 Ibid.
436 These are among suggestions for improving accountability suggested by Theodor Meron, distinguished
jurist and former judge of the international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Meron, ‘Closing
the Accountability Gap’: pp. 434, 440, 450–451.
437 Ibid., p. 442.
438 Open Society Foundations, ‘Talking Justice: The Long Road to the Extraordinary African Chambers’ [Podcast]
(26 April 2016).
ENDNOTES 535
CONCLUSION: REFLECTING Back and Facing Forward
1 She and her husband had a fruit wholesale business before fleeing to Lebanon early in the civil war. By
2014, they had exhausted their savings and were living in an informal settlement in the Bekaa Valley. Their
home, like that of so many others, was a tent that often leaked. She had lost hope in return and considered
education for her children their most pressing need. Conversation with the author, 2014. They did not wish
for their names to be identified.
2 Fragile States are those that are exposed to risks but do not have sufficient capacity to absorb and manage
them. This can lead to violence, poverty, inequality, environmental degradation, political instability and
forced displacement. In 2018, total bilateral ODA to fragile contexts amounted to $76 billion, over twice
the level of foreign direct investment (FDI) and “two-thirds the value of remittances”. For DAC members, 63
per cent of their net country-allocable ODA was spent on fragile contexts. OECD, States of Fragility 2020,
Report (2020), Part I: ‘The state of fragility in 2020’.
3 Discussed in Parts IV and V.
4 Conversation with author at the Global Refugee Forum held in Geneva, 16–18 December 2019.
Index
A
academics, partnerships, 329–333 Khieu Samphan, 344
Building Evidence on Forced Displacement, 333 Khmer Rouge, 344
collaboration, means to improve, 333 Milošević, Slobodan, 337
growth in academic studies, 332 Montt, José Efraín Ríos, 346
literature on forced displacement, 329 Nuon Chea, 344
accountability, for international crimes Pinochet, Augusto, 347–348
Ad Hoc International Criminal Tribunals, 336–341 principle of complementarity, 338
atrocity crimes, 335–336, 340, 342–343, 345– Saleh Younous, 346
346, 348–349, 351 Special Court for Sierra Leone, 341–343
Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal, strengthening national and regional prosecution
345–346 capacities, 343, 349–351
Chad, 346–347 Taylor, Charles, 342
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of United Nations Investigative Team for
the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention), Accountability of Da’esh/ISIL (UNITAD), 350
335 Universal Jurisdiction, 347–349
crime of aggression, 339 UN Security Council, 300, 337–338, 342, 350
crimes against humanity, 335–337, 339 war crimes, 335– 337, 339
Djibrine, Mahamat, 346 War Crimes Chamber Bosnia and Herzegovina, 343
Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of admission, physical barriers to refugees and migration
Cambodia (ECCC), 344–345 Australia, 123–124
Geneva Conventions, 336–337, 339 European Court of Justice, 121
Guatemala, 346 Hungary, 120–121
Habré, Hissène, 346, 348 Israel, 120
Human Rights Council (HRC), 350 United States of America, 119
independent fact-finding, 349–351 Afghanistan/Afghans, 39, 164, 174, 184, 202, 205, 207
International Criminal Court, 338–341 flight of refugees to Iran and Pakistan, 174
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, 337 internally displaced persons, 139
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former national policy for, 139
Yugoslavia, 336–337 refugee recognition rates, 130
International, Impartial and Independent refugees, 130, 174, 205, 207, 313
Mechanism on Syria (IIIM), 350 Africa, 178–183, 268–274
International Military Tribunal for the Far East effect of refugees on livelihoods and welfare in,
(IMTFE), 335 268–274
International Military Tribunal (IMT), 335 forced displacement in, 104
International Residual Mechanism for Criminal ICC investigations in, 340
Tribunals (IRMCT), 337 ISIL and affiliated groups in, 351
Kaing Guek Eav, 344 local integration, 167
INDEX 539
number of refugees between 1975 and 1990, 174 refugees between 1975 and 1990, 174
pre and ancient history migrations from, 51–56 refugees during the 1990s, 184
return of refugees to their countries following Asian-African Legal Consultative Committee (AALCC), 109
post-independence civil wars, 178 Asian-African Legal Consultative Organization
African Development Bank (AfDB), Transition Support (AALCO), 109
Facility (TSF), 292 assimilation, in new national communities, 89, 170
African Union (AU), 106 Assyrians, 75
African Union Convention for the Protection and Assyro-Chaldeans, 73
Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa asylum
(Kampala Convention), 136, 172 the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of
Agenda for Humanity, 286 Refugees, 88–91
Agenda for Protection 2002, 116, 118, 201, 215 ancient history, 51–56
Agenda for the Protection of Cross-Border Displaced definitive underlying ideals, 51
Persons in the Context of Disasters and Climate early forms of, 53
Change, 150 extradition treaties, 64, 95
aggression, crime of, 339 little ice age and, 59
Airbnb, Open Homes programme, 325 Middle Ages–Early Modern Era, 56–60
Albanians, flight from Kosovo, 193 and nationalism, 66–67
Al-Bashir, Omar, 341 and persecution. See persecution
Algerian refugees, repatriation from Tunisia and political 53, 62, 64, 110
Morocco, 175 principle of non-refoulement, 95
Algeria, war of independence, 104 terms negotiated by refugees, 37, 59
Alhambra Edict, 1492, 56 restrictive policies, 119–132
Allende, Salvador, 347 right to seek, 54, 121
Alma-Ata Declaration, 246 role of non-government institutions, 51
Al-Mahdi, Ahmed, 340 slavery and, 61
Alsace-Lorraine, displacement of Francophones, uneven application, 51
Jews and Roma from, 82–83 atrocity crimes, 335–336, 340, 342–346, 348–351
al Shabab, Somalia, 145, 148 Australia, 195
American Revolution 1775–1783, 60 asylum policies, 210, 214
Americas, free movement agreements in, 149 off-shore processing of asylum seekers, 123–124
Amin, Idi, 180, 196 Operation Sovereign Borders, 123
Amnesty International, 189, 348 resettlement of refugees after WWII, 195
Anatolia (Turkey), 53, 67 work and education visas to Pacific Islanders, 151
Ancient Greece, refugee groups, 54, 314 Austria, 69, 79, 196
Ancient Near East, 54 asylum-seekers in, 130, 196
Angola, 174, 301 Austro-Hungarian Empire, 59
decolonization struggle of, 104 Awami League, 176
Portuguese Colonial War, 104 Azerbaijan, 164
Arab-Israeli war, 1948, 109 self-employment among refugees and IDPs in, 258
Argentina, 78
resettlement of Jewish refugees in the 1930s, 80
resettlement of refugees after WWII, 195 B
armed groups, 38, 189, 273 Balkan Wars, 75, 247
Armenians, 67 1912–13, 66–67
expulsion from Turkey, 69 gender-based violence during, 247
settlement in Lebanon and Syria, 76 Bangkok Principles on Status and Treatment of
Asia Refugees (1966), 106, 109–110, 170
displacements during World War II in, 83 Bangladesh, 175–176
migration pathways for people affected by Cox’s Bazaar market study, 254, 296
disasters, 151 International Crimes Tribunal Jamaat-e-Islami, 346
prosecution of atrocity crimes in, 345–346 provisions, 140

and Rohingya refugees, 177, 185, 254 carrier sanctions, 61, 118–119
war between East and West Pakistan, 176 Cartagena Declaration on Refugees (1984), 106,
World Bank health programmes for Rohingya 110–115, 170–171
refugees in, 254 affirmation of 1951 Refugee Convention, 112
Ban Ki-moon, 286 application to Venezuelans, 113
bed nets, insecticide-treated, 312 context, 110
Belgium, 59, 62, 64, 69, 91 refugee definition, 112
Belize, 114, 191 precursor, 110
Biden, Joe, President, 122 Catholic church, 56
bilateral donors, 287, 291, 293 Catholics, 58, 60
biometric iris scan software, 328 cell phone connections, 297
border controls, 72, 118–119, 126, 129 Central African Republic (CAR), 38
Bosnia, findings of the ICTY, 337 Central America
Bosnia-Herzegovina, 193 1984 Colloquium on the International Protection
War Crimes Chamber, 343 of Refugees in, 111
Bosnian war, 193 conflict in, 110
Brazil, 212, 238 Nansen Initiative, 150
recognition of Venezuelans as refugees, 113 Platform on Disaster Displacement (PDD), 150
resettlement of refugees after WWII, 195 return of refugees to, 190
Britain. See United Kingdom (UK) revolutions in, 192
British India, partition into India and Pakistan, 83 smuggling and trafficking of people and drugs
British Mandated Palestine, resettlement of Jewish across, 126
refugees in the 1930s, 80 central Mediterranean route, 129
Bulgaria, 52, 73 Chad, 146
ethnic Turks in, 130 prosecution of atrocity crimes in, 346–347
loan scheme to assist settlement of Balkan war Chad, Lake
refugees 1926, 75 effect of climate change on, 143
refugee recognition rates of Afghan asylum- extreme weather conditions and displacement
seekers, 130 around, 39
Burma, 83 Charter of Good Practice on the Role of the Private
Burundi, 104–105 Sector in Economic Integration of Refugees
refugees in Tanzania from, 167, 268 (International Chamber of Commerce), 294
Chechen wars (1994–2009), 334
Chile, 319, 347–348
C education for refugee children in, 238
Cambodia, 184 China, 77, 80–81, 338
Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of border war between Vietnam and, 197
Cambodia (ECCC), 344–345 displacements during the Sino-Japanese war in,
Khmer Rouge regime, 178, 197, 344 83
national criminal prosecution, 344–345 displacements during World War II in, 81
return of Cambodians to, 184 ethnic Chinese in south Vietnam in 1977–1979, 197
Cameroon, 143, 254, 288, 313 invasion by Japan, 81
Canada, 60–61, 122, 151, 214 and preventative approach to healthcare, 246
humanitarian and compassionate criteria for resettlement of Jewish refugees in the 1930s, 80
permitting foreigners to remain, 151 China, People’s Republic of, 81
naturalization of refugees in, 167 China, Republic of, 81
resettlement of refugees after WWII in, 195 Christian refugees, in the 12th to 17th century, 56
sponsorship programmes, 214 CIREFCA (International Conference on Central
Canary Islands, arrival of refugees and migrants on the, 129 American Refugees) (1989), 190–192, 259
Caribbean Community (CARICOM) visa free stay Cities, 323–324
INDEX 541
citizenship, 167 education for refugee children in, 238

