Preventive Action for Refugee Producing Situations

Abstract
This study, the outcome of more than 15 years in practical refugee work
worldwide and research at universities in Germany, France, Chile and the
United States of America, examines in the first part, initiatives and
actions with potentials to prevent refugee-producing situations, and in the
second part new approaches and policies for preventive action.
It provides a brief overview of three selected completed initiatives.
The results of these initiatives include the following relevant elements: In
the case of the UN Group of Governmental Experts on International
Cooperation to Avert new Flows of Refugees, that states recognized the
primacy of international obligations over national interest with respect to
policies and conditions that create refugees and proposed that the
Secretary-General use more fully his competence regarding refugeeproducing
situations. The Rapporteur on Human Rights and Mass
Exoduses through his report confirmed the link between human rights
violations and massive refugee flows and recommended humanitarian
observers, early warning and special representatives of the Secretary-
General for early action at the source of the problem. The initiative to
establish an Office of a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has
not yet come to fruition. In the context of the Conference on Security and
Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), however, the post of High Commissioner
for Minorities was decided at the summit meeting in 1992 in Helsinki.
In ongoing projects, the Refugee Policy Group has been providing
forward thinking useful for preventive action, including the
conceptualizing approaches to refugee early warning work. The Office for
Research and Collection of Information (ORCI), created in 1987 in the
UN Secretariat in New York, had been selected as an example, as it
established a communication link between UN policy makers at the
highest level and humanitarian endeavors in the field. Even though
services of this office, at the time of revising this book, were integrated
into other departments, the section discussing ORCI was not revised as
the restructurization is still in process. The Independent Commission for
Humanitarian Issues has brought a global perspective to the refugee
problem within the context of the New International Humanitarian Order.
Its report "Winning the Human Race", which summarizes the essence of
its work in three parts: The challenge, the victims and the hope, provides
advance thinking for years to come.
The analysis of refugee causes in Chapter 3, following a general
consideration of the subject, intends to illustrate in the selected examples,
which factors have contributed to turning people into refugees. It is
suggested that the Orderly Departure Programme was a safe alternative for
people who left Vietnam in this manner, as otherwise they might have fled
by boat risking their lives. At the 1979 Meeting on Vietnamese Refugees,
the Vietnamese authorities acknowledged some of their responsibility
for producing refugees, accepting to implement some improvements in the
treatment of their citizens so that they would not need to flee. But is was
only with the 1989 Meeting, after the completion of this study, that the
Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA) was established, which provided a
general framework for a screening procedure in the camps in South East
Asia, resettlement for recognized refugees and return to Vietnam for those
wishing to return and those not qualifying for refugee status. The example
of the Nicaraguan refugees in Honduras is intended to show, factors that
contributed to the refugee producing conditions, in which people were
trapped and used for political purposes. Political changes in the home
country and the CIREFCA process, which started at the International
Conference on Refugees in Central America, finally enabled all
Nicaraguan refugees to safely return home in the late eighties. The
Vietnam War, at times, for strategic purposes, produced 10.5 million
refugees and displaced persons during the period of 1965 to 1973. Efforts
have existed and are described, which intended to alleviate or prevent the
plight of these victims.
Part II discusses policy and legal considerations. Chapter 4 has been
entirely rewritten, both because of substantial changes in the international
political climate and progress towards realizations of the policy
propositions made. After the revival of the United Nations in the Post
Cold War time, its experience and perspective of conflict prevention are
examined, considering the UN's potential to contribute to solving old and
preventing new refugee producing situations through peacemaking,
peace-keeping and peace-building, conflict resolution and mediation. The
new Department for Humanitarian Affairs is discussed, which the
Secretary-General created in 1992. Here some of the functions of the
former Office for Research and Collection, such as refugee early
warning, are planned to be integrated. The Office of the UN High
Commissioner has made substantial progress in the implementation of
most of the policy proposals made. It has further developed its country of
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