Conflict Management and Peace Science, 24:139157, 2007

C Peace Science Society (International)

Copyright 
ISSN: 0738-8942 print / 1549-9219 online
DOI: 10.1080/07388940701257549

The Myth of the Borderless World: Refugees and

Repatriation Policy
MONICA DUFFY TOFT
Associate Professor of Public Policy
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
This essay explores the impact of the end of the Cold War on the counter-refugee-crisis
policies of the United Nations and its strongest member states. I argue that during the
Cold War, state interests were subordinated to the refugee interests for two reasons. First,
refugees were few in number and tended to be educated, skilled, and informed (valuable).
Second, the WWII experience of the Holocaust in Europe led to the institutionalization
of concern for the fate of persecuted groups at the expense of state interests. After the
end of the Cold War, however, a number of the Soviet Unions allies and successor
states began to fail, and these state failures, combined with unprecedented access to
information about living conditions abroad, led to refugee flows that impacted powerful
states. Whereas the preferred counter-refugee crisis policy during the Cold War was
resettlement, after the Cold War it shifted to repatriation: voluntary repatriation in
the best cases, and forced repatriation in the worst. The essays primary focus is an
assessment of the consequences of this policy shift from resettlement to repatriation
of refugees. After introducing a number of important empirical findings regarding the
frequency and scale of contemporary refugee crises, I conclude that although in some
cases the policy of supporting voluntary repatriation is a good thing, it may have the
unintended consequence of involuntary or forced repatriations as receiving states feel
little compulsion to resettle these refugees within their borders.
Keywords Civil War, refugee, repatriation, resettlement, United Nations.

Introduction
This essay explores an important and as yet poorly understood empirical question: what are
the present and likely consequences of repatriation, the United Nations (UN)1 preferred
solution to refugee crises (Allen & Morsink, 1994)?2
The question is important for at least two reasons. First, as a counter-refugee-crisis
(CRC) policy, repatriation has gradually become the default policy of the interstate systems
Address correspondence to Monica Duffy Toft, Harvard University, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA 02138.
E-mail: monica toft@harvard.edu.
1

Henceforth the abbreviation UN will stand for the organization itself, as well as the interests
and resources of its most powerful members, namely, member states of the OECD.
2
The (former) United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogato declared 1992 as
the first year of a decade for voluntary repatriation and that the UNHCR was going to commit itself to
facilitating repatriation. Although repatriation had always constituted one of three possible solutions
(the other two being local integration and third-country resettlement), Ogato and others presented it
as the best, most durable solution at the time.

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M. D. Toft

most powerful members and of the UN (Loescher, 2001a and 2001b).3 Understanding the
full range of CRC policy options, and the reasons for the shift over time favoring repatriation,
is necessary in order to understand the broader political and other forces that limit those
options. Second, repatriation affects millions of lives, present and future, as well as longterm prospects for state, regional and international peace and stability. Yet without focused
research we cannot know under what conditions repatriation improves outcomes, such as
physical security, political liberalization, and economic reconstruction and development.
In fact, not only has the impact of the policy been poorly measured (Loescher, 1996,
2001a; Loescher et al., 2003; Newman & Van Selm, 2003; Barigaber, 1999; Bascom, 1994),
but the concept of repatriation itself has been undertheorized (exceptions include Zeager &
Bascom, 1986; Zeager, 1998; Barigaber, 1999; Harrell-Bond, 1989). Most scholars examine refugee returns on a case-by-case basis, and support the preference for repatriation as
the most desirable policy option without seeming to question it.4 Is there only one type of
repatriation or are there multiple types? Under what conditions are refugees most likely to
repatriate one way or another? What factors inhibit or contribute to each type of repatriation? When should alternatives to repatriation be pursued? While these questions are clearly
important in theoretical terms, this importance pales in comparison to their policy implications. For potential host countries, the question is important because refugeesespecially
in an age where concentrated masses of people can move quicklyimpose considerable
economic, social, and political costs (Weiner, 1995; Kane, 1995). In terms of human rights
concerns, the question is important because some types of repatriation facilitate persecution,
rape, imprisonment, or a return to civil war.5 Repatriation as a policy thus faces a triple
challenge: (1) protecting the rights and security of returning refugees as individuals; (2)
trying to insure that peace and stability in the state of origin is not undermined by the return
of refugees; and (3)by extensiontrying to limit the potential that a refugee crisis might
undermine regional stability (Gibney, 2004).
The relatively small proportion of scholarly attention devoted to repatriation is all the
more surprising given the waves of refugees that continue to spill over borders; from violence
in Congo-Kinsasha, Cote DIvoire, and Sudan, to name just a few on the African continent,
or those refugees who still live a precarious existence on the borders of neighboring states,
such as the 800,000 Palestinians in Syria and Lebanon. With repatriation as the central
policy, these refugees are stuck in a no-mans borderland: either their home countries remain
embroiled in war and violence (e.g., Congo and Sudan), they have no home country to return
to (e.g., the Palestinians), or the government in their country now sees them as an enemy
of the state (e.g., North Koreans) (Lischer, 2003).6 Furthermore, as a result of the terrorist
3
Although the question of the relative autonomy of the UN vis-`a-vis states is an important one it
is beyond the scope of this paper. Loescher argues that although states have historically constrained
the UNHCRs ability to act, it nevertheless did act autonomously in some instances.
4
There is recognition that much research is needed on repatriation and there has been an effort
to increase it, notably questions related to how refugees adapt once they are repatriated. An exception
is Stein, 1997. Nonetheless the literature remains sparse, especially in the general, more theoretical
sense. A recent volume that addresses repatriation devotes 11 of 13 chapters to historical cases, leaving
theory and overview chapters to only two (Black & Koser, 1999). Also see Allen and Morsink, 1989,
especially chapter 2; Loescher and Monahan, 1989, especially chapters 12 and 13; and Rogge and
Akol, 1989.
5
Refugees returning to reclaim homes in Bosnia-Herzegovina following the signing of the Dayton
Peace Accords in 1995 faced persecution, violence, and in some cases, death, especially in those areas
where they constituted a minority. In another example, in 1997, 126 Burundian refugees accused of
conducting armed activity in Tanzania were forcibly repatriated to Burundi in 1997; 124 of them were
shot by the Burundian army (Human Rights Watch, 1999, p. 10).
6
These examples coincide with Lischers (three categorical types of refugees: situational,
states-in-exile, and persecuted.

