From the Editors
It is often people’s immediate community that provides the first, last and perhaps best tactical response for many people affected by or under threat of displacement. However one defines protection or community, external actors will struggle to provide appropriate support…
The Guiding Principles and the Responsibility to Protect
The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) asserts that sovereign states have a responsibility to protect their populations from genocide and other mass atrocities but that when they are unable or unwilling to do so, a responsibility of the broader community of…
Africa: from voluntary principles to binding standards
With as many IDPs in Africa – 12 million – as in the rest of the world put together, African states have already shown leadership in the area of IDP protection. Signed in 2006, the Great Lakes Protocol on the…
Can the Guiding Principles make a difference in Kenya?
Kenya has signed the Regional Pact on Security, Stability and Development in the Great Lakes Region[1] which includes legally binding IDP protection protocols based substantially on the Guiding Principles. Potentially, advocates could use the Pact to enhance efforts to assist…
Uganda’s response to displacement: contrasting policy and practice
Conflict between the Ugandan government and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has displaced an estimated 1.8 million people. The government argued that it had to separate civilians from insurgents in order to reduce the LRA’s ability to recruit civilian collaborators.…
Guiding Principle 29 and the right to restitution
Principle 29(2) states that: “Competent authorities have the duty and responsibility to assist returned and/or resettled internally displaced persons to recover, to the extent possible, their property and possessions which they left behind or were dispossessed of upon their displacement. …
Obstacles to realising Guiding Principle 29 in Afghanistan
Principle 29 asserts that: “Competent authorities have the duty and responsibility to assist returned and/or resettled internally displaced persons to recover, to the extent possible, their property and possessions which they left behind or were dispossessed of upon their displacement.…
Seeking electoral equality for IDP voters
IDPs are protected by the full spectrum of constitutional protections and applicable human rights law, including provisions designed to ensure the right to participate in the political affairs of their state on a non-discriminatory basis. National governments have a clear…
Time to apply the Guiding Principles in Nepal
Despite the fact that many Nepalis had been displaced by natural disasters and development projects, the issues of protection and promotion of IDP rights were not taken seriously until the advent of the Maoist insurgency in the late 1990s. As…