Responsibility of UNHCR for the Internally Displaced People: Arguments For and Against

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is an agency of the United Nations Organization whose mandate is to protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities and stateless people and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a country.1 According to the UNHCR, a refugee is “someone who is unable or unwilling to return to his country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion”.2 The UNHCR defines Internally Displaced People (IDP’S) as “persons or groups of people who have been forced or obliged to flee their homes as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of the effects of generalized violence of human rights of human-made disasters and who have not crossed the international boarder”3. Currently, the UNHCR does not take responsibility of protecting the IDPs. This then means that the IDPs are left at the mercy of their own governments, an institution that has already failed to provide for them in the first place. In 2016, there were about 40.3 million Internally Displaced People (IDP’S) resulting from conflict, violence and natural disasters round the world4.This shows the magnitude of the problem. Ironically, there are more IDP’s than there are refugees as of 2018.

Since the issue of the IDP’s came to existence of being noticed it has been a major issue on whether they should be held under the responsibility of any organization as well as the UNHCR. From the beginning even the definition of whom they are to be classified as caused many problems. With this I will be looking at the argumentative side of whether “The UNHCR should take responsibility of the IDP’s” A source that identifies with this view is “International Protection and Assistance for Refugees and the Displaced: Institutional Challenges and United Nations Reform”5 written by Guy S. Goodwin-Gill, a Senior Research Fellow in Oxford and who served as a Legal Adviser in the Office of the UNHCR.

Goodwin-Gill argues that the Internally Displaced people should not be assisted at all by the UNHCR body. He argues that neither the UNHCR nor any UN body has any obligation to ‘protect’ any persons within their own country. Most of the help that is to be given to the IDP’s is to come from their National Government. Their main job is to keep them away from any sexual, racial or religious discrimination. “It is, first and foremost, the responsibility of national authorities to both ensure protection for and aid the displaced and those at risk of displacement”.6 As per stated by the UNHCR that the only time they will offer their services is only when a certain country asks for their interference. But until then it is the work of the local Governments to keep them away from any internal discrimination. It is mostly up to the Government to seek help from the UNHCR or any UN body concerning their IDP’s. In most cases are the IDP’s seen as threats to the national security.

Goodwin-Gill Guy clearly states his opinions by standing with the side that the UNHCR should not be responsible of taking care of the IDPs. He states that according to his personal knowledge, the work that the UNHCR does is based on nothing but “materializing” their help towards the IDP people for they do not initially understand what the people of the country are going through. They do not see what the local Government of the people would see when helping the IDPs out. For they might do this act of help for an act of either recognition or in this case of political IDPs may want to gain votes from them by giving false promises.

What makes this article credible is that the writer of the article was a former Legal Advisers in the office of the UNHCR mainly focusing on the migration, international organizations and many more. With his experience in this sector of working hand in hand with the UNHCR making his opinion stronger and even more valid to this view. He states that “the UNHCRs involvement historically has been noted to have been practical and non-controversial.”7 By assisting both returning refugees and internally displaced persons generally. This makes his work even more believable in that he looks at both the negative sides and the positive sides of the argument made but mainly on the negative but brushes over the positive briefly. This shows us that the he is biased in this piece. He puts up a strong argument that states when more and more people adhere to the UNHCR for help with the IDP’s and refugees, the UNHCR in turn searches for other different approaches to the situations being faced by the countries. With this the UNHCR came up with that they will help only when the Secretary General has given them a specific request upon who to help. This gives us enough evidence that they are not reliable in that the only way that the IDPs will acquire help is when the Secretary General had granted them a move forward.

The article is as well weak in that Goodwill-Gill uses little forms of statistics thus making his argument weak. He does not state the number of people facing this kind of trouble and the kind of incidence that has been ignored because the secretary general did not adhere to their help. The dating as well on the document written has been overtaken by the events of time. It being old or out of time frame means that it does not tackle the questions at hand. There are different topics being viewed at today in different ways and different rules meaning that it would not be valid causing it to be weak judged according to the date on the document. The structure of the document is a weakness partially because the explanation is not a complete flow.

Guy S. Goodwin-Gill does not give examples of places that the UNHCR showed a practical form of approach towards the help given to the IDPs. But Goodwin-Gill uses the format of quoting academic references in his work which is seen when he quotes what the UNHCR had seen or had thought about the refugee problem.

