Comprehensive study of the Representative

FURTHER PROMOTION AND ENCOURAGEMENT OF HUMAN
RIGHTS AND FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS, INCLUDING THE
QUESTION OF THE PROGRAMME AND METHODS OF
WORK OF THE COMMISSION

ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES AND WAYS AND MEANS WITHIN
THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM FOR IMPROVING THE
EFFECTIVE ENJOYMENT OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND
FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS

The Secretary-General has the honour to transmit to the members of the Commission on Human Rights the attached study which was prepared pursuant to Commission resolution 1992/73 of 5 March 1992

Comprehensive study prepared by Mr. Francis M. Deng, Representative of the Secretary-General on the human rights issues related to internally displaced
persons, pursuant to Commission on Human Rights resolution 1992/73

I. INTRODUCTION 1 - 23
A. International concern 4 - 8
B. Mandate and methodology 9 - 19
C. Perceptions of the mandate 20 - 23

II. OVERVIEW OF INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT 24 - 54
A. Causes and consequences 25 - 32
B. Identifying the internally displaced 33 - 5
C. Concluding comments 53 - 54

III. INTERNATIONAL LEGAL STANDARDS 55 - 88
A. Principles of existing law 57 - 70
B. Proposals for new standards 71 - 86
C. Concluding comments 87 - 88

IV. INTERNATIONAL MECHANISMS 89 - 131
A. Perspectives on existing institutions 90 - 106
B. Proposals for institutional arrangements 107 - 126
C. Concluding comments 127 - 131

V. DYNAMICS OF INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT 132 - 261
A. Internal displacement in context 134 - 154
B. Observations from the field 155 - 253
C. Concluding comments 254 - 261

VI. CONCLUSIONS 262 - 294
A. Principles of protection 264 - 276
B. Findings and recommendations 277 - 292
C. Concluding comments 293 - 294

1. The analytical report of the Secretary-General on internally displaced persons, submitted to the Commission on Human Rights at its forty-eighth session, stated that 24 million people, largely women and children, were estimated to be displaced within the borders of their own countries, while the refugee population was estimated at 17 million (E/CN.4/1992/23, para. 5). Armed conflict, forced relocation, communal violence, natural and ecological disasters, systematic violations of human rights, as well as traditionally recognized sources of persecution combine to produce these massive involuntary movements within State borders. Vulnerable and unable to find places of safety, the internally displaced often suffer persistent violations of basic human rights and their humanitarian needs go unmet.

2. The response of the international community to the problems faced by the internally displaced must be viewed in the larger context of the post-cold war era in which long-suppressed ethnic and religious conflicts have been unleashed in many parts of the world. At the same time, there is a greater willingness on the part of the international community to address these problems and to try to develop for the internally displaced standards and mechanisms comparable to those that assist and protect refugees. How to make available to the internally displaced the protection and assistance afforded refugees without interfering with the traditional protections established by the refugee regime, namely, the right to leave a country and seek asylum, is one of the more daunting challenges of the post-cold war era.

3. The crisis of the internally displaced from the perspective of the international community is that they fall within the domestic jurisdiction and are therefore not covered by the protection normally accorded those who cross international borders and become refugees. International responses to emergencies involving them have in some circumstances been undertaken by agencies like UNHCR or UNICEF, but in the absence of clear mandates and an international body with special responsibility for the protection of internally displaced persons, the international response has been ad hoc, limited and unsatisfactory. Growing international concern resulted in the appointment by the Secretary-General in 1991 of an Emergency Relief Coordinator to improve the provision of relief and assistance to those caught up in humanitarian emergencies. In the same year, the Commission on Human Rights addressed the protection dimension of internal displacement (res. 1991/25). The mandate behind the present study underlines the importance being given to the role human rights bodies might play in increasing protection for the internally displaced.

4. The first United Nations initiative to raise the question of institutionalized assistance to internally displaced persons was launched by the International Conference on the Plight of Refugees, Returnees and Displaced Persons in Southern Africa (SARRED), held at Oslo in August 1988. The 1989 International Conference on Central American Refugees (CIREFCA), held in Guatemala, also focused attention on the plight of the internally displaced. The Economic and Social Council was seized with the issue a year later, adopting resolution 1990/78 of 27 July 1990 in which it requested the Secretary-General "to initiate a system-wide review to assess the experience and capacity of various organizations, in the coordination of assistance to all refugees, displaced persons and returnees, and the full spectrum of their needs" and, on the basis of such a review, "to recommend ways of maximizing cooperation and coordination among the various organizations of the United Nations system" in responding to the problems of refugees, displaced persons and returnees.