The Myth of the Borderless World

141

attacks of September 11, 2001 on the United States, the movement of peoples across borders
has become even more complicated as foreign governments fear that terrorists might be
among refugees seeking asylum (Juma & Kagwanja, 2003).
This essay advances two related arguments. I argue that the preference for repatriation
provides contrary evidence to the common claim that the worlds borders are becoming less
important. I make the case that the reluctance of states to accept refugees and resettle them
within their borders demonstrates just how resilient international borders remain. Second,
I show that after 15 years of voluntary organized repatriation as the default CRC policy,
an unintended consequence may be the promotion of involuntary repatriations. Unlike voluntary repatriations, involuntary repatriations not only harm refugees directly, but because
they destabilize governments and regions, they often lead to subsequent refugee crises, civil
and ethnic wars, and even interstate wars (UNHCR, 1995, chapter 1; Macrae, 1999; Barnett,
2001).7
The remainder of this essay is organized into three sections. The first section defines
key terms and introduces a brief history of CRC policy since the end of WWIIand especially since the end of the Cold War. I show that during the Cold War, the preferred policy
of states and the UN was resettlement; whereas since the end of the Cold War, around 1991,
the preferred policy has shifted to repatriation. The second section examines the policy
of repatriation in greater detail, highlighting its logic and its variations. Although the UN
has increasingly sought to resolve refugee crises by promoting and supporting both voluntary organized repatriation and preventive development policy,8 the relative proportions of
voluntary and involuntary repatriations have shifted toward involuntary repatriations. Furthermore, the number of internally displaced persons has increased dramatically. The third
section contains the essays conclusions. I suggest that repatriation efforts have actually
proven counterproductiveboth from the point of view of concern over the fate of refugees
as individuals, and from the point of view of concern over the fate of states more likely to
be embroiled in ethnic, civil, and interstate wars.

The Problem: Refugee Flows Then and Now

Refugees are first and foremost a political problem. As established in the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees a refugee is a person who:
[O]wing to well founded fear of being persecuted for reason of race, religion,
nationality membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside
the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling
to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who not having a nationality
and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such
events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.
There are several items to note about the definition of refugee. First is the reference to
country of originof his former habitual residenceand the notion of being outside
7

The Great Lakes region of Africa is just one example where the flood and flow of refugees
has seriously eroded domestic and interstate stability. The destabilizing effects of refugees were
also heralded when ethnic Albanians fled Kosovo to neighboring Macedonia. Tensions were high,
but violence and massive disruption were averted in this case, largely because of the presence of
American troops on the ground.
8
The UN has also shifted focus from the refugees and host countries to the country of origin.
This is an extremely important and far-reaching shift as it indicated that UNHCR and the UN will
be proactive in attempting to stop refugee flows through development (referred to as the aid to
development continuum) rather than reactive in dealing with them only once refugees cross borders.

M. D. Toft

142

of ones former country. The person first and foremost is identified with his home country.
Second is the notion of return and the ability or unwillingness to return to ones home
country. So, from the very start, a refugee was identified both as an individual in his
or her own right with a distinct race, religion or nationality, but also as a member of
a country from which he or she fled. The definition of who constitutes a refugee thus
presents a tension between a demand for the protection of individual rights, and the reality
of every individual being attached to a particular country, which may not protect him
or her.
This definition of refugee arose in an international context quite different from the
present (Marrus, 1985, p. 347371).9 The late 1940s marked the beginning of the Cold
War, a time when the industrialized states were being organized by the U.S. and U.S.S.R.
into two competing blocs. The war had left at least 2 million displaced persons (DPs)
within the European territories occupied by the United States, Britain, and France. Given the
popularity of communists in Germany, France, and Italy (just to name the most important)
as those who had formed the backbone of resistance to fascist occupation, and given the
widespread economic devastation of continental Europe during the war, the fate of these
DPs became an important security issue for the West. In point of fact, it was only in areas
deemed strategically vital to the growing East-West confrontation that the issue of DPsor
internally displaced refugeesobtained the attention and resources of the nascent UNHCR.
In India after 1947 and in China after 1949, massive refugee flows were left almost entirely
unaddressed (Keely, 2001).10
In Europe, the U.S.-led bloc claimed that the U.S.S.R. led a repressive system, which
virtually enslaved its people in the service of an all-out effort to achieve global domination.
The U.S.S.R.-led blocand after 1949, this included the Peoples Republic of China
claimed the U.S. led a repressive system in which poor people in its own country and in
the developing world were exploited to enrich a decadent and world-destructive bourgeois
class. Each side labeled as defectors any of its citizens seeking asylum in the others bloc,
while those arriving from the enemys bloc were welcomed as refugees.
The problem for the U.S.S.R.-led bloc was that the number of those successfully fleeing
the U.S.S.R. dwarfed those seeking asylum within the U.S.S.R.-led bloc. Figures reported by
the United States Committee for Refugees (USCR) for the period 19751983, for example,
reveals Western Europe and North America as resettlement countries, while the countries
of the former Soviet Bloc are listed as source countries. Although whole groupsethnic
and religious minorities, artists, prisoners of conscience, dissident intellectuals, homosexuals, and so onwere persecuted in the eastern bloc, its border controls and internal
security methods (including the widespread practice of using family members as hostages
against escape) guaranteed that only a trickle of refugees would succeed in escaping its
control.

The original definition of refugees was linked to a particular time and place, namely Europe
and those individuals who were refugees prior to 1951 (about 1.25 million). There were an estimated
15 million worldwide. The definition was amended in 1967 to end the time and space limitations in
delayed recognition that refugees were a global problem.
10
Paradoxically, once Europes DPs were settled (c. 1953) the attention of the UNHCR was
shifted almost permanently to so-called Third World refugee crises. One may easilyand perhaps
too cynicallyspeculate that this bias in the UNHCR reflected the biases of its key members on
the Security Council, who established the working principle that combatants in the Cold War would
be responsible for managing refugees within conflict zones (e.g., Indochina, Korea) or areas of key
strategic interest, while the remainder of cases could be referred to the UNHCR, which could be
trustedalbeit with far fewer real resourcesto manage Third World refugee crises on its own.