civil society groups, 150, 318–320 education of Venezuelans in, 238
Clean Energy Challenge, 328 effect of forcibly displaced on labour market
climate, adaptation capacities, engaging affected participation, 219
communities, 146 facilitation of job creation and economic growth
climate and disaster displacement frameworks, in, 293
141–143 internal displacement in, 266
1951 Convention, 148 Kiva (crowd funder) loans to borrowers in, 300
Agenda for the Protection of Cross-Border Permiso Especial de Permanencia (PEP), 267
Displaced Persons in the Context of Disasters policy changes toward displaced Venezuelans,
and Climate Change, 150 267, 289
Caribbean Community (CARICOM) free movement refugees in, 325
agreements, conflict and sustaining peace, 149 Somos Panas (We are Friends) campaign, 329
Cartagena Declaration, 148 Temporary Protection Status for Venezuelans, 113, 219
free movement protocols, conflict and sustaining Venezuelans in, 113–114
peace, 149 communism, 196
history of influence of climate on mobility, conflict communist countries, refugees from, 197
and sustaining peace, 141 complementarity, principle of, 338
Intergovernmental Authority on Development complementary pathways, 210, 212–215, 329
(IGAD), 149 education visas, 212
Nansen Initiative on Disaster-Induced Cross- family visas, 212–213
Border Displacement, 150 how to broaden, 213
national laws, for protection for persons unable to international commitments, 212–215
return home in the aftermath of a disaster, 151 Nansen passport, 215
OAU Convention, in the context of climate change private sponsorship of refugees, 214
and natural disasters, 106, 148 use in OECD countries, 212
Platform on Disaster Displacement (PDD), 150–151 work visas and labour mobility schemes, 212–215
proposals for new treaty, 149–151 comprehensive approaches, 130, 251
Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction, Comprehensive Plan of Action, 198
147–148 First International Conference on Indochinese
United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on refugees, 197
Climate Change (IPCC), 142 International Conference on Central American
climate, conflict and sustaining peace, 145–147 Refugees (CIREFCA), 190–192, 259
causation, 145 International Conferences on Assistance to
evidence, 145 Refugees in Africa (ICARA I and ICARA II),
risk mitigation and, 146 182–183
Security Council, 146 Regional Comprehensive Protection and Solutions
Somalia, 145 Framework (MIRPS), 114
climate, displacement and development, 143–145, Second International Conference on Indochinese
156–157 refugees, 198
data on, 147–148, 153 Conference of Plenipotentiaries, 91
examples of, 143 conflicts
Human Rights Committee case, 148–149 armed, 103–104, 135, 336, 339
potential future scenarios, 143–145, 156–157 climate change and, 145
slow onset effects, 144 education of children in countries affected by
sudden onset disasters, 145 conflict, 239
climate warming, 143 and ill health, 243
Coalition for an International Criminal Court (CICC), impacts on host communities, 228
338 conscription, 55
Cold War, 195–196, 199–200, 338 Contras, the (counter-revolutionaries), 111
Colombia, 38, 164, 219–220, 289–290, 325 Convention Against Torture (CAT), 347
Convention concerning the Status of Refugees D

coming from Germany (1938), 80 data, 152–153, 304–305
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the accessibility, 309
Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention), 335 Expert Group on Refugee and Internally Displaced
Convention Relating to the International Status of Persons Statistics (EGRIS), 153, 217, 309
Refugees (1933), 77–78, 90 gaps in, 303
Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (1951 harmonized collection, 307–308
Convention), 33–34, 37, 43, 54, 56, 73, 78, 82, High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, 311
88–97, 102–103, 106, 108–110, 115–116, 119, 123, individual biodata, 305
127, 148, 154, 156, 167, 201, 255, 283, 334, 336, 356 Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement (JDC), 309
and the 1967 Protocol, 34, 91, 96, 103, 109, 148, joint needs assessments, 308
167, 171, 201, 356 microdata libraries, 310
refugee definition, 90 national civil registration and vital statistic systems,
drafting history, 90–91, 133, 258 309
ideals of, 95 population, 305
integration of refugees, 108, 171, 215–220 registration, 305
international cooperation, 34 responsibility for, 306
non-refoulement principle, 95, 112 socioeconomic, 306–307
obligations of States, 33 strengthening capacities, 308–310
progressive realisation of rights, 170 Dayton Peace Accords 1995, 193, 343
reference in regional frameworks, 148 deaths
repatriation, 170–171 among refugees and IDPs, 245
restrictive interpretations of, 130, 201 from communicable diseases, 252
role of refugees in drafting, 90, 314, 318 death rate of female refugees, 246
scope, 95, 334 from non-communicable diseases, 243, 252
sexual orientation and/or gender identity, Déby, Idriss, 346
persecution on the basis of, 103 decolonization General Assembly resolution 1960,
temporal and geographic limitations, 91, 127 104
UNHCR supervisory role, 95 Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), 188
Costa Rica, 111, 114, 151, 190–191 atrocity crimes in, 188
education for refugee children in, 238 conflict in, 188
Council of Europe, 136 forced displacement in, 188
Counter Reformation, 56 ICRC fund for medical centres in, 301
Court of Appeal (England and Wales), 125 refugees in Kenya from, 269
COVID-19, 247, 288, 331, 358, 361 refugees in Rwanda from, 273
and access to regular health services, 243, 249 refugees in Uganda from, 272
effect on forcibly displaced persons and Rwandan refugees in, 177, 187
displacement, 41–42 Deng, Francis, 134
and humanitarian funding, 288, 300 Denmark, 91, 131, 303
impact on education, 231, 234, 242 Confederation of Danish Industry, 294
impact on host countries, 122 effect of refugees on employment and wages for
implications for financing, 284–285 native workers in, 261
refugee organizations and, 317, 327 Special Envoy for Migration, 131
Crimean Tatars, 65, 83 depression, prevalence in refugees, 250
criminal gangs, transnational criminal networks, 38 development. See also economic inclusion;
criminal prosecutions. See accountability, for education; health
international crimes 2030 Agenda, 226
Croatia, 193 forcibly displaced, inclusion in national
expulsion of Serbian minority from, 83 development plans, 172
Cubans, 125, 260 human capital, 163, 202, 215–218, 227, 255, 259,
Czechoslovakia, 86 272, 275, 288, 326
INDEX 543
Millennium Development Goals, 230 diseases

Sustainable Development Goals, 226–227 communicable, 252
development financing, 116, 240, 259, 285, 287–293. epidemiological tracking of disease outbreaks, 253
See also Financing non-communicable, 243
African Development Bank (AfDB), Transition prevention of communicable diseases, 252
Support Facility (TSF), 292 Djibouti, 179, 254, 299
application of, 291–293 Djibrine, Mahamat, 346
available information on, 303 Dominicans, affected by Hurricane Maria (2017), 149
budget support, 290, 293 Duque, President, 113, 219
Bulgaria, post-Balkan Wars, 75–76
Cameroon, 288, 313
Chad, 288 E
Colombia, 289 Eastern Bloc countries, 86
concessional financing. See financing Eastern Europe, 69, 83, 86
Development Assistance Committee (DAC), 290 eastern Mediterranean route, 127
education, 288 East Pakistan, 175
Ethiopia Economic Opportunities Program, 292 conflict between West Pakistan and, 176
European Bank for Reconstruction and return of refugees from East Pakistan to
Development (EBRD), 291 Bangladesh, 175–176
European Investment Bank (EIB), 291 Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), 88–89, 134
Global Concessional Financing Facility, 289– Ad hoc Committee, 89–90
290 economic inclusion, 255–275
Global Program on Forced Displacement (GPFD) benefits of legal employment for refugees, 275
Trust Fund, 288 challenges, 255–257
Greece, following Greco-Turkish War (1920), Colombia, 266
74–75 consolidated findings, 274–275
gross national income and, 302 Ecuador, 267
health care, 284 effect of refugee and IDP labour market
Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), 292 participation, 259–275
International Development Association (IDA) employment rates of resettled refugees, 275
specific mechanisms, 288 evidence gaps, 217, 238–239
investment project financing, 293 Germany, 260
Jordan, 293 Global Compact on Refugees, 259
Lebanon, 293 in high-income countries, 259–261
Mauritania, 288 history, record of, 257–259
Multilateral Development Bank Coordination Israel, 260
Platform, 290 Jordan, 263–266
Niger, 288 Kenya, 269–272
OECD International Network on Conflict and Lebanon, 263
Fragility (INCAF), 290–291 local labour market impact, low- and middle-
policy impact, 288, 290–291 income countries, 261–274
Republic of the Congo, 301 local labour market impacts, high-income
systematic and comparable data, 303 countries, 259–261
Uganda, 308 refugees, legal barriers and administrative
World Bank Group, 288 obstacles, 256
disasters right to work, international instruments and, 255
and displacement frameworks, 141–143 Rwanda, 273
Platform on Disaster Displacement (PDD), 150 Sudan, 273–274
Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction Tanzania, 268–269
(2015), 147 Turkey, 262
sudden onset, 145 Uganda, 272–273
United States of America, 265 remote delivery of, 242