5. The Commission on Human Rights, in its resolution 1991/25 of 5 March 1991, requested the Secretary-General to take into account the protection of human rights and the needs of internally displaced persons in the system-wide review, and to submit to the Commission at its forty-eighth session "an analytical report on internally displaced persons, based on information submitted by Governments, the specialized agencies, relevant United Nations organs, regional and intergovernmental organizations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and non-governmental organizations."

6. A report on refugees, displaced persons and returnees was prepared by a consultant, Mr. Jacques Cuénod, and submitted to the Economic and Social Council at its second regular session of 1991 (E/1991/109/Add.1). The report analyses the roles played by various United Nations entities in providing assistance and protection to refugees, displaced persons and returnees, as well as the contribution of other intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. It points out the important contribution being made by intergovernmental bodies that manage to assist and protect internally displaced persons, notwithstanding their mandates which either do not explicitly allow them to provide protection and assistance to the internally displaced or to do so only on an ad hoc basis. In particular, it describes the role of UNHCR, other United Nations agencies and the ICRC in assisting and protecting the internally displaced persons. The report concludes, however, that "within the United Nations system there is no entity entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring that aid is provided to needy internally displaced persons. Material assistance to this group has been provided on an ad hoc basis" (para. 117).

7. Accordingly, the Cuénod report expresses the view that the protection of the human rights of internally displaced persons will require the greater involvement of United Nations human rights bodies. In particular, it suggests that the Commission on Human Rights might wish to consider creating mechanisms for dealing with the human rights aspects of internally displaced persons. This would enable the Commission "to deal with existing problems in this area with the necessary degree of urgency and in a concrete manner, bringing them to the attention of the international community and trying to generate the cooperation of all interested and concerned Governments" (para. 51).

8. Pursuant to Commission resolution 1991/25, the Secretary-General on 28 June 1991 addressed a note verbale to all Governments and letters to relevant organizations, requesting information and views on the subject. In reply to those communications, information was submitted by 34 Governments and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. The Secretary-General prepared the analytical report on the basis of the information received from these sources. The report covered the causes and consequences of displacement and the human rights standards and international mechanisms for providing protection and assistance to displaced persons. After reviewing international mechanisms for protecting the human rights of displaced persons, the report concluded: "If the massive displacement of persons requires the mobilization of all competent parts of the United Nations system, as suggested by the Cuénod report, protection of the human rights of internally displaced persons requires greater involvement of the United Nations human rights system" (para. 109).

9. The mandate of the Representative of the Secretary-General on internally displaced persons derives from resolution 1992/73 of 5 March 1992 of the Commission on Human Rights, approved by the Economic and Social Council in its decision 1992/243 of 20 July 1992. The Commission, "deeply disturbed by the serious problem that the large number of internally displaced persons throughout the world and their suffering is creating for the international community", recognized "that internally displaced persons are in need of relief assistance and of protection".

10. Taking note of the analytical report, the Commission requested the Secretary-General "to designate a representative to seek again views and information from all Governments on the human rights issues related to internally displaced persons, including an examination of existing international human rights, humanitarian and refugee law and standards and their applicability to the protection of and relief assistance to internally displaced persons." The Commission encouraged the Secretary-General "to seek also views and information from the specialized agencies, relevant United Nations organs, regional intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and experts in all regions on these issues".

11. The Commission requested the Secretary-General "to submit a comprehensive study to the Commission at its forty-ninth session, identifying existing laws and mechanisms for the protection of internally displaced persons, possible additional measures to strengthen implementation of these laws and mechanisms, and alternatives for addressing protection needs not adequately covered by existing instruments." The Commission also decided "to continue its consideration of the question at its forty-ninth session".

12. Resolution 1992/73 appears to ask the Secretary-General and his Representative to perform two separate sets of functions, both with respect to information-gathering and the preparation of the report. His Representative was asked to seek views and information from all Governments while the Secretary-General was requested to seek the same from the specialized agencies, relevant United Nations organs and other pertinent sources. He was also requested to "submit" a "comprehensive" study to the Commission. In consultation with the Secretariat and others knowledgeable about the background to the Commission's consideration of the item, it was agreed that the Secretary-General and his Representative could not have been intended to operate separately; that the same request for views and information was meant to go to Governments and all the other sources specified in the resolution; that only one study was to be prepared from the information received and that the Representative of the Secretary-General was to perform all those functions, including the preparation of the study, which the Secretary-General would then submit to the Commission as the work of his Representative on the human rights issues related to internally displaced persons.