The Myth of the Borderless World

143

Refugees as Diamonds
During the Cold War these refugees were valuable to the U.S. and its allies in three ways.
First, the difficulties involved in escaping the authoritarian eastern bloc acted as a powerful selection bias: those escaping tended to represent the most enterprising, skilled, and
well-educated of the persecuted groups. Second, and partly as an artifact of their positions
within Soviet-bloc societies, these refugees often held valuable information about economic,
technological, and social conditions within the U.S.S.R.-led bloc. Third, to the U.S.-led side,
the stories of persecution and repression told by many of these refugees were of great value
in the propaganda war fought by both sides during this period. These stories buttressed
morale, confirmed suspicions, and stimulated an outpouring of resources intended to thwart
the political objectives of the U.S.S.R.-led bloc. In sum, from the start of the Cold War until
the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, most refugees escaping the U.S.S.R.-led bloc were
(1) relatively few in number, (2) relatively highly skilled and educated, and (3) valuable as
intelligence and propaganda resources.
Under such circumstances, it should perhaps not surprise us that the preferred policy
for handling such refugees was resettlement.11 In small numbers, such refugees would
not disrupt the local social balance, and most refugees would eventually be economically
self-supporting.
But as the Cold War was drawing to an end, this began to change. Starting in 1984, for
example, a rush of asylum seekers from Iran fled to Europe through Turkey. The alarm this
rush provoked (similar in kind to that provoked by the 1987 Mariel Boat Lift refugees
from Cuba) led to a significant tightening of the regime for permitting refugees to settle in
Europe, North America, and Australia.
With one important caveat,12 the collapse of the Soviet system would solidify this new
and more restrictive regime. The collapse of the Soviet system resulted in a carrot-and-stick
environment. On the stick side, the capacity of many of the U.S.S.R.s successor states to
control borders, wealth, information, and to regulate or provide basic and essential services
virtually collapsed overnight. On the carrot side, previously unavailable information about
living conditions beyond the former U.S.S.R.-led bloc had encouraged those most threatened
by collapse or persecution to leave. In addition, the costs and risks of transportation had
been dropping for some time; and in Europe in particularwith its dense and relatively
sophisticated network of railroadsthis made it possible for millions to take flight with
relative ease.
Refugees as Locusts
For the western bloc the successive shocks of the Mariel Boat Lift (mostly criminals Fidel
Castro released from jail and aimed at the United States as a kind of strategic weapon) and
the Iranian refugee flight through Turkey were enough to force a more restrictive attitude
toward inbound refugees, but the unanticipated collapse of the Soviet system and unexpected exodus of its former citizens threatened to prove a disaster. Already, in the weeks
11

Large masses of Irish, Italians, and other groups fleeing harsh political and economic conditions
in Europe had been welcomed in the U.S. in earlier times. However, two key conditions facilitating this
immigration policy have changed. In the 19th century, the U.S. was a country with an overabundance
of land. When the frontier closed at the turn of the century, liberal U.S. immigration policy ended.
Second, the economy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was still largely muscle-based: that is,
agriculture and industry could still make use of low-skilled workers. In the postwar economy and
especially since the end of the Cold War, the demand for low-skilled workers is lower. For a history
of the economics and the character of U.S. immigrants, see Borjas, 2001.
12
See Holocaust factor section below.

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M. D. Toft

prior to the physical collapse of the Berlin Wall in November of 1989, thousands of East
German refugees had taken to trains from East Germany through Hungary, and then into
the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). After the initial euphoria dwindled, it became
clear that reintegration of East German refugees into a unified Germany would be both
expensive and difficult. Although East Germans had been among the Soviet blocs most
highly skilled and well-educated populations, relative to West Germans their skills were
often antiquated or obsolete at best. The FRGs decision to absorb the East German Mark
on a one-to-one basis with the Deutschmark not only disrupted the FRGs economy, but all
of Europes as well. In the aftermath of such high expectations, the expense and discomfort of unification left Germans with major disruptions, especially in the economic sphere
(Cusack, 1999).
But German unification proved only to be the first, and best, of a series of refugee
crises which would soon engulf Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The end of the
Cold War had magnified every variable of the refugee equation (Keely, 2001; Loescher,
2001a, 2001b, 2003). Instead of trickles of skilled, educated, and enterprising refugees,
OECD countries would soon be bracing to receive floods of peoples of all ages, skills, and
backgrounds. Criminals, the infirm, the mentally ill, drug addicts, and fanatics of all stripes
would join with the masses of normal refugees seeking asylum in the West, where they
would be greeted with as much enthusiasm as a plague of locusts.13 Former Yugoslavias
breakdown led to massive refugee flights, with 1.8 million refugees fleeing across borders,
two thirds of whom sought refugee within the borders of former republics of Yugoslavia,
while the rest fled mainly to western Europe (USCR, 1993, p. 50).
In this changed international context it should not surprise us that the preferred policy for
handling refugees has become repatriation (Keely, 2001). In large numbers, immigrants
especially those not speaking the languages of a host countrywould undermine local
social equilibria, leading to tension at best, and violence at worst. Moreover, where relatively
unskilled workers flood into European welfare states, they may quickly overwhelm local
services, and in some cases threaten to undermine the economy. Thus the threat posed
by refugees can be (and generally is) construed along two parallel axes: (1) a socio-cultural
axis in which the questions of culture, race, language, and assimilation all leap to the fore;
and (2) an economic axis, where incoming refugees are imagined (sometimes justifiably
so) to strain a host countrys social services capacity, as well as to take over jobs that might
otherwise have been available to lower-skilled locals at a higher wage.
The refugees from the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina served as a test case. Their repatriation was codified in the Dayton Peace accords, and was expected to be done quickly.
As Elizabeth Andersen explained, In reviewing provisions of the Dayton Agreement
relating to repatriation, one is struck by the recurrent assertion that repatriation must occur
swiftly.14
This may explain why, when we identify the top 20 donor countries to refugee agencies,
we find that developed countries contributed most of the aid and most are European, with
Luxembourg, Sweden, and Denmark consistently giving the most per capita.15 This was
the case throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. What changed in the 1990s, however,
13
Important U.S. examples of refugees as locusts include the Cuban boat lift of 1987, and
the Haitian crisis of 1994. The ongoing problem and tension over illegal immigration in California
(e.g., Proposition 203) Texas, Arizona, and Florida only serve to underline the negative impact states
anticipate from refugees, political or economic.
14
Andersen, section IV.
15
USCR lists the top 20 donor countries each year to three international agencies that handle
refugees: United Nations Commission for Refugees, International Organization for Migration and
Concern, and United Nations Relief and Works Act (dedicated to the Palestinians in the Middle East).

