Preventive Action for Refugee Producing Situations

40 Chapter 1 Introduction 41
military intervention. 53 These developments challenge traditional ways of
interaction and show that new approaches and policies are feasible and
implemented through changes in international relations and make east-west
relations more a geographical rather than political notion. For both the UN
and the UNHCR fresh opportunities for preventive action are opening up.
This is especially prompted by the aftermath of the Gulf War and due to the
unprecedented crisis in former Yugoslavia.
The High Commissioner Mme Ogata in her statement on 25 November
1992 in Brussels said that there is "a greater willingness on the part of the
international community to collectively address the threat to international
security posed by internal conflict and large-scale population
displacements, as in the Former Yugoslavia and Somalia". For the first
time, in its 42 years of existence, UNHCR was invited in November 1992
to address the Security Council. This was no mere coincidence, because the
humanitarian regime has entered into a new phase of complexity in which
refugees have become a part of the global agenda for security and peace.
Now the High Commissioner added "UNHCR has become the
humanitarian arm of the UN's peace-keeping efforts. Seeking to reduce or
contain displacement, buying time and space in which the political process
can continue; as in Somalia or former Yugoslavia. This is what I call a
'preventive role.'"
The humanitarian strategy of today does not concentrate only on
asylum, but more and more also on prevention and solutions in the country
of origin. 54
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53 Former Under Secretary-General Brian Urquhart, one of the most
experienced and high-level UN officials, shares his experience in saying
that there has been a shift away from the cynical use of the UN toward
something more deeper and more serious, which has been strengthened by
the growing trust between the United States and the Soviet Union. "The
improvement in the general international climate has had an enormous
effect on the other members of the UN whether they admit it or not. If
you're the Secretary-General and you have to spend half your time
tiptoeing around the ideological differences of the US and the USSR, you
don't have much time to do anything else. The UN is a very covenient
institution to help governments get out of muddles when they can't get out,
for various political reasons, by themselves." "The rise of the United
Nations," Boston Globe, 3 August 1988.
54 Statement by Mrs. Sadako Ogata, United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees, at the Royal Institute for International Relations, Brussels 25
November 1992, p. 3.
1.3. Research Design
1.3.1. Sources Consulted
Throughout this dissertation, I shall rely on primary documentation, such as
statements and reports of the United Nations. The analysis on the work of the
UN Group of Governmental Experts on International Cooperation to Avert
New Refugee Flows is based on resolutions, working papers and reports on
public record. Unless otherwise stated, for quotations I relied on public
record information. I drew on reports, and documentation from other
international organizations, governments, the nongovernmental sector,
especially human rights organizations. In some instances persons from the
refugee and human rights community who contributed information requested
not to be named.
I have branched out to related subjects and fields of studies undertaken in
different countries, and relied on as much material on public record as
possible. Where appropriate, draft papers, articles, and other contributions of
noted scholars and practitioners were used. A number of conference-,
seminar- and meeting papers served to document developments. Mission
reports and field studies, including those for committees and subcommittees
of the U.S. Congress are used as well.
Finally, I relied on publications in scholarly journals, the specialized
media and daily newspapers, as well as on first hand information collected
by other scholars and myself on refugee situations in Europe, West Africa,
Southeast Asia, and South and Central America.
1.3.2. Time Period
The focus is on the years between the 1960s and the 1990s, for three primary
reasons:
1) In 1960, the General Assembly, pursuant to its earlier resolutions,
noted that governments and nongovernmental organizations were starting to
pay increasing attention to the problems of refugees not falling under the
immediate jurisdiction of the United Nations. 55 In the intervening period,
nongovernmental agencies have developed an important international
network, helping indigenous voluntary agencies and
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55 UN GA res. 1499(XI), 5 Dec. 1960: rpt. in Goodwin-Gill, "UNHCR's
? xpanding Mandate."