From Responsibility to Response: Assessing National - Brookings

CHAPTER 1 Assessing National Approaches to Internal Displacement: Findings from 15 Countries
the fifteen countries surveyed had laws or policies pertaining
specifically to internally displaced persons.
Benchmark 5 concerns the provision of a legal framework
for addressing the needs and upholding the rights
of IDPs. But experience suggests that in order to be effective,
such laws must be reinforced in policies and actions
(see Benchmark 6) and reflected in clearly defined
institutional responsibilities for addressing internal
displacement (see Benchmark 7).
Overview of research findings
Of the fifteen countries surveyed, five had a law on internal
displacement specifically or on an issue related to
internal displacement: Afghanistan, Colombia, Georgia,
Iraq and Turkey. Legislation may be quite comprehensive
in scope, as in the case of Colombia, covering all
phases of displacement including prevention and durable
solutions, or it may be narrow, addressing specific
rights of IDPs, as in Iraq, Turkey and Afghanistan.
Other countries lacked a national legislative framework
on IDPs but had generic legislation relevant to IDPs.
Still others had laws that violated or could violate the
rights of IDPs. Some African countries surveyed had
signed or ratified regional instruments that protect the
rights of IDPs and legally bind signatories to adopt national
legislation in line with the Guiding Principles on
Internal Displacement. The Central African Republic,
for example, is in the process of developing and amending
national legislation to that end.
The laws of Georgia and Colombia on internal displacement
pre-date the Guiding Principles on Internal
Displacement. As is the case with most national legislation
on internal displacement, the laws in both
countries define the term “IDP” more narrowly than
it is defined in the Guiding Principles by focusing on
conflict-induced IDPs and failing to address IDPs due
to other causes, such as disasters.
The Law of Georgia on Forcibly Displaced Persons
—Persecuted Persons (1996) provides a definition for
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“conflict-induced IDPs,” which is a recognized status
under national law, and spells out the rights of IDPs and
the responsibilities of the authorities to them. From 2000
to 2002, a comprehensive study carried out by local lawyers
with the support of the Brookings Project on Internal
Displacement examined not only the IDP law but also
more than 200 other legislative acts to assess the degree
to which Georgian legislation upheld the international
standards reflected in the Guiding Principles. 4 The study
found that while much of Georgian legislation was in
conformity with—and sometimes even offered a higher
degree of protection than—the Guiding Principles, there
also were a number of areas in which legislation could be
improved or clarified vis-à-vis the Guiding Principles; the
government subsequently adopted several of the study’s
recommendations. Other efforts to strengthen the national
legal framework for protecting the rights of IDPs
in Georgia include a ruling of the Constitutional Court
recognizing the rights of IDPs to purchase property without
losing their IDP status or in any way jeopardizing
their right to return, revisions to the Electoral Code and
the adoption of a property restitution law for IDPs from
South Ossetia. 5
Colombia’s law on internal displacement, Law 387 of
1997, takes a comprehensive approach to addressing
all phases of displacement: prevention of displacement;
protection and assistance during displacement; and
conditions for return. It also designates responsible institutional
and ministerial agencies. As mentioned, its
definition of “IDP” is narrower in scope than that of the
Guiding Principles, as it does not recognize IDPs displaced
by natural or man-made disasters, for instance.
Law 387 defines IDPs as “individuals who have forcibly
migrated because of internal armed conflict, civil
4 A similar study was also carried out by local lawyers in
Armenia and Azerbaijan. See Roberta Cohen, Walter
Kälin, and Erin Mooney, The Guiding Principles on Internal
Displacement and the Law of the South Caucasus: Georgia,
Armenia, and Azerbaijan (Brookings Institution and the
American Society of International Law, 2003) (www.asil.
org).
5 See further the Georgia case study in chapter 2 of this
volume.