The Myth of the Borderless World

145

was the proportion of European refugees; whereas refugees in Europe constituted 1% to

6% of all refugees from 19811991, by 1992 they were about 20%. We also witnessed a
precipitous increase in world aid: from 1992 to 1993 aid from the top 20 donors grew 27%,
from $982 million to $1246 million; and U.S. aid per capita grew by 40%, from $1.24 to
$1.74 (USCR 1993, 1994, Table 8).16
The implications are obvious. When refugee flows impacted the powerful states in
the international system, they responded with aid and with policies to help deal with the
increasing flows.
The Holocaust Factor
If in the eyes of the U.S. and its allies during the cold war, refugees have gone from being
scarce and valuable diamonds to being a virtual plague of locusts, then why should
these states accept refugees at all? Part of the answer lies in the particular problem of the
persecution of Jews in Germany, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union from 1933
to 1945. Nazi Germanys attempt to kill all Jews (and Gypsies and some Slavs) within its
sphere of control left an indelible impression after its horrors came to be widely known.
Most particularly painful was the necessity of acknowledging partial responsibility for the
fate of the estimated 6 million Jews murdered during the war. Many times during the war,
groups of Jewish refugeesmost small, some largerescaped the fate of their fellows, only
to be turned back at European borders or to be prevented from docking at European and
U.S. ports. In the U.S.-led bloc, guilt over partial collaboration in the Holocaust stimulated
a concerted effortin policy, in institutions, and above all in international lawto make a
repeat of such a genocide impossible (Power, 2003).
The end result was a Westand Germany in particularwhose penance took the form
of liberal asylum laws (Gibney, 2004, chapter 3). These laws never became a serious issue
during the Cold War. Since reunification, however, German legislators have repeatedly
raised the issue of Germanys too-liberal asylum policies, especially during the Balkans
crises of 1992 and 1999 (Andersen, 1996). Nevertheless, Germany has retained liberal
asylum and refugees policies. In 1992 for example, Germany accepted the largest number
of refugees from former Yugoslavia, some 220,000 (Sweden was next, accepting 74,000
refugees) (USCR, 1993, Table 1).
The Failing State
When states cannot regulate the physical security of a majority of their citizens, they may
be said to have failed (Rotberg, 2003a, chapter 1; 2003b; Fukuyama, chapters 1 and 2).
What states are, their functions, and the proper limits on these functions are perennially the
subject of debate and controversy, but most students of state theory agree that at a minimum,
states are charged with the physical security of their citizens within their territory (Tilly,
1975, 1985).17 This definition of state failure is a good starting point, but it can be only
that since even the strongest states in reality never exist in a condition of absolute stability.
It would be better if we thought of failed states as failing states: that is, territories in
which groups of actors seekat a minimumto establish or reestablish control over the
physical security of a significant portion of a territorys population. This is what happens
16

The average U.S. aid per capita from 1981 to 1997 was $1.18.
This definition is thus the flip-side of Webers famous declaration that the state is the organization with a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. When that monopoly is not achieved or
is contested, we get a condition of failure, which can only be said to end when such a monopoly is
established or reestablished.
17

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146

TABLE 1 Countries producing more than 100,000 refugees as of

December 31, 2003
Country of Origin Number of Refugees
Israel/Palestine
Afghanistan
Sudan
Myanmar
Congo-Kinshasa
Liberia
Burundi
Angola
Vietnam
Iraq
Eritrea
Somalia
Colombia
Croatia
Western Sahara
China
Bosnia
Bhutan
Sri Lanka
North Korea

3,000,000
2,500,000
600,000
586,000
440,000
384,000
355,000
323,000
307,200
280,600
280,000
277,000
233,600
209,100
190,000
157,500
142,200
128,700
105,700
101,700

Cause of Flight
Civil war/Interstate war (IS)
Civil war
Civil war
Civil war
Civil war/IS
Civil war
Civil war
Civil war
Civil war
Civil war/IS
Civil war
Civil war
Civil war
Civil war
Civil war
Civil war
Civil war
Persecution
Civil war
Persecution

Source: World Refugee Survey 2004, USCR.

in revolutions, rebellions, ethnic conflicts, and especially civil wars (Weiner, 1996). As
noted above, most of the millions of refugees since 1981 have taken flight not as a result of
systematic state persecution, but as a consequence of state failure, manifested most often by
civil war. In 2003, for example, 20 countries were responsible for producing 100,000 or more
refugees. Civil wars precipitated 16, or 80%, of these large-scale refugee flows, as shown
in Table 1.
Failing states present yet another problem. Although in many cases we can identify
state failure as the proximate cause of a refugee flow, in other cases, a failing state may lack
the ability to reabsorb refugees even in situations where it is willing to have them return. In
the case of the Rwandan refugees who fled after the 1994 genocide, for example, there were
concerns about Rwandas capacity to repatriate the 2 million Hutu refugees. This was due
to the fact that hundreds of thousands of Tutsi from the diaspora had repatriated, leading
to a similar land per capita distribution before the genocide, and was compounded by fears
that the justifications and mechanisms of the genocide had been recreated in the camps and
would be transported back to Rwanda (Pottier, 1996).
In sum, the interstate political, economic, and social context of refugee crises has
changed. Refugees, once few and valuable, came to be considered a scourge. The causes
of refugee flight are complex and vary from region to region, but in general we see a clear
shift from flight caused by systematic state persecution to flight as a consequence of failing
states. As we will see in the next section, these shifts in causes imply shifts in consequences,
as well as a need to carefully evaluate or reevaluate CRC policy.