Venezuelan displacement, 266–268 Sustainable Development Goals, 233, 243
vocational and skills training, 258 sustainable inclusion, 237–238
work, impact on dignity and security, 255 UNHCR Global Education Strategy, 233
Ecuador, 114, 289–290, 293 United Nations, Our Common Future, 230
education for refugee children in, 238 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 229
effect of displaced Venezuelans on the labour universal primary education, progress towards,
market in, 219, 267–268 230–231
education Egypt, 53–54, 109, 120, 206
access, 231 education for Syrian refugee children in, 237
accreditation, 233 fortified border between Israel and, 120
case studies, inclusion, 237–238 Eichmann, Adolf, 347
certificates, 256 El Salvador, 38, 110–111, 114–115, 121, 192
coordination, international partners and, 241–242 civil conflict in, 190
COVID-19, effect on, 242 refugee protection systems in, 114
data, 238–239, 243 return of refugees to, 191
drop-out rates, 332–335 emergency humanitarian assistance, 358
early child marriage and lack of, 232 Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC), 134
educational qualifications of refugees and IDPs, entrepreneurial opportunities, 289, 295
233 Eritrea, 121, 125, 212
Education Cannot Wait fund, 240 Eritrean refugees, 120
education management systems, 239 Estonia, sanctions against foreigners accused of
education programmes, 238 human rights violations and corruption, 301
enrolment rates, comparative statistics, 230–232, Ethiopia, 38–39, 174
234, 236–239 in the 1980s, 179
evolution in forced displacement contexts, conflict between the Tigray People’s Liberation
232–233 Front (TPLF) and the Ethiopian Government, 179
financing. See development financing and deaths among refugees and IDPs in, 245
humanitarian financing Dollo Ado refugee camps, 297
financing for inclusive education, 240–243 education for refugee children in, 237, 291–292
Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, Ethiopia Economic Opportunities Program,
234 292–293
Global Compact on Refugees, 233 integration of refugees, 218
Global Education Strategy, 233 internal displacement in, 129, 245
humanitarian education programmes, 233, 241 investment from IKEA Foundation in the Dollo Ado
humanitarian funding, 240 refugee camps, 297
impact of COVID-19 on, 231 Jobs Compact, 291
impact on earnings, 230 Mengistu Haile Mariam dictatorship, 179
impact of forced displacement on, 232 refugee proclamation, 2019, 292
importance for human development, 229 refugees in, 129, 145, 148, 174, 218, 237, 291–292,
inclusion challenges, 233–236 297
inclusion support, 237–243 socioeconomic assessment of displaced and host
Intergovernmental Authority on Development communities in, 308
(IGAD), inclusion pledge, 237 Somali refugees in, 145, 148, 297
International Finance Facility for Education, 240 tensions between the Tigray region and central
learning outcomes, 231, 235–236 government, 179
Millennium Development Goals, 230 ethnic cleansing, 65, 69, 82, 138, 193
national led initiatives, 237–238 Europe
partnerships, 240–243 arrival of refugees and migrants in 2020, 41
poverty, effect on attendance and learning, 230 arrival of refugees in 2015 in, 357
in refugee camps, 233, 237 examples of asylum from the 12th to 19th century, 56
INDEX 545
examples of asylum early 20th century, 76–82 F

