Refugees and forced displacement - United Nations University

REFUGEES, SECURITY, AND VULNERABILITY 5premised upon the idea of a fundamentally changed environment orunique modern conditions that have brought about qualitatively newpatterns of migration. We do not primarily seek to explain why, where,or how refugee flows or displacements occur; we rather address the nexusbetween security concerns and migratory flows in looking at how societiesdo and could deal with the consequences of migration. In doing so,we find that the legal, political/normative, institutional, and conceptualframeworks through which the international community addresses refugeeand displacement issues are inadequate in the context of contemporaryconflict and international relations.The starting point for this is based upon the following propositions:1. Refugees are in various contexts both a cause and a consequenceof conflict. As such, the management of refugee movements and theprotection of displaced people should be an integral – not peripheral –part of conflict settlement and peace-building within communities andan integral element of regional security. Human displacement itself isa major factor in national and international instability, requiring policyresponses that recognize this and a model of security that is broad andmultifaceted. Many conflicts have involved the displacement of populationgroups as a motive and weapon of conflict. Refugee flows anddisplacement are in turn central to ‘‘post-conflict’’ reconstruction andpeace-building. In Bosnia–Herzegovina, Georgia (Abkhazia), Angola,Rwanda, Congo, Palestine/Israel, and numerous other places in theworld, displaced populations have been the critical element in continuingconflict and instability, the obstruction of peace processes, andthe undermining of attempts at economic development. Refugee flowsare demonstrably a source of international – mainly regional – conflictthrough causing instability in neighbouring countries, triggering intervention,and sometimes providing a basis for warrior refugee communitieswithin camps that can form the source of insurgency, resistance,and terrorist movements.2. International legal instruments do not perfectly reflect the contemporaryreality of displacement or of protection and asylum needs. However,the tools of protection established in these legal instruments arenot as deficient as their application by contemporary governmentsleads one to believe. When the existing international refugee regimeswere established, the political images of refugees and asylum needs –and obligations – were quite different from those of today. The globalrefugee regime – based on the Convention Relating to the Statusof Refugees of 1951 and its 1967 Protocol, and the Office of the UNHigh Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) – was initially a temporaryarrangement established in a Cold War context that centred ona Western concern to assist people seeking refuge from communist