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147

The Policy: Repatriation

There is no question that repatriation has become the policy of choice for the UN and many
of the great powers who are its members. In 1992, for example, UNHCR declared the 1990s
to be the decade of repatriation, and that the UNHCR should pursue every opportunity
to make voluntary repatriation happen (Allen & Morsink, 1994). But should it have been?
What were the expected and actual consequences of this shift from case-by-case to general
CRC policy?18
Repatriation as Default Policy
Repatriation means the return of refugees to their country of origin. But in order to be
useful both in theoretical and policy terms, repatriation must be qualified. In fact, there are
two different ways to think about repatriation: (1) whether the repatriation is voluntary or
involuntary (forced); and (2) whether it is organized or spontaneous. Taken together these
two axes enable us to form four types of repatriation.
The question of voluntariness is an important one. Legally, a refugee may not be
returned to a situation of either (a) likely persecution or reprisal (deliberate physical harm),
or (b) unsafe conditions (existential harm: such as a lack of food, water, and shelter).19 Thus
in situations where either or both conditions hold, the repatriation of refugees is likely to
be both forced and illegal.20
That said, the first of the four ideal-type variations of repatriation is voluntary spontaneous, and an example was the return of Crimean Tatars from exile in Siberia and Kazakhstan
to the Crimea. Voluntary organized repatriation is the second type of repatriation, and the
repatriation of Kosovar Albanians to Kosovo in 1999 serves as a good example of this type
of repatriation. UNHCR is involved in facilitating these types of repatriations, which are
far less common than the first. According to one estimate, voluntary spontaneous repatriations are estimated to be ten times greater than those organized by UNHCR (Rogge, 1994).
Most refugees simply pack up and move back to their country of origin. The third type of
repatriation is involuntary organized, and an example of this occurred in Tanzania in 1997
when Burundians were rounded-up by the Tanzanian army and given the choice to return
to their country or relocate into refugee camps (Human Rights Watch, 1999; International
Crisis Group, 1999). Such repatriations are prohibited in international law under Article
33 of the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which details the prohibition
of expulsion or return.21 Nonetheless, such repatriations do occur and can be justified if
the host country views the refugees as a danger to the security of the country. This is what
Tanzania claimed in the case of the Burundian refugees.22 A final type of repatriation is in18
There are four types of UNHCR assistance: emergency relief operations, long-term assistance and maintenance, local settlement, and repatriation and reintegration operations. This paper is
concerned largely with the fourth (UNHCR, 1995, p. 257).
19
Ugandan refugees in Sudan and Zaire in the late 1980s faced such a difficult situation in terms
of food and medicine when aid was cut off to the camps that many refugees thought they would be
better off in Uganda. Volunteering to repatriate was focused on the negative condition of the host
country rather than some positive inducement to return home (Crisp, 1986).
20
One can imagine situationsrarein which simple ignorance of conditions leads a wellmeaning third party or an individual refugee to voluntarily seek repatriation into conditions which
were objectively unsafe on either dimension.
21
No contracting state shall expel or return (refouler) a refugee in any manner whatsoever
to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race,
religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.
22
However, Tanzania failed to give the refugees due process, which is guaranteed under Article
32.

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M. D. Toft

voluntary spontaneous repatriation, and the flight of ethnic Germans from the Soviet Union
and eastern Europe into West Germany between 1945 and 1948 serves as an example. For
our purposes here, we will concern ourselves primarily with the voluntary/involuntary axis
of repatriation policy.
As noted above, the UNs preferred CRC policy is organized voluntary repatriation.
This implies that (1) refugees wish to return to their country of origin, and that (2) a third
partythe UN or an interested third statewill undertake to facilitate this return by either
paying the costs of physical return of refugees, or by pressuring or providing incentives
to the country of origin to accept its refugees. The problems presented to this interested
third party vary a great deal. For example, it matters whether the country of origin is itself
a strong state, or a weak or failing state. If a strong state, such as the Russian Federation,
the UN may not be able to bring enough pressure to bear, or to come up with sufficient
incentives, to force enough change in the country of origin to actualize the refugees wish
to return home.
If the country of origin is a weak or failing state, this leads to an entirely different
set of considerations. Assuming that coercion works, and refugees voluntarily decide to
return, how will these positive conditions be maintained, and by whom? If coercion was
the policy, how long will foreign troops be necessary to ensure stable conditions in the
country of origin? If incentives or economic development aid was the policy, how much
money will be needed for how long, and how can the donor states be sure such funds will be
used appropriately? Finally, there may be instances in which the UN might feel compelled
to close a camp and thereby force the refugees to repatriate. This occurs when the camp
becomes a hotbed of militant activity that threatens to undermine the security the camp
is supposed to provide. The decision to close the camp comes down to the calculation of
whether keeping the camp open does more harm than good. In such cases saving lives
trumps the voluntariness of repatriation, since the costsa physical threat to the lives of
refugeesis the same in both cases (Weiner, 1998). Under such conditions it is understandable for the forced repatriation to occur. However, it begs the questions of how likely or
how often militants gain control over refugee camps. Current research leaves this question
unanswered.23
Finally, what is a third party such as the UNHCR to do when refugees have been set
to flight by a natural disaster, especially one with long-term implications for existential
conditions in the country of origin? Most of the literature on CRC focuses on the subset
of causes of refugee flight that are man-made, or at least man-exacerbated (such as those
brought about by deliberate policy, such as deforestation, overuse of limited water resources,
pollution, and so on). The idea being that in theory, there always exists some combination of
negative and positive incentives that can work to alter conditionsrelatively quicklyso
as to render them safe for refugee return. But what if conditions that led to the flight (say a
drought) cannot be altered within a short time frame or ever? Here it seems that resettlement
must again be given serious consideration.
Repatriation as Theory
Insofar as repatriation has an underlying theory, it is that refugees have a home country and
that they are burden to host statespossibly even a new type of offensive strategic weapon
of war (Greenhill, 2004; Stedman & Tanner, 2003). The sudden influx of large numbers of
frightened foreigners often imposes severe short- and long-term costs on host countries; and
23
Lischer has done some of the most comprehensive work on the subject, but she does not provide
a sense of the general distribution of the characteristics of camps.