network of cities, 324 Fascism, 76–82
refugee arrivals from central and western Far East, International Military Tribunal for the Far East
Mediterranean routes, 127 (IMTFE), 287
refugee recognition rates, 108 financing, 116, 141, 189, 217, 236, 240–243, 254,
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development 259, 266, 308, 313, 321, 333. See also development
(EBRD), 291 financing; humanitarian financing; private sector
European Commission, Action Plan on Integration investment
and Inclusion 2021–2027, 324 overview, 284–304
European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), 130 blended financing, 298
European Court of Human Rights, 125 concessional financing, 263–264, 287–289,
European Court of Justice, 121 292–293, 298, 304
European Investment Bank (EIB), support to Jobs crowdfunding, 300
Compact, 291 financing, other innovative, 299–302
European Union/European States and North Africa, frozen assets, 300–301
126 impact bonds, 301–302
European Union (EU) matching, 298–299
access of Jordanian exports to, 299 outcome funding, 293
arrival of refugees through Central and Western risk insurance, 298
Mediterranean routes, 127 taxes and levies, 300
border controls in Greece and North Africa, 126 trade preferences, 299
deal with Turkey to reduce arrivals, 126 firewood, transition to use of cookstoves, 317
initiatives to stem flow of refugees to, 128 FMO (Dutch Development Bank), NASIRA
sanctions against foreigners accused of human programme, 298
rights violations and corruption, 300–301 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 86
support to Jobs Compact, 291 food assistance, 179, 244, 274
upsurge in refugees in 2015, 120–121, 215–216, food insecurity, 179, 308
285–286, 330 forced displacement
European Union Qualification Directive (2005), academic literature on, 329
170–171 and arrival of refugees in Europe in 2015, 120–121,
evaluations. See impact evaluations 215–216, 285–286, 330, 357–358
Evian Conference (1938), 80 causes of, 33, 38–39, 41, 45, 50–52, 55, 60, 82,
Evian Peace Accords, 175 145, 153, 156
evidence, importance of in responding to forced costs of, 285
displacement, 227, 238–239, 245, 253–255, from countries experiencing conflict, 38
258–259, 275, 277, 304–305. See also data development-centred approaches to, 304
Expert Group on Refugee and IDP Statistics (EGRIS), history of responding to, 356
153, 217, 309 impacts on host communities, 228–229
externalization policies, 126–130 solutions to, 162–170, 201–220
Australia, 123–124, 126 trends analysis, 152–153
European Union-Turkey deal, 127 trends since 2010, 32, 35, 40, 44
European Union/European States and North forced marriage, 55, 247
Africa, 126 as a war crime, 343
United States of America, 126 forcibly displaced people
extreme climate events, 39 civil society groups for, 319
extremists, armed groups and criminal gangs, 38 consultation and involvement following the Great
challenges posed to delivery of humanitarian Wars of 20th century, 314
assistance data on. See data
expansion of, 38–39, 187–188 design of socioeconomic household surveys and
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), 38, assessments, 253–254
351 difficulties finding work and starting enterprises, 255
drafting of the 1951 Convention, 90–91, 314, 318 impact on labour market after the arrival of
economic impact on host communities of, refugees between 2014 and 2015, 260–261
228–229, 259–275 integration of refugees in the workforce in, 327
findings of the High-Level Panel on Internal resettlement of Holocaust survivors, 194
Displacement, 140 Ghaddafi, Muammar, 127
Global Refugee-led Network, 318 Gibraltar, sanctions against foreigners accused of
legal and/or bureaucratic barriers to engagement, 318 human rights violations and corruption, 301
as partners, 314–318, 333 Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack,
providing healthcare to, 227–229, 243–256, 234
276–277 Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) (2018), 30–31,
refugee and internally displaced persons 331
organizations, 86, 194, 317–318 content and aims of, 30–31, 37, 41–43, 97, 108,
role in the use of universal jurisdiction, 347 118, 130, 132, 147–148, 151, 172, 202, 216–217,
foreign aid, amount given by high-income countries, 233, 241, 244, 259, 276, 283, 286, 290, 293, 305,
302 313, 319, 325, 329, 333
former Yugoslavia, 193, 343 reasons for, 117
atrocity crimes in, 138, 336 Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Migration (GCM), 117–118, 130, 132, 147–148, 212,
Yugoslavia (ICTY), 336–337 323, 325, 329, 331
“Forty-Eighters” refugees, 64 Global Concessional Financing Facility (GCFF), 263, 289
France, 59, 61, 63 Global Consultations on International Protection,
1789 Revolution, 61 2001–2002, 201
refugee policies in the 1930s, 78 Global Education Strategy, 233
slave trade, 57–58 Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
“solidarity levy” on airline tickets, 300 (the Global Fund), 248
frozen assets, 300 Global Program on Forced Displacement (GPFD) Trust
return of seized assets to country of origin, 301 Fund, 287
as source of funds for humanitarian relief, 301 Global Refugee Forum 2019, 31, 210, 361
pledges, 31, 172
Global Refugee-led Network, 318
G Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo (Zaire), 188
Gardi, Rez, 165, 235 Google, 242
gender-based violence, 230, 247–248 Grand Bargain, 286, 322
General Assembly, 31, 87–89, 96, 133–134, 136, 175, Great Britain. See United Kingdom (UK)
182 Great Depression, 76–82
Geneva Conventions, 336–337, 339 Great Lakes refugee crisis, 187, 189
genocide, 79, 80, 82, 138, 187, 193 Great War. See World War I and its aftermath
as an international crime, 335 Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), 69
Genocide Convention, 335 population transfer, 74
Germany Greece
asylum-seekers and refugees in 2015, 260–261, border controls in, 126
327 War of Independence, 62
Convention concerning the Status of Refugees Greek refugees, resettlement in Russian territories, 62
coming from Germany (1938), 80 greenhouse gas emissions, 143–144
ethnic Germans, flight from East and Central Guantanamo Bay, 125
Europe to Germany following WWII, 86 Guatemala, 38–39, 110–111, 114–115, 121, 191–192
Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, civil conflicts in, 190
327 prosecution for human rights abuses, 146
flight of Jewish refugees from, 79 refugee protection system in, 114
German Chambers of Industry and Commerce return of refugees to, 191
(DIHK), 327 Guengueng, Souleymane, 351
INDEX 547
Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (1998), data, availability of, 250, 253–254
34, 135–138, 172 displacement effect on mental health, 249–252
2005 World Summit, affirmation of, 136 Exceptional Care Committees, 252
application, 138–139 financing for health, 254–255
challenges to implementation, 138–140 food distribution practices and, 246–247
Council of Europe affirmation of, 136 Global Compact on Refugees, 244
General Assembly references to, 135–136 The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and
High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, Malaria (the Global Fund), 248–249
recommendations, 140–141 High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, 244
Human Rights Council endorsement of, 136 HIV/AIDS, 248
influence on African Union Convention for the human capital, relationship to, 227, 255
Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced impact on ability to work, 243, 249
Persons in Africa (Kampala Convention), 136 inclusive provision of, 244
international coordination, 139–141 learning, challenges to, 243
legal effect of, 136 mental health, services for, 248
national practice, 138–139 mortality rates, comparative statistics, 245
Organization of American States endorsement of, 136 non-communicable diseases, 243
Protocol to the Pact on Security, Stability and outside national systems, 244
Development in the Great Lakes Region on the primary health care model, 246
Protection and Assistance to Internally Displaced relation to human development, 243
Persons, 136–137 sexual abuse and family violence, 246
reflection of international law principles, 136, 138 specialized care, treatment for, 252–253
relation to Responsibility to Protect principle, 138 Sustainable Development Goals, 243
rights of internally displaced persons, 138 High Commissioner for Refugees, 76, 81
role of national human rights institutions, 139 League of Nations, 79
Security Council affirmation of, 136 United Nations, 72, 88, 89
state obligations, 138 high-income countries, 34, 167, 359–360
strengthening national capacities, 139–140 amount spent on foreign aid, 302–303
Guinea Bissau, 167 education spending in, 235
decolonization struggle of, 104 effect of refugees on the local labour market in,
naturalizations of Senegalese refugees in, 167 259–261
Portuguese Colonial War, 104 burden-sharing, 115, 156, 197
Gulf War (1990–1991), 186 literature review on forced displacement, 212
High-Level Panel on Humanitarian Financing, 286, 321
High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, 140, 244,
H 293, 311, 315
H&M Foundation, 329 Hitler, Adolf, 78–79
Habré, Hissène, 346 HIV/AIDS, fund to prevent and treat, 248
Senegal’s prosecution of, 348 Holocaust survivors, resettlement of, 87, 194
Haitians, 122 Honduras, 38–39, 191–192
arrival in the US in the 1970s and 1980s, 124–125 civil conflicts in, 111, 114, 190
temporary protection for, 151 refugee protection systems in, 115
health and health services, 243–255 Hong Kong, British Territory of, 197
communicable diseases, 252 Horn of Africa, 145, 313
community involvement, value of, 246–248, 251, IGAD Free Movement Protocol, 149
255 host communities/countries, 36
comprehensive maternal and reproductive education management systems in, 239
healthcare, 246 effects of refugee employment on wages and jobs
in conflict areas, 243 of, 259–275
cost of, 252–253 impact of displacement and conflict on, 228–229,
COVID-19 pandemic, impact on, 249 232
inclusive development in, 229, 277, 285, 324 IKEA Foundation, 297, 302
legal impediments to refugee self-reliance, immigration legislation, 314
256–257 immigration schemes, 213
Huguenots, escape from France, 56–57 impact evaluations, 239, 311–313
human capital, of forcibly displaced and host in forced displacement contexts, 312–313
communities, 358 of humanitarian programmes, 312, 333
collection of data on displaced populations, 153, India, 83
307 flight of refugees from East Pakistan to, 175
Humanitarian and Resilience Investing (HRI) Initiative, partition of, 83
294 relief operation during conflict between West and
humanitarian appeals, 284 East Pakistan, 176
humanitarian assistance, 34, 38, 56, 81–82, 138, 145, Indochina, 83, 196
155, 163, 169, 182–183, 186, 191, 216, 218, 221, 229, Indochinese refugees, international conference on,
241, 284–285, 293, 302, 358 197–198
humanitarian financing. See also Financing Ingka Group, 328
2016 World Humanitarian Summit, 286 integration, of refugees and IDPs, 166–170, 211–212,
High-Level Panel on Humanitarian Financing, 286, 215–220
321 Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), 134,
impact of COVID-19 on, 285 172–173, 323
lack of predictability, 287 Cluster Approach to IDPs, 140
level of, 284 guidelines for addressing mental health and
main donors, 284 the provision of psychosocial support in
reform and “Grand Bargain”, 286, 322 emergencies, 250
use of frozen assets for, 300 Inter American Commission on Human Rights, 125
humanitarian organizations, 69, 130, 186, 269, 283, Inter American Court on Human Rights, 112
286 Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), 292
collection of data on displaced populations, 153, interdictions, 118, 123, 126, 129
307 Australia, 123
humanitarian programmes, 241, 251, 329, 358 Denmark, 131
monitoring and evaluations of, 311 legal challenges to, 125–126
humanity, crimes against, 335, 339 returns to Libya, 125–126, 128–129
human rights abusers, criminal prosecutions of, 334, United Kingdom, 130–131
346 United States of America, 124–125
Human Rights Council (HRC), investigations into Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD),
human rights abuses, 350 Free Movement Protocol, 149
Human Rights, Universal Declaration of, 54, 88, 229, Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (ICR), 80
255, 336 internally displaced persons (IDPs)
human smuggling and trafficking, 41, 112, 118, 126, climate induced, 141–151
128, 132 Durable Solutions Framework for (IASC
Hungary, 52, 86, 121 Framework), 172–173
crisis of 1956, 196 education challenges for, 234
reinforced border barriers, 120 exclusion from 1951 Convention, 132
Hurricane Mitch 1998, 151 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement,
Hutu refugees, 188–189 135–138, 172
High-level Panel on Internal Displacement, 140,
244, 293, 311, 315
I Independent Commission on International
ICC (International Criminal Court), 338–340 Humanitarian Issues, 133–134
IDP. See internally displaced persons (IDPs) Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), 134
IKEA, Brighter Lives for Refugees campaign (2014– international coordination, 139–141
15), 328 normative framework. See Guiding Principles on
INDEX 549
Internal Displacement (1998) International Residual Mechanism for Criminal

