III.4.5 The plight of IDPs

Main Debate 

  • Can UNHCR extend its mandate to accommodate IDPs?

Main Points

  • The main legal framework for the protection of IDPs
  • Rural IDPs v. urban IDPs
  • IDPs v. refugees

Treaties

  1. African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (Kampala Convention), adopted on 23 October 2009 and entered into force on 6 December 2012.

Soft Law

  1. UN Commission on Human Rights, Guiding principles on Internal displacement, UN Document E/CN/.4/1998/53/Add.2.
  2. International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, 'The Great Lakes Pact and the rights of displaced people', 30 November 2006.

UNHCR Documents

  1. UNHCR, Internal Displacement: Responsibility and Action, October 2013, Handbook for Parliamentarians No. 20, 2013.
  2. UNHCR, UNHCR's Role in Support of an Enhanced Humanitarian Response to Situations of Internal Displacement, EC/58/SC/CRP.18, 4 June 2007.
  3. UNHCR, The Protection of Internally Displaced Persons and the Role of UNHCR, 27 February 2007.
  4. G. Bettocchi, A. G. Cabrera, J. Crisp & A. de la Varga Fito, Protection and Solutions in Situations of Internal Displacement: Learning from UNHCR's Operational Experience, August 2002, EPAU/2002/10. [Part of the Policy Development and Evaluation Service's UNHCR Evaluation Reports Series].

Readings

Core

  1. F. Giustiniani, ‘New Hopes and Challenges for the Protection of IDPs in Africa: The Kampala Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa’, Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, vol. 39 (2011), p. 347.
  2. W. Kindane, ‘Managing Forced Displacement by Law in Africa: The Role of the New African Union IDPs Convention’, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, vol. 44, no. 1 (2011), pp. x.
  3. A. Adebe, ‘The African Union Convention on Internally Displaced Persons: its Codification Background, Scope, and Enforcement Challenges’, Refugee Survey Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 3 (2010), pp. 28-57.
  4. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre and International Refugee Rights Initiative, The Great Lakes Pact and the Rights of Displaced People: A Guide for Civil Society, September 2008.
  5. D. Korn, Exodus within Borders: An Introduction to the Crisis of International Displacement, (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1999).
  6. S. Ojeda, ‘Kampala Convention on Internally Displaced Persons: Some International Humanitarian Law Aspects’, Refugee Survey Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 3 (2010), pp. 58-66.

Extended

  1. J. Olaka-Onyango, ‘The Plight of the Larger Half: Human Rights, Gender Violence and the Legal Status of Refugee and Internally Displaced Women in Africa’, in C. Mulei, L. Dirasse, and M. Garling (eds), Legal Status of Refugee and Internally Displaced Women in Africa, (Nairobi: Space Sellers Ltd, 1996), p. 41.
  2. P. Orchard, 'Perils of Humanitarianism: Refugee and ID Protection in Situations of Regime-induced Displacement', Refugee Survey Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 1 (2010), pp. 38-60.
  3. R. Cohen, ‘Strengthening protection of IDP’s: the UN’s Role’, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, vol.7 (Winter/Spring 2006), pp.101-110.
  4. N. Geissler, ‘The International Protection of Internally Displaced Persons’, International Journal of Refugee Law, vol.11, no.3 (1999), pp. 451-478.
  5. W. Kalin, ‘The Role of the Guiding principles on Internal Displacement’, Forced Migration Review, (October 2005), pp. 8-9.
  6. M. Stavropoulou, ‘Key Areas of Challenge in the Legal Status of Internally Displaced Women’, in C. Mulei, L. Dirasse, and M. Garling, (eds) Legal Status of Refugee and Internally Displaced Women in Africa (Nairobi: Space Sellers Ltd, 1996), p. 99.
  7. Ibeanu, O. Okechukwu ‘Exiles in Their Own Home: Conflicts and Internal Population Displacement in Nigeria’ Journal of Refugee Studies, vol. 12 (1999), p. 161.
  8. Martin Evens ‘Suffering is Too Great: Urban Internally Displaced Persons in the Casamance Conflict, Senegal’ Journal of Refugee Studies, vol. 20 (2007), p. 60.