The Myth of the Borderless World

149

as noted above, those costs move along both socio-cultural and an economic axes. In several
recent cases, refugees have overwhelmed a host states capacity to provide the most basic
of services: potable water, sanitation, first aid, shelter, food, and even physical security.
In Congo, for example, Hutu refugees from Rwanda disrupted economic activity, stripped
forests bare, and sparked a civil and interstate war. In other cases, refugee crises stimulate
intervention and support by well-meaning international organizations that bring their own
personnel with them. In some Islamic states, the presence of foreigners is anathema, and
a governments decision to allow foreigners in, even temporarily, may destabilize that
government or provoke a civil war. In authoritarian states the presence of foreigners is
unwelcome for other reasonssuch as the critical need to control the local populations
access to information about the outside world.
There are three important features of contemporary repatriation policy to note here.
First, a host states response to an influx of refugees may be mediated by its historical
association with the Jewish Holocaust. The essence of state policy prior to WWII was that
it benefit the statestates being assumed to be the best guarantors of individual well-being
or at least security. The Holocaust changed this. In international law and in human rights
discourse alike, a vital consequence of the Holocaust was to institutionalize a concern with
individuals or persecuted groups at the expense of states (Draper, 1979).24 What the end
of the cold war has done is dramatically increase the costs and risks to states of this newly
institutionalized concern with individuals, in this case, with refugees. In areas of the world
where there is no link between the states history and the Holocaust, we can therefore expect
host states to be hostile to any sudden influx of needy, fearful, unskilled foreigners.25 This
hostility may take the form of attempts to interdict the influx, direct physical threats against
refugees, or direct military threats against the country of origin.
Second, voluntary repatriation can be both moral and relatively inexpensive when the
potential host state has the capacity to influence the country of origin (either by economic or
military means). The repatriation of refugees from India to Bangladesh in 1971 is considered
to be one of the most significant in modern times, and is illustrative in this regard. With the
outbreak of violence in East Bangladesh some 10 million refugees crossed the border into
India. India viewed this massive flow as a deliberate attempt by the Pakistani government
to reduce its Hindu population in East Pakistan. India intervened militarily and essentially
partitioned Pakistan. Once a new stateBangladeshwas created, India then facilitated
the repatriation of 10 million refugees in 2.5 months. This repatriation was hailed as a
success, and was made possible by six key conditions: (1) a short distances of flight; (2) a
short duration of exile; (3) no serious disruption to the economic infrastructure and social
networks in Bangladesh; (4) anticipation among the parties that return was to take place
relatively soon after the initial flight; (5) the creation of a polity that would protect the
interests of the returning refugees; and (6) Pakistan was too weak militarily (as compared
with India) to reestablish the conditions which led to the refugee crisis in the first place.
India, powerful and proximate, made it clear that any attempt by Pakistan to [re]initiate
pogroms would provoke a swift military retaliation.26
24
Draper shows how the Holocaust led to the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions
by the mid-1970s and how, by creating special exemptions for national liberation movements from
physical coercion, the Protocols significantly weakened the prohibition against external intervention
into another states sovereign affairs by external actors.
25
This is hardly to suggest that states touched by the Holocaust will welcome refugees with
open arms. Rather, we should expect grudging acceptance of asylum-seekers until such time as the
conditions that led to flight can be remedied. Alternately, host countries may facilitate the resettlement
refugees in a third country by means of economic bribery or coercion.
26
This is not to say that Indias policy has been cost free. Pakistans bitterness over Indias actions
in Bangladesh, for example, colors every aspect of its current relationship.

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M. D. Toft

Third, and related to the second, the fact that voluntary repatriation has become the
UNs preferred policy might be interpreted as sanctioning states to repatriate refugees
involuntarily. Because repatriation is held up as the policy solution, host countries might
disregard the idea that it is supposed to be a voluntary repatriation by stressing only the
positive idea of repatriation. B.S. Chimni, a leading expert on refugees and the UNHCR,
goes so far as to say that Europes under-funding and quick repatriation of refugees from
the wars in Yugoslavia undermined its moral authority on the repatriation front (Chimni,
1999). How could they critique other states when it was clear that they did not want refugees
passing across their borders, much less settling within them? According to Chimni, Involuntary repatriation may thus be described as the favoured solution of the Northern states
in the era of globalization which is marked by the end of the Cold War and a growing
North-South divide (Chimni, 1999, p. 17).
A common view today is that with globalization borders will soon become fixtures of
the past. Susan Strange provides one of the strongest views on this point, making the case
that states themselves were hollowing out as more and more of their functions were being
subsumed by nonstate entities, including multinational corporations. In such a view, markets,
which know no bounds, become the masters of governments (Strange, 1997). In a similar
vein, British Prime Minister Tony Blair proclaimed, You have no choice, this is inevitable
. . . These forces of change driving the future dont stop at national boundaries, dont respect
tradition. They wait for no one and no nation. They are universal (Bunting, 1995).
Yet, refugees and repatriation seem to bely Stranges argument and Blairs proclamation. If borders were so insignificant, why is it that states with refugees are so fixated on
returning them to their home country and why is it that the number of internally displaced
persons remains at such high levels. In other words, it does not seem as if people can move as
freely as currencies or digitized information. Repatriation remains a central policy because
states still care about their borders and who is to live in them (Taft, 2003). The existence of
refugees is demonstration of the power of politics in the international system and the limits
of economic globalization (Troeller, 2003). Host or receiving states face powerful incentives to repatriate refugees, evidence that suggests that the porosity of borders is a myth.
Powerful, weak, rich, and poor states alike seek to control their borders and the people who
pass across them.
Refugees after the Decade of Repatriation
So far this essay has introduced and discussed repatriation history, policy and theory. But
what have been the actual consequences of UN CRC policies since 1991? While it will not
be possible in so short a space to conclusively link cause and effect in a general theory,
something can be said about the current state of refugees worldwide, and the consequences
of a decade of well-intentioned repatriation efforts.
Two empirical trends stand out. First, the total number of refugees has not significantly
declined since 1990. Second, although the total number of civil warswhich, as observed
above, are both causes and consequences of refugee criseshas declined steadily in recent
years, the number of refugees fleeing civil wars has actually increased.
A Successful or Failing Policy?
It is tempting to argue that since worldwide refugee flows have not substantially declined,
but in many ways have worsened, the decade of repatriation should be declared a decade
of policy failure. However, until we undertake further research, we cannot assess the policys impact. It may have in fact been successful, and in its absence the total number of