registration of, 306 Tribunals (IRMCT), 337
Representative of the United Nations Secretary- International Treaty on Penal Law (1899), 110
General on the Human Rights of Internally Iran, 174, 186, 212
Displaced Persons, 134–135 Afghan refugees in, 205
rights of, 134–136, 138, 172, 234 Iraq, 38, 52, 164, 206, 238, 299
solutions for, 172–173 access of refugees to education, 238
United Nations system-wide review, 134, 140 Da’esh/Islamic State, 38, 350
return, 172–173, 204 Exceptional Care Committee, 252
internally displaced populations. See internally free primary and secondary education of refugees
displaced persons (IDPs) in, 238
International Chamber of Commerce, 294, 328 Islamic State in, 38
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), 81 occupation of Kuwait, 186, 300
humanitarian impact bond, 301 return of Kurds to northern Iraq in 1991, 186
International Conferences on Assistance to Refugees Syrian refugees in, 238
in Africa (ICARA I and ICARA II) (1981 and 1984), transfer of oil revenues to UN compensation fund,
182–183 300
International Conference on Central American Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), 289
Refugees (CIREFCA) (1989), 190–192, 259 Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), 38, 350–351
International Consultation on Refugee Women, 246 Israel
International Criminal Court (ICC), 338–340 conviction of Adolf Eichmann of crimes against
international criminal prosecution. See accountability, humanity and war crimes in, 347
for international crimes Eritrean and Sudanese refugees in, 120
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), 337 former Soviet Union Jewish refugees and migrants
international criminal tribunals, 338 in, 260
ad hoc, 336–340 fortified border between Egypt and, 120
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Italy, 63, 76
Yugoslavia (ICTY), 336–337 aid to help Libya secure borders, 126, 127
Special Court for Sierra Leone, 341–343 case against by asylum-seekers from Eritrea and
International Development Association, 240, 254, 288 Somalia, 125-126
International Finance Cooperation (IFC), 295–296 refugee arrivals between 2016 and 2019, 129
international financial institutions (IFIs), 287 refugee arrivals from central and western
international humanitarian law, 336, 342–343 Mediterranean routes, 128–129
international human rights law, and international regularization of migrants, 220
protection, 67–68, 70–74, 76, 81–82, 89, 91, 96, relocation of asylum-seekers from, 128
124, 131–132, 148–149, 174, 334
International, Impartial, and Independent Mechanism
on Syria (IIIM), 350 J
International Labour Organization (ILO), 73, 296 Jamaat-e-Islami, 346
International Law Commission (ILC), Draft Code Janssen, Geert, 59
of Offences Against the Peace and Security of Japan
Mankind, 338 imperialist conquest of Manchuria, 81
International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), invasion of China, 81
335 refugee recognition rates, 130
international military tribunals, 334–336 Jersey, sanctions against foreigners accused of
International Refugee Organization (IRO), 86, 194 human rights violations and corruption, 301
funding, 87 Jewish refugees, 59, 83, 260
mandate, 86–87 discrimination towards, 61, 77–78, 80, 88, 195
non-refoulement principle, 87, 90 expulsion from kingdoms of Castile and Aragon,
position of Soviet Union, 91 56
International Rescue Committee (IRC), 312 flight from pogroms 20th century, 66
growing numbers in 1930s, 79 Khan, Karim A. A, 350

non-governmental agencies, 80 Khmer Rouge regime, Cambodia, 178, 197, 344
resettlement during 1930s–1940s, 78, 195 Kibeho camp, Tanzania, 189
State reluctance towards receiving, 80 Kiribati, 348–349
from Third Reich, 79–80 Kiva (crowd funder), Refugee Investment Fund, 300
World War I, 66, 69 Kois (impact investing firm), 302
World War II, 82–88 Kosovo, 193, 252, 337
job creation. See private sector investment chronic disease during the 1990s in, 252
Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement (JDC), flight of Albanians from, 193
309–311 Kullman, Gustave, 90
Jordan, 206, 293 Kurdi, Alan, 117
Azraq refugee camp solar farm, 328 Kurds, return to northern Iraq in 1991, 186
education policy for Jordanians and refugees, 238, Kuwait, invasion and annexation by Iraq, 186
effect of Syrian refugee students on local
education, 239
effect of Syrian refugees on the local labour L
market in, 263 labour market, 212, 214, 259–274
employment of refugees in, 289, 299, 302 labour migration, 214
facilitation of job creation and economic growth labour mobility schemes, 213–214
in, 289, 298–299, 302 Laos, 197
grants from EBRD to benefit refugees and hosting Larsen, Knud, 96
communities, 291 Latin America, 190–192
Health Access and Utilization Surveys, 254 acceptance of Spanish refugees, 78
Iraqi refugees in, 205 Cartagena Declaration (1984), 106, 110, 112, 115,
Jordan Compact, 264–265, 289, 299 171
Jordan Education Strategic Plan (2018–2022), displacements in, 195, 266–268
238 education for refugee children in, 238
Jordan Enterprise Development Corporation, 299 effect of refugees on the local labour market in,
Jordan Exports (JE), 299 266–268
Jordan Investment Commission, 299 “Latin American asylum tradition”, 110
Syrian refugees in, 206, 238, 263, 298, 302 Penal Law Treaty (1889), 64
work by RIMP in, 264, 298 resettlement of refugees after WWII, 195
World Bank support for energy and water sectors return of refugees, 190–191
in, 293 Latvia, sanctions against foreigners accused of
human rights violations and corruption, 301
League of Nations, 71, 74
K Refugee Settlement Commission, 75
Kaing Guek Eav, 344 response to Jewish refugees seeking safety in the
Kampala Convention, 108, 136, 172 1930s, 79
Katanga, Germain, 340 learning outcomes, 231–232, 332
Kaurin, Dragana, 316 use of technology and, 242–243, 332
Kenya, 269 learning poverty, 231
deworming programmes in, 311 Lebanon, 206, 293
economic impact of refugees in, 269–272 education for Syrian refugee children in, 232,
education for refugee children in, 237 237–238
flight of Somalis to, 145, 148 effect of Syrian refugees on the local labour
Kakuma refugee camp, 269–272, 295–296 market in, 263
Kalobeyei refugee camp/settlement, 271–272, 295 Global Concessional Financing Facility and, 263,
refugees in Turkana county, 269–270, 295 289
remote learning in, 242 grants from EBRD to benefit refugees and hosting
Kenyatta, Uhuru, 341 communities, 291
INDEX 551
Kiva (crowd funder) loans to borrowers in, 300 Zambia, 200

refugees in, 76, 206, 228, 254, 263 local labour market. See economic inclusion
surveys on access to health services, 254 local partners, reluctance of donors to fund through,
Syrian refugees in, 33, 206, 263, 302 321–323
World Bank, support for job creation and local partners and authorities, 321
economic growth in, 293 2016 World Humanitarian Summit, 321
levies, 300 challenges faced, 321–323
Lewin, Isaac, Rabbi, 91 comparative advantages of, 322–323
Liberia, 174 humanitarian funding through, 286
internally displaced populations (IDPs), 139 recommendations of High-Level Panel on
regularization of refugees from, in Nigeria, 207 Humanitarian Financing, 286, 321–323
Taylor, Charles, 342 Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), 181
Libya, 126–128, 210, 350 low-income countries, 249, 252, 263, 287–288, 357
detention of migrants and refugees, 129 civil registration and vital statistic systems, 305
externalization policies, external support to deter education spending in, 235–236
departures, interdict ships and return migrants, effect of refugees on the local labour market in,
126–129 261–274
Government of National Unity (GNU), 127–128 impact evaluations in, 311–313
resettlement of refugees from, 210 proportion of forcibly displaced people in, 34
return of refugees and migrants to, 125–126, Lubanga, Thomas, 340
128–129
Lie, Trygve, 170
literacy, among forcibly displaced children and youth, M
332 McDonald, James G., 79
literature review on forced displacement, 311 Magnitsky laws, 301
Lithuania, sanctions against foreigners accused of Magnitsky, Sergei, 301
human rights violations and corruption, 301 Malala Fund, 234
Lithuanians, resettlement of, 194 malaria, 244, 248–249
“little ice age”, 59 Malcolm, Neil, Sir, 79
local integration, 166–170, 215–220 Mali, 38, 340
advocacy for, history, 174, 200 ICRC fund for medical centres in, 301
challenges facing internally displaced persons, Malta, refugee arrivals between 2016 and 2019, 129
169–170, 173 “manifestation of fear” test, 125
Canada, 267 Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, 123–124
Colombia, 219 market studies, 295–297
Ecuador, 219 Marshall Plan, 86
elements of, 166–170 Mastercard Foundation, Scholars Program, 326
Global Compact on Refugees, 172, 202 Mauritania, 254, 288
Guinea-Bissau, 167 Mayors Migration Council (MMC), 323
high-income countries, 167, 220 Mediterranean Sea, sea level rise, 52
naturalization, 167, 172 Mennonites, 58
Nigeria, 207, 218 mental health, interventions, 246
normative frameworks, 170 Mexico, 78, 111, 121–122, 126, 191
regularization, 207, 219–220 Miami, Cuban refugees in, 260
reluctance of host states, 169 microfinance, for refugees and IDPs, 258
restrictions facing refugees, 169, 201 Middle East, 186–187, 262–266
statistics on, 167 1950–1990 forced displacement, 175–176
strengthening human capital and, 202 conflicts and forced displacement in, 67, 69, 74,
Tanzania, 167, 200 83, 109, 186–187, 216, 262–266
Turkey, 167 effect of refugees on the local labour market in,
Uganda, 200 262–266
return of Kurds to northern Iraq in 1991, 186 N

