From Responsibility to Response: Assessing National - Brookings

Benchmark 1
Benchmark 1 Prevent Displacement and Minimize Its Adverse Effects
Prevent Displacement and Minimize
Its Adverse Effects
Do national authorities take measures
to prevent arbitrary displacement and
to minimize the adverse effects of any
unavoidable displacement?
Preventing the conditions that drive people into displacement
is central to the responsibility of states to
protect all persons residing within their territories. As
elaborated in Principles 5 to 9 of the Guiding Principles
on Internal Displacement, national authorities must
prevent and avoid conditions that might lead to displacement,
minimize unavoidable displacement, mitigate its
adverse effects, and ensure that any displacement that
does occur lasts no longer than required by the circumstances.
Further, Principles 10 to 13 reaffirm basic rights
and guarantees—the rights to life, integrity, dignity, and
security—which, if respected, would prevent many of
the conditions and threats that compel people to flee.
The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement,
which are reflected in the Framework for National
Responsibility, distinguish between arbitrary displacement
and other forms of displacement. 2 For example,
during armed conflict, involuntary transfer of civilian
populations within their own countries is prohibited
under international humanitarian law except when justified
by considerations of their own security or by imperative
military reasons. Where those justifications are
valid, evacuated persons must be permitted to return to
their places of origin as soon as hostilities in the area
have ceased. 3 Moreover, any such removals must be car-
2 See Walter Kälin, Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement:
Annotations, 2nd ed., Studies in Transnational
Legal Policy 38 (Washington, D.C.: American Society of
International Law and Brookings Institution, 2008) (www.
brookings.edu/reports/2008/spring_guiding_principles.
aspx).
3 Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 49; First Protocol
to the Geneva Conventions, Article 85(4)(a); Second
Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, Article 17. See also
Guiding Principles, Principle 6.2(b); See also First Protocol
21
ried out in conditions that are satisfactory with respect
to hygiene, health, nutrition, and accommodation. 4
During natural disasters, there may be cases in which
governments have a responsibility to relocate people in
order to protect them from the effects of natural hazards.
For example, in 2011, the government of Uganda
developed a five-year resettlement plan to relocate
10,000 people per year who were living in disaster-prone
mountainous regions. Many have already moved with
government assistance to temporary shelters alongside
hundreds of homes under construction in the western
province of Kiyriandongo. 5
As provided under Principle 7.3, national authorities
should take the following steps in cases of involuntary
displacement that are not related to emergency situations
during armed conflicts or disasters:
—Ensure that a specific decision authorizing
the displacement has been taken by a government
authority empowered by law to order
such measures;
—Inform those displaced of the reasons for
their displacement and procedures to be followed
as well as of arrangements for compensation
and relocation, where applicable;
—Seek the free and informed consent of those
to be displaced;
—Involve those affected, particularly women,
in the planning and management of their
relocation;
—Ensure that the competent legal authorities
carry out law enforcement measures where required
and;
to the Geneva Conventions, Article 87(1) and Second
Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, Article 4(3)(e) for
movement-related rights of children.
4 Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 49(3); Second
Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, Article 17(1).
5 IRIN, “Uganda: New Homes for 50,000 at Risk from
Disaster,” 11 April 2011 (www.irinnews.org/report.
aspx?reportid=92432).