The Myth of the Borderless World

151

20
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
1981

1983

1985

1987

1989

1991

1993

1995

1997

1999

2001

2003

FIGURE 1 Refugees world-wide, 19812003, millions27 .

refugeesand the toll of atrocities committed against themmight have risen even higher.
However, the situation is far from good.
As of 2003, the number of refugees hovered about 12 million. This means that approximately 1 of 532 people worldwide is a refugee.28 Between 19811998, the number
of refugees steadily ebbed and flowed between a low of 8 million in 1983 to a high of
18 million in 1992. As the chart below indicates however, for the last couple of years the
number of refugees has remained high and there does not seem to be an end to the flight.
In fact, 1999 saw an increase in the rise of refugees as well as a massive increase in the
rise of internally displaced people, up 25% more than the previous year to 21 million, and
as of 2003 stood at 23.6 million.29 Perhaps not surprisingly, the largest displacement of
populations occurred in areas torn by civil and ethnic war: Angola, Congo, Sudan, and
Colombia.
Figure 1 reveals that the average number of refugees for the 23-year period hovered
around 13.5 million. The 1990s saw large increases in the number of refugees, from a high
of 17.6 million in 1992, to a low of 11.9 in 2003.
27
Data obtained from USCRs annual World Refugee Survey, 1980 to 2004. There are two main
sources for refugee statistics: the UNHCR and the USCR. The USCRs numbers are used here because
the USCR includes the Palestinians in their figures (they fall outside of UNHCRs mandate and under
the mandate of the UNRWA) and the exclusion of refugees who settled in more developed countries
(e.g., the US, Canada and western Europe) and are thus presumably no longer in need of protection
or assistance. For a discussion of the politics of numbers see Crisp, 1999.
28
Based on an estimated world population of 6.379 billion. (www.cia.gov/cia/publications/ factbook/geos/xx.html)
29
Internally displaced persons (IDPs) are not considered refugees simply because they have
not crossed internationally recognized borders, and as a consequence are not recognized under
international law. In response to the increasing number of IDPs and other peoples in need who
have not crossed borders, the UNHCR created the category persons of concern. For a framework
for formally integrating IDPs within UNHCRs mandate see Adelman, 2001 and United Nations,
1999.

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M. D. Toft

FIGURE 2 Ratio of refugees per number of civil wars, 19811997, thousands.

Civil wars are creating proportionately greater refugee flows now than at any time since
1981,30 from a low of 252,000 in 1983 to a high of 678,000 in 1997, revealing that more
and more refugees are fleeing per civil war. This is revealed in Figure 2.
So although the number of civil wars ongoing or newly begun has been declining
peaking in 1991 and 1992 at 34 and declining to 20 in 1997the ratio of refugees continues
to increase.31 There are any number of reasons why this might be so. The lethality of civil
wars may be declining, or it may be that refugee flows have become a new kind of strategic
weapon: deliberately provoked and aimed at neighboring states in order to damage or
destabilize them (Greenhill, 2004; Stedman & Tanner, 2003). Alternatively, the increased
numbers may paradoxically indicate a greater acceptance of international laws protecting
the lives of noncombatants: governments and rebels may no longer be willing to risk trial
as mass murderers, preferring instead to engineer the mass exodus of troublesome, costly,
or otherwise unwanted groups.
In sum, since 1991, few of the worlds refugees have been resettled. The fate of many
of these refugees has in fact been similar to the fate of Burundians in Tanzania. In the early
1990s, waves of refugees poured over the borders of Tanzania as a result of wars raging in
Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Rwanda. Although Tanzania was regarded
as one of the more welcoming host countriesupwards of 500,000 in 1994the influx
of refugees took its toll, resulting in growing hostility and resentment towards refugees
in Tanzania. Citing security concerns as the primary motivation, in 1996, the Tanzanian
government ordered the army to round up 500,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees and force them
to cross the border back to Rwanda. Among the refugees were militants who had participated
in the 1994 genocide, and were using the camps for terrorizing the refugee population to
30
This figure was calculated by dividing the total number of refugees by the number of civil wars
that were ongoing or begun in a given year. The number of civil wars is based on data compiled by
the author and is available on request.
31
As does the number of internally displaced persons as referenced above.

The Myth of the Borderless World

153

prevent voluntary repatriation and for sanctuary while launching military incursions into
Rwanda. Tanzania did not discriminate and with the help of the army repatriated a halfmillion Rwandans.
Even the United States, which is the leading country in resettling refugees, has been
known to repatriate refugees forcibly. In 2004, the U.S. repatriated 1,600 Cubans and 2,000
Haitians. In defending the return of the Haitians, President George Bush declared, We
will turn back any refugee that attempts to reach our shore(World Refugee Survey 2004,
Table 10). The Haitians were repatriated involuntarily.
Although resettlement offers an alternative to forced repatriation, it suffers from two
problems. First, the ability of states to absorb large number of refugees is limited. Most
states that are on the receiving end of refugees do not have the resources to welcome more
than a relative handful of refugees each year. Again, even the United States, one of the
wealthiest states and most responsible taking in refugees, is having a hard time coming
to grips with resettling refugees. The cost of resettling a refugee in the United States
cost $3,500 per refugee and this cost was up from $2,200 in 2002, or a 60% increase.
According to Assistant Secretary of State for Refugees Arthur Dewey, cost alone could
be an obstacle in the number of refugees welcomed in the United States (Porter, 2004).
Aside from cost, a second problem is that many states do not want to offer permanent
status for fear of undermining the political, social and economic order within their country.
People in receiving countries fear that opening up their borders to foreigners will threaten
their countrys national identity (Waever et al., 1993). Given this, resettlement as a durable
solution is available to only a small proportion of refugees, or five percent of all refugees, and
according to the World Refugee Survey, the trend is not promising; it is moving downward
(World Refugee Survey. 2004, 11).32