use of biometric iris scan software in, 328 Nansen Conference on Climate Change and
middle-income countries Displacement in the 21st Century, 150
civil registration and vital statistic systems, 153 Nansen, Fridtjof, 71
effect of refugees on the local labour market in, Nansen Initiative, 150
263, 227–229, 261–275 Nansen International Office, 77
impact evaluations in, 311–313 Nansen passport, 73
naturalization in, 167, 172 Napoleon III, 63
proportion of forcibly displaced people in, 116, national criminal prosecution, 343–349
156, 217, 220 Bangladesh, 345–346
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), 230 Cambodia, 344–345
Milošević, Slobodan, 337 Chad, 346–347
mobility agreements Guatemala, 346
Intergovernmental Authority on Development national development plans, inclusion of refugees
(IGAD), proposal 2020, 149–150 and IDPs in, 172
Pakistan, proposed flexible visa, 207 nationalism, 66–67
Protocol Relating to Free Movement of Persons, national legislation, 112, 149
Residence and Establishment of the Economic on internal displacement, 138-139
Community of West African States (ECOWAS), 171 protection for persons unable to return home in
regional free movement protocols, Caribbean, the aftermath of a disaster, 151
149 natural disasters, 33, 106, 284
reviving the Nansen passport, 215 naturalization of refugees, 167, 170, 258
Montt, José Efraín Ríos, 346 Nauru, 123–124
Morocco, 104 New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants
repatriation of Algerian refugees, 175 (2016), 117, 212, 286, 325
support received for reinforcing borders, 126, 129 New Zealand, 348
Mourad, Nadia, 351 work and education visas for Pacific Islanders, 151
Mozambique, 38–39, 174 Nicaragua, 39, 110
decolonization struggle of, 104 civil war in, 111, 190–191
Portuguese Colonial War, 104 return of refugees to, 191
repatriation of refugees, 189 Sandinista National Liberation Front, 111
Mujib-ur-Rahman, Sheik, 176 Niger, 38, 210, 288, 313
Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), 287, 289 national policy for IDPs, 139
Coordination Platform on Economic Migration Nigeria, 38, 207, 218, 301
and Forced Displacement, 290 ICRC fund for medical centres in, 301
mechanisms for providing funds, 293 IDP populations and host communities in, 143, 218
pledges for funding for refugees and host regularization of Liberian and Sierra Leonean
communities, 264, 291 refugees, 207
Multilateral Framework of Understandings (MFU) for socioeconomic assessment of displaced and host
Resettlement (2004), 208 communities in, 308
Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), non-refoulement principle, 108, 112, 120
298 normative framework for solutions, 170–173
Mursili III (Urhi-Teshub, king of the Hittite Empire), 53 North Africa, 56, 78, 127, 129, 131, 175–176
Myanmar, 38, 185–186 border controls in, 126
Citizenship Law (1982), 184 North America, 60, 69, 213, 300
flight of Rohingya refugees from, 185–186, 254 Nansen Initiative and the PDD, 150
Independent Investigative Mechanism for Norway, 91, 150, 303
Myanmar, 350 Ntaganda, Bosco, 340
inhumane acts committed against the Rohingya numeracy, among forcibly displaced children and
population of, 340 youth, 332
return of Rohingya refugees to, 177, 184–186, 340 Nuon Chea, 344
INDEX 553
O Afghan refugees in, 205

OECD, 212–213, 215, 290–291, 302–303 Kiva (crowd funder) loans to borrowers in, 300
Development Assistance Committee (DAC), 290 return to Afghanistan of Afghan refugees, 205
International Network on Conflict and Fragility World Bank support for health services in, 254
(INCAF), 290 Palestine, British Mandated Palestine, 80
surveys on spending on refugee situations, 302 Palestine refugees, 33
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Panama, 115, 151
(OCHA), 134 Papua New Guinea, detention of asylum-seekers in,
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 350 123–124
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Paris Peace Agreements (1991), 184
Refugees, 89 partnerships, 313–333
General Assembly, accountability of, 89 Pasha, Ahmed Cevat, 64
mandate, 88 Peace of Westphalia (1648), 60
Statute, 89 Pearson Commission on International Development,
supervisory role, 95 302
Official Development Assistance (ODA), 302 people smuggling. See human smuggling and
offshore processing, 123–132 trafficking
Australia, 123 Peru, return of seized assets to, 301
Denmark, proposed legislation, 131 persecution, 50–51, 56–57, 59–60, 64–66, 69, 79,
Europe, 125–126 82–83, 88, 91, 103, 106, 108–110, 121, 131, 135,
Manus Island, 123–124 148, 152, 164, 177, 184, 187, 197, 201, 310, 335, 337,
Nauru, 123–124 339–340
Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Philippines, return of seized assets to, 301
Migrants, 123–124 physical barriers, 119–122
United Kingdom, proposed legislation, 130–131 Pinochet, Augusto, 347–348
United States of America, 124–125 places of worship, protection within, 53
Ongwen, Dominic, 340 Platform on Disaster Displacement (PDD), 150
Organisation of African Unity, Convention Governing Poland, 59, 63, 66, 83, 86, 121
Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa (OAU displacements during World War II in, 83
Convention) (1969), 104–109, 170, 171 uprisings against Russia and Prussia, 62–63
application, 106 political refugees, 60, 110
context, events leading up to, 104–106 history of, 53
refugee definition, 106 political will, 37, 45, 109, 138–139, 152–153, 156
group recognition, 106, 108 Pol Pot, 344
influence on other regions, 106–108 Portugal, 56, 104
ratifications, 106 Portuguese citizens moving from former colonies
recognition of the 1951 Convention, 106 to Portugal during 1970s colonial wars, 261
relevance to climate and disaster displacement, 106 Portuguese Colonial War, 104
solutions, 106 post-traumatic stress (PTS), 250–251
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Primary Health Care model, 246
Development. See OECD private sector, 31, 324–329
Organization of American States, 136 Accenture, 328
Ottoman Empire, 57–58, 62, 64–65 advocacy, 328–329
reception of refugees, 57–59, 63 Airbnb’s Open Homes programme, 325
state facilitated settlement, 65–66 Careem, 329
Oumarou, Hindou, 146–147 Deloitte, 328
German Chambers of Commerce and Industry
(DIHK), 327
P global refugee and migration compacts, 259, 293
Pacific Islanders, seasonal work programmes, 151 H&M Foundation, 329
Pakistan, IKEA Foundation, 297, 302, 328
inclusive hiring practices, 324 263, 268–270, 272–274, 292, 295–297

investments in skills development, 325 collecting of health data in, 331
IrisGuard, 328 Refugee Convention, 1951. See Convention relating
job creation. See private sector investment to the Status of Refugees (1951 Convention)
Kube Energy, 328 refugee definition, 90, 106, 109, 112–113, 115–117,
LEGO Foundation, 326 130,
Mastercard Foundation, 326 Refugee Investment and Matchmaking Platform
mentoring of entrepreneurs, 324–325 (RIMP), 264, 298
New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, 325 Refugee organizations. See forcibly displaced
pledges at Global Refugee Forum, 325, 328 people, refugee and internally displaced persons
Schneider Electric, 328 organizations
Somos Panas (We are Friends) campaign, 329 refugees
supply of goods and services, 324, 326 during the 1990s, 177, 183–194, 252
support to innovation and advocacy, 325 durable solutions for, 163–220
Tent Partnership for Refugees, 325, 327 economic contributions of, 76, 169, 257
TikTok, 329 inclusion in national development plans, 172
Twitter, 329 inclusive development for, 144, 202, 227,
UNIQLO, 329 international protection, 51, 76, 81, 82, 89, 103,
Vodafone Foundation, 326 148, 156, 174
World Economic Forum, 326 movement along unsafe routes, 331
World Humanitarian Summit, 321, 325 and programme design, 255, 315, 317
private sector investment, 293–304, 324–329 registration of, 72, 115, 152, 176, 219, 305–306
context, importance of, 293-297 repatriation and return of, 163–165, 170–171,
Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh, 296–297 175–193, 202–207
ease of doing business, 294 restrictions on refugees’ right to work, 255, 272
in Global Compact on Refugees, 325, 329 strengthening human capital, 146, 163, 202, 215,
Humanitarian and Resilience Investing (HRI) 218, 255, 259, 288, 326
Initiative, 294 Refugees in Towns initiative, Feinstein International
International Chamber of Commerce, Charter of Center, Tufts University, 330
Good Practice, 294, 328 regional free movement protocols, 149, 171
International Finance Corporation (IFC), 295–296 regional refugee frameworks, 104–132
market studies, 295–297 registration, of refugees, 115, 152, 305–306
Rwanda, 327 repatriation and return of refugees. See also refugees
Turkcell, 297 Afghanistan, 207
Vodacom, 297 Algeria, 175,
private sponsorship programmes, 214 areas of return, challenges in, 164, 174-175, 205
Protocol on Free Movement of Persons, Right of Bangladesh, 177, 185
Residence and Establishment of the Economic Bosnia-Herzegovina, 193
Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Cambodia, 178, 184
(1979), 171 Central America, 190
protracted displacement, 105, 285, 359, 367 Ethiopia, 179
psychosocial support, for displaced persons, 250–251 Iraq, 186–187, 205–206
Kosovo, 193
lessons learned, 163, 188–189, 220–221
R low return rates, reasons for, 164
Ramses II, 53–54 Mozambique, 188–189
rape, 85, 337 Myanmar, 185
Red Cross, 81, 301 normative frameworks, 170–173
refoulement, 60, 95, 110, 123, 125 promotion of, 138, 163, 175, 220
refugee camps, 78, 83, 85, 108, 111, 142, 178–179, renewed displacement, 165, 184, 206
184–185, 187–189, 191, 194–195, 199, 201, 253, 257, Russia, forced post-WWII, 72
INDEX 555
Rwanda, 177, 187–189 Polish revolution 1830, 62

