When Perceptions and Aspirations Clash

2021 ◽  
pp. 86-110
Author(s):  
Dawn Chatty
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Humanitarian Assistance ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Turkish State

This chapter talks about refugees crossing the borders into neighboring countries, which reveals a discrepancy between the reality on the ground and the standardized approaches taken by humanitarian actors. It cites Turkey as the country where the humanitarian presence was limited, and the Turkish state and civil society took the lead without the support of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in responding to refugee needs. It also argues that the refugee response in Turkey was provided without undermining refugee agency and dignity. The chapter emphasizes that global templates for humanitarian assistance built from experiences in very different contexts and among populations of significantly different makeup are not easily integrated into Middle Eastern concepts of refuge, hospitality, and charity. It criticizes the architecture of assistance that was built upon templates developed largely among agrarian and poor developing countries.

Durable Solutions for Developing Country Refugees

1986 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 264-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry N. Stein
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Developing Country ◽  
Executive Committee ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
Priority Order ◽  
Durable Solutions ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Temporary Settlement

“Refugee problems demand durable solutions” is the opening statement of the Principles for Action in Developing Countries adopted by the 1984 Executive Committee of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In fact, in most refugee situations no such demand is made. Those same Principles weakened the demand for durable solutions 2 by labelling third country resettlement as “the least desirable and most costly solution” and by indicating that when “voluntary repatriation is not immediately feasible” it is sufficient to provide only “temporary settlement” for the refugees. This article seeks to provide some background to recent changes in refugee problems that have impeded the attainment of durable solutions and to explore some of the difficulties and possibilities for durable solutions in developing countries in the eighties. 2 In stating a belief that the Principles weakened the demand for durable solutions I do not mean to imply or suggest any flagging of commitment or effort by the High Commissioner or his staff. There is, however, a difference between the staff and administration of UNHCR and its Executive Committee comprised of sovereign governments. The Executive Committee by ranking durable solutions in priority order, particularly be labellingone solution as “the least desirable”, has provided ample excuses for those governments inclined to reject all durable solutions other than voluntary repatriation and to offer only temporary rather than durable solutions.

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.

Part II Sources, Ch.10 The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milner James ◽  
Ramasubramanyam Jay
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Voluntary Contributions ◽  
Refugee Convention ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
Refugee Law ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
International Refugee Law ◽  
Over Time

This chapter addresses the role played by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the making and implementation of international refugee law. It begins by considering UNHCR’s mandate responsibilities and operational functions to better understand the structures that condition the scope of UNHCR’s engagement with the functioning of international law. While UNHCR’s 1950 Statute and the Refugee Convention both mandate UNHCR to serve particular functions, such as its supervisory responsibility relating to the Refugee Convention, its Statute also places particular constraints on UNHCR, especially in terms of the scope of its activities and its reliance on voluntary contributions from States to perform its mandated functions. The chapter then looks at how the roles UNHCR has played in the making and implementation of refugee law at the global, regional, and national levels, through its operations, and how these functions have evolved over time. By illustrating the various instances where UNHCR has demonstrated power, along with those instances where UNHCR has exhibited pathologies and has been constrained by the interests of States, the chapter points to the importance of understanding international refugee law within the political environment in which it functions.

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