The Indian Ocean tsunami disaster and the Darfur crisis compelled me to commission an independent study to evaluate the humanitarian response system. The findings of the Humanitarian Response Review (HRR)[1] spoke loud and clear: while, over the years, we had…
Internally displaced people are particularly vulnerable. Compared with refugees, not only do they have less legal protection but also, historically, the international community has paid relatively little attention to their plight. It has been suggested that there should be a…
Fourteen years of conflict in Liberia culminated in mid 2003 when massive numbers of people fled their homes, swamping the capital, Monrovia. Over 500,000 people were displaced (with a further 350,000 fleeing to neighbouring countries). Hostilities ceased with the abrupt…
Recent examples abound of the chronic difficulties of the Collaborative Response: Darfur: The UN’s failure to cobble together an effective response to the massive internal displacement crisis led to unclear arrangements for camp management and allowed the Government of Sudan…
What has become known as the ‘protection gap’ is one of the main problems faced by millions of internally displaced people around the world. A recent study found that the UN’s approach to internal displacement is “still largely ad hoc…
Non-state actors (NSAs) are defined by Geneva Call[1] as “any armed actor operating outside state control that uses force to achieve its political/quasi-political objective. Such actors include armed groups, rebel groups, liberation movements and de facto governments.” NSAs under consideration…
The Emergency Relief Coordinator, the heads of the major relief and development organisations, NGO umbrella groups and the Red Cross/Red Crescent movement – which together comprise the UN’s Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC)[1] – on 12 September assigned the major responsibility…
Since the 1990s African conflicts have witnessed massive brutality against the civilian population. Armed combatants in Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Northern Uganda, Darfur and Eastern DRC – to mention just some – have violated the Geneva Conventions’ protocol on civilian…
The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement set forth the rights of IDPs and the obligations of national authorities toward them. Less clear, however, has been what governments concretely can do to ensure that these rights are respected and responsibilities fulfilled.…
Such a statement has to be understood in the broader frame of ICRC's endeavours to act in favour of all war victims and its wariness towards approaches by sectors or categories of victims. It should be noted that the ICRC’s…