Somalia, 179 revolutions of 1848, 63
staggered or partial process, 205–207 Robinson, Jacob, 91
Sudan, 178–180, 205 Rohingya refugees, 140, 184, 254, 340
support needed for, 164 flight from Myanmar, 185–186, 254
Syria, 206 return to Myanmar from Bangladesh 177, 184–186
Uganda, 180, 205 Roman Empire, 55, 60
voluntary, legal basis of, 170 Romania, 63, 210
Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Rome Statute on the International Criminal Court,
Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, 134 States Parties to the, 338
Republika Srpska, 193 Russia
resettlement of refugees, 165–166, 194–200, 207–212 Greek refugees in, 62
annual levels, 208–209 Russian Empire, 59, 62, 65–66
emergency transit facilities, 210 Russian refugees, 70, 72
Hungarian, 196 Russian revolution, 68
Indo-Chinese, 196–200 Rwanda
integration assistance, benefits of, 211–212 economic impact of refugees in, 273
Multilateral Framework of Understandings (MFU) education for refugee children in, 237, 273
on Resettlement, 208 impact of refugees on education in, 273
Orderly Departure Program, 198 International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR),
process, 166, 208–209 337
public support for, 166, 200, 211–212 prosecution of atrocity crimes in, 336
resettlement strategy 2019–2028, 210 refugees from the Democratic Republic of the
Russian, inter-war years, 72 Congo in, 273
selection criteria, 166, 195, 199, 208, 210 refugees in Tanzania from, 188, 268–269
statistics on, 208–210 return of refugees (1994–1999), 187–189
strategic use of, 209–210 Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), 187
Ugandan Asians, 196 support given by Mastercard Foundation in, 327
World War II refugees, 166, 194–196
responsibility, and burden sharing/shifting for refugee
protection, 115–132 S
10-Point Plan in Action, 118 Samphan, Khieu, 344
1951 Convention, 116 Sandinista National Liberation Front, Nicaragua, 111
Agenda for Protection, 116 sea levels, rising of, 52
blocking entry. See externalization policies; secondary schools, enrolment rates of refugee
interdictions; offshore processing; physical children in, 232
barriers; visas, and carrier sanctions Security Council, 39, 173, 186, 188, 193
Executive Committee Conclusions, 115 collective economic sanctions, 300
Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular self-employment, 95
Migration, 117 refugee restrictions and, 258
Global Compact on Refugees, 117 self-reliance, of refugees, 218
high-income countries, 115–116 Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction (2015), 147
low- and middle-income countries, 116 Senegal, 104
New York Declaration, 117 Extraordinary African Chambers, 351
Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle, 138 prosecution of Hissène Habré, 346, 348
revolutions Statute of the Extraordinary African Chambers, 348
18th–19th century, displacement and asylum, 60 Senegalese refugees, naturalizations in Guinea-
American Revolution 1775–1783, refugees from, Bissau, 167
60 Serbia, 65, 121, 193
French revolution, refugees from, 61 Serbs, prevention of returning to areas of origin in
the Greek War of Independence, 62 Kosovo, 193
Sierra Leone, 61, 139 forced displacement in, and to, 164, 179, 245
internally displaced populations, 342 IDP populations and host communities in, 218
Special Court for Sierra Leone, 341–343 invasion of the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, 179
Sino-Japanese War, forced displacement, 83 socioeconomic assessment of displaced and host
slave trade, 60 communities in, 308
small island developing states (SIDS), 143 Somali refugees
social media, 317 Comprehensive Plan of Action for, 209
role and impact for refugees and IDPs, 331 flight from areas under Al-Shabaab control, 145,
socioeconomic studies, 330 148
software, biometric iris scan software, 328 flight to Kenya and Ethiopia, 145, 148
solidarity, and support to countries hosting forcibly South Africa, 189
displaced people, 34, 42, 43, 51, 78, 95, 102, 106, South America. See Latin America
116, 118, 131 South American Conference on Migration 2018, 151
solutions South Asia, 144
1950–1990, 175–183 South Korea, refugee recognition rates, 130
1951 Convention and, 167 South Sudan, 39, 205, 218, 269, 350
1990s, 183–201 2011 independence referendum, 205
Agenda for Protection, 201 IDP populations and host communities in, 38, 218
Cartagena Declaration, 170, 171 refugees in, 308
comprehensive. See comprehensive approaches refugees in Kenya from, 269
cyclical movements, 206 refugees in Uganda from, 272
durability, 184 socioeconomic assessment of displaced and host
Global Compact on Refugees, 171 communities in, 218, 272, 308
Global Consultations on International Protection, “sovereignty as responsibility” notion, 138
201 Soviet Union, 68–69, 78, 85–86, 194–195
Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, 172 displacements during World War II in, 83
hierarchy of, for refugees, 174 Jewish refugees and migrants in Israel from the
Kampala Convention, 172 former, 260
lessons learned, 220–221 Spain, 56, 61, 76, 78
local integration of forcibly displaced persons. See aid and debt relief to Morocco, 126
local integration child evacuation programme, 78
mobility arrangements. See mobility agreements civil war, 77
normative frameworks, 170–172 Sri Lanka, 126
OAU Convention, 170–171 Sub-Saharan Africa, 41, 129, 144
other immigration means. See complementary Sudan, 273–274
pathways conflict in, 274
reintegration of IDPs, 171 Darfur region, 273
repatriation. See repatriation and return of forced displacement in, 179, 274
refugees IDP populations and host communities in, 205,
requirements for internally displaced persons, 165, 274
173, 217–218, 220–221 Janjaweed militia, 274
requirements for refugees, 217–218, 220–221 refugees in, 245
resettlement of refugees. See resettlement of return of refugees after end of civil war, 178–179,
refugees 205
return of refugees and internally displaced socio-economic assessment of displaced and host
persons. See refugees, repatriation and return communities in, 218, 274, 308
and internally displaced persons (IDPs), return Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary
strengthening human capital, relation to, 215–216 Forces (SHAEF), 85
Somalia, 38, 125 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 36. See also
Al-Shabaab in, 145 development; education, health and health services
effect of conflict and drought in, 145 Sweden, 91, 130
INDEX 557
Switzerland, 57, 63–64, 128, 150, 196 Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), 179
return of seized assets to country of origin, 301 torture, Convention Against Torture (CAT), 347
World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting, 326 trade preferences, 299
Syria Trinidad and Tobago, 149
conflict in, 350 Trump, President, 121
forced displacement in, 206, 216 Trust Fund for Victims, 340
International, Impartial, and Independent Tunisia, 104
Mechanism on Syria (IIIM), 350 repatriation of Algerian refugees, 175
ISIL in, 38 Turkey
Syrian refugees, 33 and the 1951 Refugee Convention, 127
arrival in Europe in 2015, 215–216 Armenian refugees and, 69
education and employment outcomes in Lebanon Population transfer after Greco-Turkish War, 74
and Jordan for, 263 Economic Policy Research Foundation, 262
effect on the local labour market in Jordan, education for Syrian refugee children in, 237
263–266 effect of Syrian refugee students on local
effects on the economy in Turkey, 262 education, 239
flight towards Europe, 117 effect of Syrian refugees on the local labour
return of, 206–207 market in, 262–263
in Turkey, resettlement to the EU of, 127 EU aid to stem arrivals of refugees and migrants
welfare study in Lebanon by the World Bank of, from Turkey to Greece, 126–127
263 grants from EBRD to benefit refugees and hosting
work permits in Jordan, 264–265 communities, 291
as host to refugees, 74, 127, 206, 237, 262–263
Kurds at Turkish border, 186–187
T Libya and, 128
Talent Beyond Boundaries, 214 naturalization of Syrian refugees in, 167
Taliban, 184 return of Syrian refugees from, 206
Tameesuddin, Hafsar, 361 Syrian refugees in, 206, 262–263
Tanzania, 104, 177, 200, 268–269 Turkish nationals in Europe, 127, 130
allocation of land to refugees, 200 Turkcell mobile translation app, 297
Burundian and Rwandan refugees in, 167, 177, 268 Turkish Red Crescent, 74
impact of refugees on the livelihoods and welfare Tutsi refugees, 104, 187–189
in, 268–269 2030 Ambition, 276–277
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTY),
337
naturalization of Burundian refugees in, 167 U
Nyarugusu refugee camp in, 297 Uganda
refugees in, 167, 177, 200, 268 Congolese refugees in, 205
repatriation of Rwandan refugees, 188, 189 economic impact of refugees in, 272–273
Vodacom 3G tower, 297 education for refugee children in, 272, 288
taxes, 294, 300 flight of refugees from, 180
tax concessions, 58, 65 household survey of refugees and host
Taylor, Charles, 342 communities in, 308
teachers, forced displacement and shortages of, 236 local integration of refugees, 200, 268, 272–273,
technology, use of, 147, 242, 306, 316, 328, 332 288
temporary protection status (TPS), 113, 219, 290 microfinance for refugees and IDPs in, 258
tertiary education, enrolment rates of refugees, 232 prosecution of Dominic Ongwen for crimes
Thailand, and return of Cambodian refugees, 178 against humanity and war crimes committed in,
Third Reich, 77, 79–80 340
Thirty Years War, 1618–1648, 60 resettlement of South Asian residents of, 196
Tigrayan refugees, return to Ethiopia, 179 Ukraine, 66, 121
Ulukaya, Hamdi, 325 funding of the IRO, 87

