Protection and assistance for refugees in armed conflicts and internal disturbances: Reflections on the Mandates of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

1988 ◽  
Vol 28 (265) ◽  
pp. 351-366
Author(s):  
Vitit Muntarbhorn
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
Humanitarian Action ◽  
Humanitarian Organizations ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The One ◽  
The Web

This article examines the mandate to protect and assist refugees in armed conflicts and internal disturbances. It is a modest attempt to clarify the web of overlapping roles and mandates of humanitarian bodies, in particular the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (“the Movement”) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It purports to re-assess the evolution of their mandate and its extension. On the one hand, there is a need to define concrete principles, based on past and present practice, for humanitarian action. On the other, there must be sufficient leeway for flexibility and pragmatism in situations for which there is no comprehensive prognosis. The article concludes by demonstrating the interdependence and complementarity of humanitarian organizations which have to proffer protection and assistance where no other body can act.

Humanitarian action and peace-keeping operations

1997 ◽  
Vol 37 (317) ◽  
pp. 178-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cornelio Sommaruga
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Committee ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Humanitarian Action ◽  
Humanitarian Organization ◽  
The United Nations

It is an honour and a privilege for me to address this Conference devoted to a topic of great importance to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). As a humanitarian organization, whose mandate it is to provide protection and assistance for victims of armed conflicts and which is operational worldwide, the ICRC has been directly concerned with many peace-keeping missions undertaken by the United Nations.

scholarly journals A network society communicative model for optimizing the Refugee Status Determination (RSD) procedures

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-39
Author(s):  
Andrea Pacheco Pacífico
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Committee ◽  
Network Society ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Refugee Status ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
Active Involvement ◽  
Model Based ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The United Nations

This article recommends a new way to improve Refugee Status Determination (RSD) procedures by proposing a network society communicative model based on active involvement and dialogue among all implementing partners. This model, named after proposals from Castells, Habermas, Apel, Chimni, and Betts, would be mediated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), whose role would be modeled after that of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) practice.

Appointment of a new member to the ICRC

1988 ◽  
Vol 28 (262) ◽  
pp. 77-77
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Education And Training ◽  
International Committee ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
Her Family ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
And Training

At its last meeting in 1987, the Assembly of the International Committee of the Red Cross welcomed Mrs. Liselotte Kraus-Gurny as a new member of the Committee.Mrs. Kraus-Gurny is from Zurich. She is a Doctor of Laws and worked in the legal division of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva from 1961 to 1972. She devoted the following years to her family, and to political activities at the municipal and cantonal levels in Geneva, where she was particularly active in the field of education and training.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian MacNaughton ◽  
Mariah McGill
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Limited Capacity ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Right

For over two decades, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has taken a leading role in promoting human rights globally by building the capacity of people to claim their rights and governments to fulfill their obligations. This chapter examines the extent to which the right to health has evolved in the work of the OHCHR since 1994, drawing on archival records of OHCHR publications and initiatives, as well as interviews with OHCHR staff and external experts on the right to health. Analyzing this history, the chapter then points to factors that have facilitated or inhibited the mainstreaming of the right to health within the OHCHR, including (1) an increasing acceptance of economic and social rights as real human rights, (2) right-to-health champions among the leadership, (3) limited capacity and resources, and (4) challenges in moving beyond conceptualization to implementation of the right to health.

Mandate or Donors? Explaining the UNHCR’s Country-Level Expenditures from 1967 to 2016

2021 ◽  
pp. 003232172097433
Author(s):  
Svanhildur Thorvaldsdottir ◽  
Ronny Patz ◽  
Klaus H Goetz
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Voluntary Contributions ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
Country Level ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
Donor Influence ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Major Donors ◽  
Expenditure Allocation

In recent decades, many international organizations have become almost entirely funded by voluntary contributions. Much existing literature suggests that major donors use their funding to refocus international organizations’ attention away from their core mandate and toward serving donors’ geostrategic interests. We investigate this claim in the context of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), examining whether donor influence negatively impacts mandate delivery and leads the organization to direct expenditures more toward recipient countries that are politically, economically, or geographically salient to major donors. Analyzing a new dataset of UNHCR finances (1967–2016), we find that UNHCR served its global mandate with considerable consistency. Applying flexible measures of collective donor influence, so-called “influence-weighted interest scores,” our findings suggest that donor influence matters for the expenditure allocation of the agency, but that mandate-undermining effects of such influence are limited and most pronounced during salient refugee situations within Europe.

The Repatriation and Resettlement of the Southern Sudanese

1972 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 23-26
Author(s):  
Louise W. Holborn
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Displaced Persons ◽  
Refugee Population ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
The Past ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The World ◽  
The United Nations

While the world press has focused over the past year on problems surrounding the creation of still another refugee population in Africa — that of Uganda's Asians — far too little attention has been directed to the remarkable though still fragile process of repatriation and resettlement of hundreds of thousands of Southern Sudanese. This population of displaced persons includes both refugees who fled to other countries and large numbers of homeless who hid in the bush during the civil war that wracked the Sudan for seventeen years, from 1955 through the first months of 1972. Responding to the initiatives of President Gaafar al-Nimeiry of the Sudan, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (HCR), under an explicit mandate from the Secretary- General of the United Nations, has been raising funds, organizing activities on behalf of the most pressing needs and working closely with all local interests to meet overwhelming problems.

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