Preventive Action for Refugee Producing Situations

140 Chapters
authorities, having first informed the Executive Committee of the UN
High Commisioner's Program in a specially convened meeting on July 24,
1974 about it, and obtained the concurrence of the Secretary-General.335
with official blessing, UNHCR opened a Regional Office in Vientiane,
Laos in October 1974 and a Branch Office in Hanoi in June 1975 to
implement its programs.
Why did the U.N. not get involved earlier? For one thing, no U.N.
body had a specific mandate to intervene in a country on behalf of internally
displaced nationals. Only the U.N. Secretary-General, on the basis
of Article 99 of the U.N. Charter, had the authority to launch a major relief
operation within a country's borders, as U Thant had done in 1971-72
during Bangladesh war of independence. In the case of Vietnam, the insurmountable
obstacle to U.N. action to contain the human suffering was
the absolute opposition of the major powers involved, particularly the
U.S., which would accept no interference in a conflict that it considered
central to its national interest.
But it cannot have been the original intent of the drafters of the U.N.
Charter and other pertinent instruments that situations harming millions of
people should be ignored by the United Nations simply because they take
place within a country, whereas less serious situations between two
countries come under their competence. In real life, human misery does
not stop at international borders or with the Convention-defined refugees.
Today, the plight of displaced persons, whether within or outside their
national territory, exceeds by far the number of persons recognized as refugees.
If the people are affected by power politics beyond their control,
and seem unable to enjoy minimal standards of treatment within their
country, then the United Nations should exercise its international moral
responsibility by providing at least humanitarian, and perhaps also economic,
assistance.
International humanitarian assistance might help to alleviate the conditions
that caused a number of people to flee or to be uprooted. The
Secretary-General's good offices might be usefully employed as a facesaving
device for reluctant governments by which the
lion Policies and Programmes: A World Survey, Department of International
Economic and Social Affairs, Population Studies, No. 80, (New York: United
Nations, 1982), p. 94.
335 The program included agricultural and small-scale industrial projects, support
for rural health facilities, and educational projects. See Kumin, p. 41
Analytical Discussion 141
United Nations, through the physical presence and activities of the
Secretary-General, could move into situations where other U.N. organs
would not be acceptable. 336
Even where international peace is not directly at stake, but simple human
suffering occurs on such a large scale that it becomes an issue of public
domain, the Secretary-General has the authority to intervene. Former
Secretary-General U Thant indicated that it might be
useful to add an Article 99(a) [to the U.N. Charter,] which would authorize the
Secretary-General to bring to the attention of the membership global threats to
human well-being other than those to peace and security.... I have, on my own
initiative and without any supporting resolution from any United Nations organ,
launched two relief operations which are concerned with millions of people.... to
fill the gap until more regular arrangements can be made. 337
The big powers now seem to be more inclined to accept a more active
United Nations role - implicitly yielding some concessions in their stance
on domestic jurisdiction - precisely because they seem to more willing to
explore paths to disengagement from their costly and complicated regional
conflicts. The 1988 peace efforts and actual agreements in Central America,
Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq, Angola, and the Western Sahara are indicators
of this hopeful trend. 338
Both superpowers seem to be reaching a point where they favor a political
agreement over military intervention. That is where multilateral
mediation and negotiation might then acquire new momentum in international
relations. Dialogues and negotiation would help millions of refugees
and displaced persons to take control of their future, by giving them
the free choice of either returning home or staying in their countries of
asylum. These international actions would not only address the conditions
that produce refugees, but also help bring about changes so that those who
are currently refugees can emerge from that condition.
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336 Bertram Ramcharan, The Humanitarian Good Offices in International Law:
Good Offices of the United Nations Secretary-General in the Field of Human
Rights (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1983), p. 54.
337 Ramcharan, The Humanitarian Good Offices in International Law, p. 52.
338 Stanley Hoffmann, "Lessons of a Peace Epidemic," The New York Times, 6
September 1988.