United Kingdom (UK), 301 immigration legislation, 62, 64, 121–122
acceptance Ugandan Asians with British interdiction and offshore processing measures in
citizenship, 196 the Caribbean, 124–125
Border Force, 131 joint exercises with Mexican authorities to stem
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office flow of migrants to US and asylum-seekers, 126
(FCDO), 333 “Operation Provide Comfort”, 186–187
House of Lords, 103, 347–348 protection for persons unable to return home in
immigration legislation, 61–62, 131 the aftermath of a disaster, 151
ODA funding, 302–303 regularization of foreigners, 220
refugee deterrence measures, 130–131 resettlement of refugees after WWII, 195
support to Jobs Compact, Ethiopia, 291–292 resettlement of refugees in the 21st century,
United Nations 208–212
data and analysis on forcibly displaced people, sanctions against foreigners accused of human
153, 217, 309 rights violations and corruption, 300–301
Department of Humanitarian Affairs, 134 Supreme Court of the, on United States return
Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), 248 practices on the high seas, 125
Our Common Future, 230 wall between Mexico and, 121
review of organizations assisting refugees, IDPs Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), 54,
and returnees, 133–134 88, 229, 255, 170, 336
United Nations Charter, 88, 104, 300, 339 universal jurisdiction, 347–349
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 242, 246, Urhi-Teshub, King of the Hittite Empire (Mursili III), 53
312
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),
178, 183–184 V
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural vaccines, access to, 249
Organization (UNESCO), 239 Venezuela, 113, 121, 212, 219
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate economic impact of displaced Venezuelans on
Change (UNFCCC), Task Force on Displacement host countries, 266–268
(TFD), 147–148 education of Venezuelan children in Colombia,
United Nations General Assembly. See General 238
Assembly exodus from, 113, 266
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees resettlement of refugees after WWII, 195
Aga Khan, Prince Sadruddin, 133 Vietnam, 178, 184, 197–200, 247
Goedhart, Gerrit Jan van Heuven, 89 border war between China and, 1977–1979, 197
United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate ethnic Chinese in south Vietnam, 197
Change (IPCC), 142 Vietnamese boat people, 197-200
United Nations Refugee Relief Agency (UNRRA), Vietnam War, 197
85–86 visas, 119, 207
budget, 85 application processes, 213
demise of, 86 and carrier sanctions, 119
forced repatriation of Soviet citizens, 85 current use, 119
mandate, 85 history of, 73
United States view of, 86 vocational and skills training, 256, 258
voluntary repatriation, role in, 85 Vodafone Foundation, Instant Network Schools in
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Africa, 326
Internally Displaced Persons, 139 voluntary repatriation. See also refugees, repatriation
United Nations Statistical Commission, 309 and return and internally displaced persons (IDPs),
United Provinces of the Netherlands, receiving return
refugees and migrants in the, 59 in the 21st century, 202–207
United States of America of refugees and IDPs, 163–165
INDEX 559
W collapse of Empires, 68
wages, impact of refugees on, 256 ethnic cleansing and mass expulsions, 69
war crimes, 138, 181, 335–339 growth of relief agencies, 69, 76
War Crimes Chamber Bosnia and Herzegovina, international protection regime, emergence of,
343 70–74
Wazefadost, Najeeba, 315 number of forcibly displaced, 68
Weis, Paul, 90 responses to forced displacement, 69
well-being, 243, 246, 274 returns, 69, 72
impact of forced displacement on, 34 Russian forcibly displaced and stateless persons,
Western Europe, 42, 86 68–69
resettlement of refugees after WWII, 195 World War II and its aftermath, 82–88
western Mediterranean route, 127–129 accountability, 334–336
West Pakistan, 176 China, 81–83
Westphalia, Peace of, 1648, 60 displaced persons camps, 83, 85, 87–88, 194–195
women refugees ethnic cleansing during and post-, 82–83
CIREFCA and, 193 forced displacement during and after, 82–83,
firewood gathering, 317 86–88
food aid and, 246 forced repatriation of Soviet citizens, 85
in Greek plays, 55 forcibly displaced and deported to Asia, 83
headed-households, 256 forcibly displaced within Europe, 82
impact of COVID on, 234 mass expulsions post-war, 82, 86, 91
lighting to protect, 328 resettlement at conclusion of, 82, 88, 194–196
returnees, Soviet Union, 85
Rwandan, 187
sexual abuse of, 123-124 Y
Spanish in France, 78 Yalta Conference, 85
Syrian garment workers, 265 Yazidis, ISIL attacks against, 351
Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC), 246 Yemen, 249, 350
work. See economic inclusion Younous, Saleh, 346
World Bank Yugoslavia, former, 138, 193, 336–337, 342–343
Ease of Doing Business index, 294 Yusupova, Lidia, 334
Global Concessional Financing Facility (GCFF),
263, 289–290
Global Program on Forced Displacement (GPFD) Z
Trust Fund, 287 Zaire. See Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
grants and loans, 254, 288–289 Zakat charitable donations, 299
International Development Association (IDA), 240, Zambia, 104, 200
254, 288, 298
Microdata Library (MDL), 310
World Bank Group (WBG), 264, 288, 291, 294
International Finance Commission (IFC), 295–296
Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), 298
Refugee Investment and Matchmaking Platform
(RIMP), 264, 298
World Economic Forum (WEF), 294, 326, 328
World Food Programme (WFP), 312
World Health Organization (WHO), 86, 246
World Humanitarian Summit (2016), 286, 308, 321,
325
World Summit (2005), 136, 138, 302
World War I and its aftermath, 67–82
List of
visualizations
1. People Forced to Flee: 1990–2020, 32
Forcibly Displaced Populations: 2010–2020, 32
2. Main host countries of refugees, asylum-seekers and Venezuelans displaced

abroad: 2000, 2010 and 2020, 35
3. Main countries of origin of refugees, asylum-seekers and Venezuelans

displaced abroad: 2000, 2010, 2020, 40
4. People displaced internally: 2010, 2020, 44
5. 1951 Refugee Convention: States parties to the 1951 Convention Relating

to the Status of Refugees and/or its 1967 Protocol, 92–94
6. OAU Convention: States parties to the 1969 OAU Convention Governing

the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, 107
7. Kampala Convention: States parties to the 2009 AU Convention for

the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa and /
or the 2006 International Conference on the Great Lakes Region Protocol
on the Protection and Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons, 137
8. Elements of Solutions: Enabling Laws and Policies, 168
9. Percentage of refugees and internally displaced people finding

a solution: 2000–2020, 203
Refugee solutions: 2000–2020, 204
Returns of internally displaced people: 2000–2020, 204
10. Refugee resettlement: 2000–2020, 208

Main resettled refugee populations by country of origin: 2000–2020, 209
Main resettlement countries receiving refugees: 2000–2020, 209

UNHCR 2022 People Forced To Flee

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

UNHCR 2022 People Forced To Flee

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

UNHCR 2022 People Forced To Flee

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats



Associate Editor: Preeta Law

Advisors: Ewen Macleod, Grainne O’Hara

Production Manager: Mike Walton

People Forced to Flee shows how living up to humanity’s ambition to improve

46 PART I: THE ROOTS OF ASYLUM

98 PART II: PROTECTING MORE BROADLY

158 PART III: SOLUTIONS – AN UNEVEN RECORD

222 PART IV: IMPROVING LIFE PROSPECTS

278 PART V: BRIDGING THE GAP

560 LIST OF VISUALIZATIONS

Data on forced displacement, unless otherwise indicated, comes

AALCC Asian-African Legal Consultative Committee

CARICOM Caribbean Community

DAC Development Assistance Committee (OECD)

EBRD European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

FAO Food and Agriculture Organization

GCFF Global Concessional Financing Facility

HRC Human Rights Council

IADB Inter-American Development Bank

MDBs Multilateral Development Banks

MFU Multilateral Framework of Understandings on Resettlement

OAU Organization of African Unity

R2P Responsibility to Protect

SDGs Sustainable Development Goals

TBB Talent Beyond Boundaries

UDHR Universal Declaration of Human Rights

WBG World Bank Group

host communities. It recognizes the need to build on the short-term human-

90 * The above includes refugees under

60 then, data collection on internal

Forcibly Displaced Populations

80 Venezuelans displaced abroad

The Convention would outlive the post-World War II period, taking on

0 1 2 Population (in millions) 3 4

2000 Pakistan 2.0

Iran (Islamic Republic of) 1.9

United States of America 0.5 0.4

United Republic of Tanzania 0.7

Democratic Republic of the Congo 0.3

2010 Pakistan 1.9

Iran (Islamic Republic of) 1.1

Syrian Arab Republic 1.0

United States of America 0.3

United Kingdom 0.2

2020 Turkey 3.7 0.3

Germany 1.2 0.2

United States of America 0.3 1.0

Peru 0.5 0.5

displaced persons. They were persistently seen as short-term phenomena, even in

difficult, including to prevent it from directly or inadvertently benefiting those

Population (in millions)

2000 Afghanistan 3.6

Bosnia and Herzegovina 0.5

Sierra Leone 0.4

Democratic Republic of the Congo 0.4

2010 Afghanistan 3.1

Democratic Republic of the Congo 0.5

Viet Nam 0.3