The other perspective is that the UNHCR should take responsibility of the IDPs. A source that identifies with this view is based on Colombia where the internally displaced persons are 6.5 million according to the Internally Displaced Monitoring Centre (IDMC) as of the year 2017.8 the article that goes with this view is “Towards a Regime for The Protection of Internally Displaced Persons.”9 By Pramod Nair an expert in the field of law. He purposefully uses thee word ‘regime’ in the title as an emotive word to show a long period of dominance of a certain situation in which in this it is the protection of the IDP’s. Nair’s main argument in this document is that the international bodies in which the UNHCR being one should take responsibility of the internally displaced.

On page 7 under the subtitle of “is sovereignty a constraint of protecting IDP’s” Nair states that the UNHCR as a UN body does not protect the IDP’s because as per what they stand for is to protect those that have crossed the border hence neglecting those that have not got the opportunity to cross the border. He states that it violates their fundamental permanent human right. With this he uses the word ‘inherit’ meaning permanent showing or the magnanimity of the problem at hand which is their human rights which is to be observed by the UN which works with the human rights and observes them. It shows that if they do not observe this it is rather a big problem.

His credentials of being an expert in law and the founder of an international organization that offers dispute resolution services. He as well is specialized in the area of dispute resolution. His credentials are a big major factor for he has a big say on the issue of trying to resolve disputes, but they as well don’t qualify as much for this is not a one on one dispute but a major factor that needs addressing. He does not tackle one main country or area that experienced the help of the UNHCR he touches roughly on different areas e.g. Rwanda, Croatia etc.

The use of rhetorical questions is evident in this article by P. Nair which engages the reader to thinking more into the matter that is being addressed. There is noted academic

references to articles mostly based on a convention addressing the issues of IDP’s and refugees. He makes his arguments clear throughout towards the conclusion when he says that it is a problem that is gradually increasing and without tackling it now it may affect the future or become a much larger problem. The clarity to his reasoning is shown through this statement.

The use of secondary sources where he quotes the Secretary General “Perez de Cuellar” of the year 1991 shows the weakness of the article which it relies on past times information. It as well was written in the year 2001 meaning that times have changed and that the approach to the things these days are different. Nair states that the UNHCR’s form of protection can be based on ‘international obligation’ meaning that it disregards those that are or have a sense of belonging like the IDP’s who have a Government to run to unlike the refugees who seek asylum in other countries or refugee camps.

After long hours or research and having a look at both perspectives both showing either a slight view that the IDP’s should be taken into responsibility of the UNHCR. Goodwill clearly is against the view of helping the IDP’s but shows at a point that it is a possible way to help them. However even after all I believe that the argument given by Nair is stronger than that of Goodwill-Guy despite its various weaknesses it proves to be based on a more non theoretical manner than that of Nair. With Nair’s argument he is clear on the argument he is supporting and arranges his argument in an easily followable manner.

Initially, I held a high standard of thought that both the IDP’s and the refugees had no difference and that they were all the same. I had not thought much into it. I always knew that the refugees were being protected by the UN body. But I had no idea that there was a difference to how they were being protected and that for the IDP’s their country had to ask for help. There are more refugees in Kenya than there are the IDP’s. This could clearly mean that the refuges are a much more priority but being that they have already been settled into camps within Kenya the IDP’s do in turn need and deserve a helping hand.

But after seeing the amount of problems that are being faced by the IDP’s they in turn do deserve the interference of the UNHCR because they do in turn suffer from the lack of finance to support themselves outside due to either political or natural factors that have uprooted from their home areas. Overall showing that despite of all those reasons given the UNHCR should go ahead and take a chance on the IDP’s.

In conclusion the research varies greatly in that the research carried out does not contain any form of primary research. Despite the advantage of any primary resources would have gained me about the different situations faced by different IDP’s in other countries and in which would have provided me with various approaches the UNHCR would take into helping the IDP’s out.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_High_Commissioner_for_Refugees
2. https://www.unhcr.org/what-is-a-refugee.html
3. https://emergency.unhcr.org/entry/220950/unhcrs-mandate-for-refugees-stateless-persons-and-idps
4. http://www.internal-displacement.org/global-report/grid2017/#on-the-grid
5. Goodwin-Gill Guy “International Protection and Assistance for Refugees and the Displaced
6. https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/system/files/legacy_files/FINALIDPPolicy.pdf
7. https://www.unhcr.org/afr/47e8d2a82.pdf on page 8
8. http://www.internal-displacement.org/countries/colombia
9. http://www.worldlii.org/int/journals/ISILYBIHRL/2001/10.rtf