13. In accordance with his mandate, thus interpreted, the Representative of the Secretary-General formulated and sent a questionnaire to all Governments, organizations and agencies specified in the resolution, requesting information on the pertinent themes of the stipulated study, drawing attention to the analytical report and in particular to a number of issues. In his letter, the Representative of the Secretary-General, echoing the words of the Under-Secretary-General for Human Rights in his letter conveying the appointment and the terms of the mandate, wrote:

"I am sure that you will agree that protecting the human rights of displaced persons is one of the most critical challenges facing the international community today, affecting hundreds of thousands of persons in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America. It is a problem which has only recently begun to be addressed, and the study requested by the Commission on Human Rights can be expected to make an important contribution to determining the legal and policy approaches which will be adopted by the United Nations in this regard."

14. In order to be able to fulfil the reporting obligation of the Secretary-General under the resolution, 15 October 1992 was set as the target date for receiving replies to the questionnaire. At the time of writing - mid-December 1992 - replies had been received from 16 Governments: Argentina, Armenia, Austria, China, Cyprus, Egypt, Estonia, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Norway, Pakistan, Rwanda, Switzerland and the United States of America* (* Replies from Colombia and Latin America were received after the deadline and were therefore not included.). Within the United Nations system, replies were received from the Department of Humanitarian Affairs (DHA), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). A reply was also received from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). One regional organization, the Interamerican Institute for Human Rights (IIHR), responded. The non-governmental organizations that responded were Caritas Internationalis, Friends World Committee for Consultation, International Catholic Migration Commission, Japanese Association to Help Chernobyl, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Refugee Policy Group, United States Committee for Refugees, Unrepresented Nations and Peoples, and Commission of the Churches on International Affairs of the World Council of Churches. The International Committee of the Red Cross also sent a reply.

15. In addition to soliciting responses to the questionnaire, the Representative held consultations with the Secretary-General and senior United Nations Officials, representatives of various permanent missions in Geneva, representatives of UNHCR, IOM and ICRC and a number of non-governmental organizations including Friends World Committee for Consultation, the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs of the World Council of Churches, International Save the Children Alliance, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and Médecins Sans Frontières.

16. The Representative also consulted with legal scholars from the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program and the Yale Law School Schell Center for Human Rights, and with experts from the Brookings Institution and the Refugee Policy Group, both of whom provided valuable support and organized special working groups for further consultations. He also benefited considerably from the substantive contribution made by staff members at the Centre for Human Rights.

17. To give a practical dimension to the study, the Representative of the Secretary-General undertook on-site visits to a select number of countries with a special interest in the problem or where internal displacement was or threatened to become particularly pronounced. These included the former Yugoslavia, the Russian Federation, Somalia, the Sudan and El Salvador, in that order. The visit to the former Yugoslavia was undertaken in accordance with the mandate contained in resolution 1992/S-1/1 of 14 August 1992 in which the Commission on Human Rights appointed a Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the former Yugoslavia and called upon "existing mechanisms" of the Commission, including the Representative of the Secretary-General on internally displaced persons, to provide cooperation and assistance to the Special Rapporteur and to accompany him in visiting the former Yugoslavia, if he so requested. The initiative for the visit to the Russian Federation emanated from consultations with the representative of that Government to the Commission and underscored the global character of the problem of displacement. Somalia and the Sudan represented countries with severe displacement problems, while El Salvador, whose Government had cooperated with the United Nations in the achievement and consolidation of peace and reconstruction, represented possible solutions to the problems of displacement.

18. It must be emphasized that the purpose of these visits was not to monitor and report on conditions in those countries, but rather to exchange views with the government authorities on the mandate and the issues involved and to acquire some on-the-ground insight into the problems of internal displacement as a generic crisis of global concern.

19. In the countries visited, extensive consultations were conducted with the national leadership, local NGOs, members of the internally displaced communities and minority groups, representatives of United Nations bodies and other intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, and, of course, with the masses of the displaced population in camps or dwellings around urban centres or in rural settlements.

