Moreover, the potential consequences of withdrawing protection prematurely or erroneously from IDPs and refugees can be equally harmful. Over the past three decades, standards and procedures have been developed through extensive dialogue between UNHCR and states parties to the 1951…
In contrast, the most widely accepted definition of an internally displaced person (found in the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement) fails to mention protection and does not clearly delineate when a person ceases to be internally displaced. That definition rests…
The issue at stake is to identify when international and national responsibilities end in terms of addressing the specific needs of IDPs, as compared to the population in general. What is required is consensus on the part of IDPs, humanitarian…
Unlike Article 1C of the 1951 Convention on the revocation of refugee status, the Principles do not contain any cessation clauses that would determine when their application ceases. This is not a gap in the Guiding Principles but a consequence…
Such IDP status, though not required under international law, nonetheless can provide people with social, economic and legal benefits to safeguard rights endangered by displacement. Six out of eleven European countries affected by conflict and internal displacement have adopted specific…
Rather, emergency support creates the conditions for survival and security on which more durable solutions may or may not be built. This article considers the longer-term options for war-uprooted and war-affected populations and the challenges of reintegration efforts through which…
Violence erupted in Tajikistan in 1993 when tens of thousands of IDPs and refugees began returning to their homes. In many villages, newly returned people found their homes occupied by others or they became victim of physical assaults incited by…
Population displacements differ by cause, content, the way they unfold and the way they end. Answers about 'end' must vary depending on the initial cause of involuntary displacement - which may be war, a natural calamity or a necessary development…
There are approximately 639,000 Burundian refugees in neighbouring countries, plus a further 200,000 living in Tanzanian settlements since 1972.(1) As of November 2002, there were approximately 380,000 IDPs living in camps for IDPs and an unknown number of men, women,…
The development of policies for people internally displaced by the violence in Colombia is characterised by a tension between the approach of the government, which is predominantly operational , and that of the Constitutional Court, which has championed a focus…