Preventive Action for Refugee Producing Situations

44 Chapter 2
Humanitarian interventions with governments on behalf of refugees are no longer
enough, if made without reference to the political situations which gave rise to
their flight.61
Humanitarian objectives and the political will of governments to address
root causes of refugees must converge. In addition, countries must be
willing to examine their own behavior as well as monitoring that of others.
Fortunately recent foreign policy initiatives by Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev seem to reflect a more positive approach also to humanitarian
issues. Initiatives to facilitate the political management of regional conflicts
will be of substantial benefit to both the Soviet Union and the USA. Once
both superpowers accept this as a matter of their common interest, they will
recognize that "the UN is uniquely well situated to serve as their buffer and
go-between."62 Regional organizations will be in a better position to play
an active role in regional peacekeeping and tential peacemaking activities.
The Office of the Secretary-General can then play the role that governments
themselves wish him to play in facilitating such initiatives.
Before significant initiatives can be implemented with some
reasonable prospect of success, the limits of current institutional structures
and legal provisions need to be taken into account.
Traditionally, U.N. preventive international diplomacy and action has
been geared primarily toward situations affecting the peace and security
interests of member states, and only marginally to addressing specific refugee
producing situations. Starting in the early 1980s, committed advocates
in the U.N., and governmental and nongovernmental circles have been able
to focus their attention on the study of the link between human rights
violations and the production of refugee flows.
Scholarly studies on aspects of pre-refugee flow situations have revealed
a striking disparity between the international reaction to persons as refugees
outside their countries and the response to potential refugees still inside
their national boundaries.63 Legally and institutionally, not everybody "on
the move" for survival, safety, and the fulfillment of their
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61 Jean-Pierre Hocke, Beyond Humanitarianism: The Need for Political Will to Resolve
Today's Refugee Problem. Joyce Pearce Memorial Lecture, Oxford, United
Kingdom. Queen Elizabeth House, Refugee Studies Programme, 1986, p. 7.
62 Richardson, "Multilateral Cooperation: The Realistic Alternative," p. 3.
63 Gervais J. Coles, "Pre-Flow Aspects of the Refugee Phenomen." Background
pa- per prepared for the International Institute for Humanitarian Law, San
Remo, Italy, April 1982.
Empirical Examination 45
basic rights and needs is eligible for UNHCR's international protection.
Originally, only those qualified who were fleeing persecution as defined in
the 1951 Convention due to well-founded fear of being persecuted for
reasons of race, religion, nationality, or membership of a particular social
group or political opinion, being outside the country of nationality and
unable or, unwilling to avail of the protection of that country. Through the
precedent of actual practice, UNHCR mandate has been expanded to
include displaced persons in a "refugee-like" situation. 64 Although the legal
concept of what constitutes a refugee has been enlarged, the existing legal
provisions still do not include persons who leave their home for purely
economic reasons; persons fleeing natural disasters such as famine, drought
and floods (provided this is the only reason for their flight); and generally,
ordinary internally displaced persons.65
UNHCR's role was basically extended ad hoc, in response to increasingly
large-scale flows of people who have found themselves forced to cross
international borders. This extension of UNHCR's role is significant for two
reasons. First, it has legitimized the involvement of the U.N. in matters
taking place within a country's borders. Second, and more important for the
discussion that follows, it has established precedents for preventive
international action at the formative stage of a refugee flow, rather than to
take remedial measures until the mass exodus has taken place.
Despite UNHCR's progress, international response to refugee problems
has mostly been oriented toward the symptoms - refugees -rather than
toward the underlying causes that produce them. The various bodies in the
international machinery need to work out a coordinated plan of preventive
action. This comprehensive plan envisages
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64 Even for this category, "the institutional competence of UNHCR does not
seem to be in question. In 1980, for example, the Executive Committee noted
with concern the continuance of large-scale movements of uprooted
individuals and groups seeking refuge from man-made disasters, stressed the
necessity for co-ordination among UN bodies concerned with man-made
emergencies involving refugees and displaced persons in refugee-like
situations, and 'emphasized ... the leading responsibility of (UNHCR) in
emergency situations which involve refugees in the sense of its Statute or of
General Assembly resolution 1388 (XIV) and its subsequent resolution. ,
Report of the 31st session: UN doc. A/AC.96/588, paras. 29. A(c), 29. B(c) (e)
(0, cited in Goodwin-Gill, "UNHCR's Expanding Mandate," p. 12.
65 Joachim Henkel, "The International Protection of Refugees and Displaced
Persons: A Global Problem of Growing Complexity," U.S. Committee for
Refugees, December 1985, p. 2.