20. In the course of carrying out his mandate, the Representative of the Secretary-General encountered a certain number of issues which demonstrated the gaps in the United Nations system in so far as responsibility for internally displaced persons is concerned and, therefore, the importance of the Commission's initiative in this area. Among these issues are the scope of the mandate, the alternative models from which the Commission might choose a mechanism for its future work in this area, and the need for a comprehensive, multi-faceted approach to the problems of the internally displaced.

21. Many responses assumed that the mandate covered all aspects of the problems of internally displaced persons and the institutional mechanism for their protection and assistance within the United Nations system. While some focused on the kind of mechanism that would be most appropriate for the Commission on Human Rights, others discussed the broader problem of the lack of a comprehensive mandate on the internally displaced within the United Nations system and suggested remedies ranging from creating a new institution for the protection of the internally displaced modelled along the lines of UNHCR to extending the mandates of UNHCR and DHA to cover the internally displaced.

22. In consulting with the Secretariat on this issue, the Representative of the Secretary-General was advised that the study was intended to focus on what could be done within the framework of the Commission's special procedures and mechanisms to provide more protection for the human rights of the internally displaced. Consequently, any ideas for United Nations action which would go beyond this framework might be useful by-products of the study, but could not be considered by the Commission as a basis for possible action on the matter.

23. The arrangements suggested in this study have therefore been conceived largely, if not entirely, within the framework of the Commission on Human Rights, rather than in the light of the more ambitious perspectives and expectations of some of the responses. It is hoped, however, that the broad lines of the institutional arrangements set out in the report will provide a basis for speculating or even acting on measures that could more effectively meet the broader challenge of protection for the internally displaced. Meanwhile, the practical approach would be to build on the existing institutional arrangements and stimulate a more active awareness and contribution of human and material resources towards an effective system of international assistance and protection for the internally displaced.

24. The severity and pervasiveness of the problem of internal displacement have been well reflected in the analytical report of the Secretary-General. As the present study is essentially a follow-up to that report, it is not necessary to repeat the evidence it provided on the scale of internal displacement. In order to sharpen perspectives on the problem, however, it may be useful to provide a brief overview focusing on the causes and consequences of internal displacement and criteria for identifying the affected population.

25. The analytical report of the Secretary-General on internally displaced persons identified six causes of displacement: armed conflict and internal strife, forced relocation, communal violence, natural disasters, ecological disasters, and the systematic violation of human rights. Information received by the Representative of the Secretary-General tends to confirm this.

26. Armed conflict, with the resulting violations of human rights, is by far the most pervasive cause of internal displacement. The replies of Egypt and Rwanda and those of DHA, WFP, ICRC, IIHR and several NGOs all pointed to armed conflict as the leading antecedent to displacement. Often, mass dislocation occurs as groups seek to escape from physical danger and search for security and reliable sources of survival. However, displacement is sometimes the result of strategic or tactical policies of the parties to the armed conflict.

27. A report submitted by the Refugee Policy Group (RPG) notes that in Africa, where an estimated 15 million persons are internally displaced, the most prevalent cause of internal displacement is civil war. Other causes are "a breakdown in civil order, ethnic strife, forced resettlement, and demobilization". Among the serious human rights violations that occur are deliberate starvation of the civilian population, forced labour, forcible conscription into governmental or rebel armies, and killings by high-intensity weapons and land mines. In the case of forced resettlement, RPG's report points out that while "some forced relocations occur during civil wars as a way of pacifying areas that may otherwise side with one or another party to the conflict", others "occur when a government tries to control a minority group or political opposition by removing its members from their traditional habitats". RPG also draws special attention to demobilization as an increasing cause of displacement: "As solutions are found to more and more regional and internal conflicts, the need to reintegrate what may be hundreds of thousands of military personnel is presenting a major dilemma. Many of these demobilized soldiers are, in effect, internally displaced, in that they may no longer have homes to which they can return".

28. Another category of internally displaced persons to which RPG draws attention is that of returning refugees who "are unable to reintegrate into their former villages or towns". In some cases, it is noted, the refugees have returned to their home countries "not because of improved conditions there, but because of deteriorating conditions in the country of asylum". In particular, Somali and Sudanese refugees who returned to their countries under such circumstances, "often found it impossible to go back to their home communities because of the fighting in these areas. They then become internally displaced persons".

