Chanakya national Law University

Rough Draft

United Nations
High
Commissioner
for Refugees

Submitted to- Submitted by-

Dr. S.P Singh Anurag Sharma
Faculty of Political Science 1 Year, 2nd Semester
st

Chanakya National Law University Chanakya National Law University

Introduction
UNHCR is the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The
Office was created in December 1950 by Resolution 428(V) of the United Nations
General Assembly, and began its operations on 1 January 1951. UNHCR is a
humanitarian and strictly non-political organization devoted to protecting and
assisting refugees.
Refugees are people who have been forced to sever links with their home country.
They cannot rely on their own governments for legal protection; it is this, which
distinguishes refugees from other migrants, however desperate, and other people in
need of humanitarian assistance. Because refugees do not have access to the legal and
social protection that a properly functioning government is supposed to extend to its
citizens, the international community has had to make special arrangements to
respond to their particular plight.
The conviction that the international community rather than individual governments
or charitable organizations has a duty to provide refugees with protection and find
solutions to their problems dates from the time of the League of Nations, established
in 1920. Fridtjof Nansen, a renowned Arctic explorer from Norway, believed that the
League of Nations provided an unprecedented opportunity to establish peace and
promote reconstruction in post-war Europe. In 1921, to provide a focal point for
coordination of relief efforts, the League of Nations appointed Nansen as the first
High Commissioner for Refugees a role he performed tirelessly until his death in
1930.
One of the fundamental problems facing refugees and displaced people was their lack
of internationally recognized identity papers. The new High Commissioner introduced
the Nansen passport, the forerunner of todays Convention Travel Document for
Refugees. It enabled thousands to return home or settle in other countries, and
represented the first in a long and still evolving series of international legal measures
designed to protect refugees.
Over the following years, the League of Nations set up a succession of organizations
and agreements to deal with new refugee situations as they emerged. The League
defined refugees in terms of specific groups who were judged to be in danger if they
were returned to their home countries. Starting with the problem of identity papers
and travel documents, measures to protect refugees became more comprehensive as
time went on, covering a wide range of matters of vital importance to their daily lives,
such as the regularization of their personal status, access to employment and
protection against expulsion.
Aims and Objectives
The study has the following for aims:
To understand the socio-political, cultural and economic
circumstances that underlies refugee problems, especially in the
Third World.
To trace the evolutionary charges in UNHCR in tune with the
"new" refugee problems and needs over time.
To examine the expectations and experiences of UNHCR relief
Programmes with reference to some of the notable refugee
movements in recent times in this and other parts of the Third
World.
To explore the importance of the lessons drawn by UNHCR for its
activities in the coming years.

Research Questions

1. Does the effectiveness of UNHCR in providing the desired relief to

the refugee problems of the Third World require a Third World
national as the High Commissioner or greater financial resources?
2. Has the dated legal framework of UNHCR operations hindered the
cause of organizing suitable relief effort in new and pressing
refugee situations?
3. Is it that the host country or the home country is a party to the UN
Convention on the Status of Refugees makes vital difference in
mounting satisfactory relief programmes and strategies?
4. Going by the experiences of UNHCR in specific refugee situations
are its preventive strategies likely to be distinctly fruitful?
Research Methodology

The research methods employed in this study are descriptive and

Analytical in nature. This research is, for the most part, doctrinal. It
involves scrutiny of a mix of both the primary and secondary source
materials. They include UN documents, reports of the UNHCR, UN
Security Council, General Assembly and the Secretary-General,
government publications, scholarly material including books and
articles in Journals/periodicals and newspaper clippings.

Hypothesis
The prima facie evidence and pre readings make the researcher hypothesise that-
UNHCR has failed in its function of providing durable solutions to the problems of
the refugees.

Tentative Chapterisation

1. Historical Background
2. Statement of the Issue
i) Definition of Internally Displaced People
ii) Protection of Internally Displaced People
iii) Population
3. Previous International Actions
4. Bloc Positions
5. Organization and Role of UNHCR
6. UNHCRs Operational Role and Operational Partners
7. Conclusion and Suggestions

Bibliography
Goyal, Vikram. Climate change, disaster, displacement and migration: initial evidence from Africa
Faux, Dofner,. Contemporary Global Scenario. 2007
Leung, Sonia,. The Refugee Crisis: Past Present and Future, 2012