The turn of a decade is always a good opportunity to take a step back and assess some of the deeper trends driving our ever-shortening news cycles. As we look back over the last ten years, surely one of the…
Dear participants and Dr Deng, The Norwegian Refugee Council had the pleasure of being invited by NTNU to co-organise this seminar, a task we accepted with great satisfaction. For many years NRC has made efforts to raise awareness of internal…
It is a great pleasure to be in Trondheim to address such an impressive gathering of scholars, academics, students and policy makers focusing on an issue that has preoccupied me since I was appointed as the Representative of the UN…
The outcome was the launch of the online Global IDP Database (www.idpproject.org) in December 1999. The backbone of the database has been a set of comprehensive country profiles which provide users with frequently updated information and direct access to source…
Because the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement is a non-binding instrument –deriving legitimacy from cross-referencing other international instruments within the field of human rights, humanitarian law and refugee law – there is a need to understand the value of these…
To what extent are displaced Guatemalans able to access justice, pursue the right to remedy and receive legal aid and translation facilities to do so. Is the Guatemalan legal system responsive or repressive to IDPs? Does it seek to emancipate…
How can we develop research problems that are grounded in the perspectives and experiences of people affected by displacement, but whose findings remain relevant to policy? In other words, how do we identify, not only the right solutions, but also…
Is policy-driven research based on unsound and uncritiqued methodology? Could the subsequent policy conclusions which are generated therefore be flawed? The problem of inaccurate and unsubstantiated assertions reflects a key problem in social science research in the humanitarian field, namely…
How has the focus on IDPs come about? What political agenda lies behind the definition and the mode of institutionalising IDP studies? Why has it taken more than 20 years for studies of internal displacement to mirror the trajectory of…
What are the parallels between the development of the international refugee regime and equivalent policies and support structures relating to IDPs? Why is the current IDP regime lightly institutionalised and weak in comparison with the mechanisms and processes dealing with…