The Politics of Rescue: Yugoslavia's Wars and the Humanitarian Impulse

1997 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 105-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amir Pasic ◽  
Thomas G. Weiss
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Former Yugoslavia ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The Way

Pasic and Weiss examine the limitations and the ethical dilemmas of the humanitarian impulse in light of the recent surge in humanitarian intervention. The authors use the experience of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the former Yugoslavia as an example of the way in which politics and humanitarianism are inextricably intertwined. They describe a spectrum of intervention, from rescue to restorative to revolutionary efforts. Rescue efforts often fail to address the underlying political problems, but for a rescuing nation to commit to “revolutionary” intervention and sustained support raises the issue of state sovereignty. Asserting that humanitarian intervention is a highly ambiguous principle, the authors warn of the dangers of politically driven rescues that often force trade-offs between the pursuit of rescue and political order.

Navigating between Refugee Protection and State Sovereignty

2019 ◽  
pp. 195-231
Author(s):  
Ellen Reichel
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Reference Points ◽  
International Organization ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
The Past ◽  
Refugee Protection ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
Normative Change

The chapter reconstructs major changes in the ways in which the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been legitimated over the past four decades. First, we observe a strengthening of individuals and their rights as reference points of the organization’s activities. Second, managerial norms such as efficiency and accountability have gained relevance in the representation of UNHCR as a ‘good international organization’. While the first normative change attests to the rise of people-centred legitimacy standards, the second provides further evidence for the increasing importance of procedural expectations which international organizations are asked to fulfil. Somewhat paradoxically, then, the turn towards ‘results-based management’ implies that the legitimacy of UNHCR is measured just as much by how it works as it is measured by the outcomes it produces.

Meeting on aid for victims of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia (Geneva, 29 July 1992)

1992 ◽  
Vol 32 (289) ◽  
pp. 389-390
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Former Yugoslavia ◽  
World War ◽  
International Meeting ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Refugee Problem ◽  
Second World

The magnitude of the refugee problem in the former Yugoslavia, unprecedented in Europe since the Second World War, prompted the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to convene an international meeting in Geneva on 29 July 1992 aimed at mobilizing support for some 2,300,000 people who have fled the fighting since the beginning of the Yugoslav crisis in 1991.

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.

What Do We Mean by Protection?

2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dallal Stevens
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
The State ◽  
Refugee Policy ◽  
International Protection ◽  
Refugee Convention ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
High Commissioner

Protection is arguably the raison-d’être of refugee policy. Yet, surprisingly, the meaning of protection is not without ambiguity. ‘Domestic protection’ can be distinguished from ‘international protection’; the sense attributed to protection within the 1951 Refugee Convention contrasts with that of the 1950 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Statute. Equally, how the state interprets its protective obligations departs frequently from the practice of humanitarian organisations. Alongside such differences, there has been a proliferation of protection concepts in recent years which, far from improving understanding, have added unnecessary confusion and undermined the fundamental purpose of protection. This article considers the language of ‘protection’ within the refugee field and argues that protection proliferation must now be addressed and reversed.

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.

IDPs and refugees in the OSCE area

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-125
Author(s):  
Volker Türk
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
United Nations ◽  
North Africa ◽  
50Th Anniversary ◽  
Internally Displaced Persons ◽  
60Th Anniversary ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The Status

AbstractThis year marks the 60th anniversary of the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 50th anniversary of the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. And yet there are almost 5 million refugees and internally displaced persons in the OSCE area. The crisis in North Africa and the Middle East is creating a vast new displacement challenge, including for OSCE participating States. What are the legal and policy gaps in terms of protection? And what steps are the OSCE and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) taking to tackle the problem of IDPs, refugees and statelessness in the OSCE?

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