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depicts areas in which the U.S. Government assesses there is an ongoing complex
humanitarian emergency.
Figure 23. Estimated Number of the World’s People in Need of Emergency Humanitarian Assistance,
1984-1997. source: Central Intelligence Agency.
International organizations are poorly equipped to handle the victims of these intrastate
problems. Their assistance, or intervention, causes the state to assert the prerogatives
of sovereignty, limiting the international organizations’ capacity to act under international
law (Loescher b: 141). Taken collectively, the rapid growth of complex humanitarian
emergencies has overwhelmed the international community’s capability to respond. 487
While refugee statistics are often a contentious political issue, there is a consensus that
the world’s refugee population grew rapidly following the end of the Cold War. According
to the UNHCR, the number of “persons of concern” to its organization almost doubled
during this period. 488
487 In commenting on the 17 operations the UN was involved in during mid-1994, UN Secretary-General
Boutros-Ghali noted the UN was at “system overload.” See Hans Binnendijk and Patrick Clawson, eds., Strategic
Assessment 1995: U.S. Security Challenges in Transition (Washington, DC: Institute for National Strategic
Studies, National Defense University, 1995), 164.
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