In her own words

The Editors of Forced Migration Review are grateful for the consistent support which Roberta Cohen has given to our publication ever since its launch. She has not only written for FMR but has also assisted to expand our readership and profile, helping FMR to become the most widely read publication on IDP and refugee issues. Inevitably, some of the displacement contexts she has described in her FMR articles have changed – and the policy debates she contributed to moved on – but many of her challenges remain contemporary:

“While the Guiding Principles alone cannot prevent displacement or the violation of the rights of IDPs, they do serve notice to governments and insurgent forces that their actions are being monitored”. FMR2, 1998

“The Guiding Principles are an empowerment tool … Back in the 1970s, through my human rights work I had the occasion to meet a Soviet dissident who had been confined to a psychiatric hospital because of his political views. He had been injected with painful drugs, abused and partially starved. Because of an international campaign, he was released. When I met him in New York, I could not help but ask him: “How did you get through all of this?” In response, he took a crumpled piece of paper from his back pocket, and said, “This is how.” The paper was the text of the International Covenants on Human Rights, the UN adopted standards on civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. This man had memorised them and knew them by heart. When I asked him how it was possible that this document had sustained him when his government did not abide by the standards in the Covenants, he replied: “Oh, they know about them, they adopted resolutions on them at the UN, in fact they have ratified them, and one day they will have to observe them.” Holding up the Covenants, he said, “This document has power.” He proved to be right. I believe this story should be instructive for today’s discussions about the Guiding Principles and how they can reinforce the response strategies of IDPs.”

FMR report on Oslo IDP conference, 2001.

“Even as the war [to oust the Taliban in Afghanistan] came to an end, the long delay in setting up an international security force and the limited mandate given to it demonstrated once again that the now accepted international responsibility to avert starvation still does not extend to protecting the physical safety and human rights of people inside… The humanitarian community’s orthodox insistence upon the civilian character of aid had the effect of putting it into the unseemly position of begrudging food to people in areas of widespread malnutrition … maintaining the complete independence of humanitarian action in all circumstances is probably not possible and in some cases could prove perilous to the populations the international

community is trying to protect. A more realistic approach would be to create at the outset of each emergency a framework to foster better communication between

humanitarian and military actors.” FMR13, 2002.

“After many years in denial, the UN system has finally acknowledged the need to promote a more effective institutional response to the protection of IDPs. Giving the job to UNHCR has the potential to bring predictability and clarity to an area regularly described as the biggest gap in the international response to IDPs.”

FMR IDP Supplement, 2005.