Conclusions
In this essay I have argued that the international context of refugee crisis has fundamentally
altered both the general causes, and general responses to refugee crises. During the Cold
War, refugees were few and valuable, and powerful industrial states in western Europe
tended to accept and resettle these refugees. Guilt over involuntary collaboration in the
Holocaust, along with its horrifying causes and consequences, led these states and the UN,
which came to represent their interests, to institutionalize a concern with the well-being of
individuals at the expense of the well-being of states. Again, during this period the costs
and risks of such a legal-moral sea change were negligible.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the disintegration of its network of alliances,
however, all this changed. The once trickle of well educated refugees became a flood of
poor, hungry, sick, and desperate peoples. The diamonds refugees had been became a
plague of locusts, and as states sought ways to either pre-empt or mitigate these refugee
flows, they settled more and more on a standard policy response: repatriation.
Rather than a single policy, however, upon closer examination repatriation has proven
to be a complex bundle of policies with a single theoretical underpinning. In this essay
I identified four variations of repatriationvoluntary organized, voluntary spontaneous,
involuntary organized, and involuntary spontaneousand provided brief examples of each.
I then highlighted the theory linking these policy variations: refugees are costly to host
32
Since 1999, the European Union has been attempting to harmonize its asylum laws and practices. Although promising, fears exist, including among UNHCR Ruud Lubbers, that this new system
may result in a even more closed and exclusive system that allows fewer refugees to gain asylum and
resettlement (cf. UNHCR Press Release, 2005). I thank the anonymous reviewer for raising this point.

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M. D. Toft

states and therefore must be returned to their country of origin, unmolested if possible, but
by force if necessary. I identified the UNs preferred CRC policy as voluntary organized
repatriation, and then traced the impact of this policy on global refugee trends since 1981,
and especially since the end of the Cold War.
The results of over a decade of efforts to repatriate refugees have not been encouraging.
The total number of refugees remains high and the number of internally displaced peoples is
increasing at a tremendous rate. Moreover, although civil wars appear to cause the majority
of refugee crisis, and these have been declining of late, the absolute number of refugees per
civil war continues to rise: civil wars are causing more and more intense refugee flows.
For the most part, in other words, current refugees are unlikely to become citizens of a
host country. Although they might receive shelter, aid, and fair treatment, they nonetheless
remain in limbo until they decide for themselves to repatriate or the host country, as Tanzania
in the example above, decides for them. In this case the refugees were herded together and
moved out like a bunch of cattle. This is not the UN vision of how repatriation should
proceed. In fact, international refugee law prohibits forced return when there is risk to life
or freedom.
But legal or not, involuntary repatriations are more common than might be thought,
and they appear to be on the rise. According to one estimate based on USCR data, the
ratio of involuntary to voluntary returns continues to rise, from 4% in 1992, 7% in 1994,
to 40% in 1996 (Preston, 1999, p. 19). This is not to say that involuntary repatriations are
the norm.33 However, it is to suggest that involuntary or forced repatriations may becoming
more acceptable and that one reason might be that the UNHCR and the strong states have
stressed repatriation generally as the solution to refugees.
What positive policy options, then, are there?
There are three CRC policies that would both safeguard refugees and provide a solid
foundation for state, regional, and interstate stability. The first follows the wisdom of the
old saying an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The UN and its more wealthy
and powerful member states could most likely stop mass refugee flows before they start
by identifying states that are likely to produce them and then interveningeconomically,
diplomatically, and militarily if necessary, to prevent such tragedies from occurring. This
policy option demands both administrative and intelligence capabilities as well as a willingness to take risks to ensure that refugee flowssuch as that deliberately provoked by
Slobodan Milosevics Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999do not
happen. As costly as the option of preemptive counter-refugee intervention seems (costly
not only in terms of outlays but in terms of again diminishing the sanctity of strict state
sovereignty as a bedrock principle of international law), clearly this analysis as well as other
research on the short and long-term costs of mass refugee crises have shown that the costs
of allowing such flows to happen are far greater.
A second option would be to chart a middle ground between accepting locust refugees
and the attendant economic and cultural costs and outright rejection of refugees as a default policy. This option would make demands of both refugees and their new host states.
Specifically, refugees would be presented a choice of assimilating to the host states economy, language and other traditions or, failing that, being subject to repatriation to their
country of origin. The goal would be to eliminate the two key pillars of mass refugee
rejectioneconomic and cultural threatfrom the refugees themselves as a condition of
their acceptance by the host state (Gibney, 2004, chapter 7; Troeller, 2003). This policy
option suffers from the problem of expense and time (what would be the status of refugees
33
Although Chimni does quote a UN official who admits that most repatriations take place under
duress (Chimni, 1999).

The Myth of the Borderless World

155

who accepted this bargain but had not yet fulfilled their obligations?), as well as the broader
social stigma currently attached to assimilation policies, which are most often characterized
as bigotry and discrimination. On the other hand, some of the economic costs to the host
state might be offset by loans or grants, especially for poorer host states, by the international
community. Nevertheless, even if the cultural and economic hurdles could be overcome,
local integration and resettlement to a third country would solve only a small slice of the
refugee problem (Chimni, 2003).
A third and final option would be to continue the policy of voluntary organized
repatriation but to systematically and deliberately expand both the capacity and willingness
of the UNHCR to manage such repatriations. Currently, even the best UN efforts often
amount to the equivalent of giving a family burned out of their home a couple of sticks
and a tarp for shelter, along with best wishes for finding food, clean water, and sanitary
facilities. What is needed is a more comprehensive and standardized response to the shortand long-term needs of repatriated refugees (the first of which being the guarantee of
physical security). B.S. Chimni discusses the notion of sustainable return and the UNs
efforts along these lines to help in the return of refugees, who in the 1990s were more
often returning to poor and conflict-ridden states (Chimni, 2003). Problems continue to
plague sustainable return efforts, including too little funding or the adoption of financial
programs that fuelled inflation, unemployment, and other factors that contributed to the
conflict and flight of refugees in the first place. The key problem with this option is that
to the extent the UN and its supporting member states become adept at providing these
needs (historically an unlikely thing in and of itself), they run the risk of moral hazard:
of actually undermining the less costly prevention efforts outlined in the preventive option
above (Loescher, 2001a, chapter 10).
In sum, there are no brilliant solutions to the problem of refugee flows. They share
with antipersonnel land mines the quality of being relatively inexpensive to start and an
order of magnitude more costly to remediate. The key point to take away is that as costly
as prevention and effective remediation are, the security and welfare costs of allowing a
default policy of voluntary repatriation to become a policy of involuntary repatriation will
be prohibitively costly; not only to refugees, but to host states, regions, and the broader
interstate system.

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