29. Several replies, such as those from DHA, ICRC and IIDH, emphasized violations of human rights and humanitarian law as causes of displacement. IFAD cited communal violence as a cause of internal displacement, such as the disturbances that occurred in Mauritania and Senegal in 1979. The replies of Cyprus, Egypt, and Jordan indicate that foreign aggression or occupation of part of the national territory also should be recognized as a cause of internal displacement. These countries, along with Norway, DHA, and IIDH, also argue that natural disasters are another cause of displacement. The report of IIDH draws attention to the fact that displacement may be caused by the activities of drug-traffickers (as in Colombia) and non-governmental armed groups (as in Peru). However, little information was received concerning displacement caused by such factors as nuclear or chemical disasters. On the other hand, the Japanese Association to Help Chernobyl drew attention to the need to resettle the victims of nuclear disaster around the world.

30. The analytical report discussed the consequences of internal displacement in terms of the human rights which are affected. Among these are the right to food, the right to shelter and adequate living conditions, the right to health care, the right to life and personal integrity, the right to work and to an adequate wage, freedom of residence and movement, family unity, the right to education, legal personality, and freedom of thought, association, expression and assembly. Information received by the Representative of the Secretary-General from Governments, intergovernmental and regional bodies, as well as in the course of the visits undertaken to various countries, tends to confirm the analysis of the consequences of displacement contained in the analytical report.

31. The country studies included in the IIDH report also highlight the importance of organizing displaced persons in order to safeguard the cohesiveness and viability of their communities and ethnic groups, to encourage self-help in meeting their material needs and to facilitate bringing their needs and problems to the attention of the competent authorities. On the other hand, IIDH's report also indicates that in some countries, being identified as a displaced person leads to a presumption that one is "subversive" or, when the displacement is caused by armed groups struggling against the Government, that one is a "traitor" or "informer".

32. It should be noted that, by and large, there is considerable correlation between the causes and consequences of displacement, their implications in terms of the needs they create and the response of the Governments concerned. Where the causes are natural, a national consensus to provide protection and assistance is likely to develop and the Government often assumes responsibility with the assistance of the international community. Only when the country is divided and the affected population alienated or segregated might the Government be indifferent or even hostile to providing protection and assistance. But by far the most serious cases emanate from conflicts where the displaced are more likely to fall into a gap of responsibility created by the cleavages of armed conflict or are the victims of one or another side in the conflict. It is particularly in circumstances of armed conflict that protection and assistance by the international community are needed, often urgently, although they are frequently difficult to provide.

33. The need to identify the population affected by internal displacement has raised the issue of definition. The problem, however, is not so much one of legal definition as it is of establishing functional criteria for determining who is entitled to assistance and protection. Defining the internally displaced with reference to causes and consequences helps delineate the scope and sharpen the focus on the targeted population. On the other hand, any definition of the concept risks being either too narrow or too broad, with the result that people who need protection and assistance might be excluded or the category might become too diffuse to be manageable. A balance needs to be struck.

34. Referring to Economic and Social Council resolution 78/1990, the analytical report of the Secretary-General uses the term "internally displaced persons" to mean "persons who have been forced to flee their homes suddenly or unexpectedly in large numbers, as a result of armed conflict, internal strife, systematic violations of human rights or natural or man-made disasters; and who are within the territory of their own country" (para. 17). Replies received for the purposes of the present study both confirm the definition offered by the analytical report and add other factors which reflect different perspectives. Jordan indicated that it agreed with the working definition proposed by the analytical report. UNHCR said the definition was "a good starting point for consideration of the problem of internally displaced persons". UNESCO endorsed the definition but added that "recent developments in the Balkans and Eastern Europe ... and newly independent States with conflicting territorial claims between ethnic groups, may necessitate some slight modifications".

35. Several organizations suggested that the definition in the analytical report was unnecessarily narrow and did not cover certain persons or groups of persons that needed protection. The United States, for example, argued against the quantitative requirement and observed that the definition proposed in the analytical report "could be interpreted to exclude persons who are internally displaced in small numbers, or even individuals who are internally displaced. While [the] initial study may focus on specific large groups of displaced persons, we would not want to lose sight of the fact that small groups and/or individuals may also suffer displacement". IOM also argued against the exclusion of small numbers of persons from the working definition, especially since the rights that are affected are largely individual rights. UNHCR pointed out that requiring "large numbers" to be a criteria "could involve a subjective evaluation giving rise to a certain element of imprecision". The refugee definition, it noted, contained no such requirement.

36. WFP also contended that the definition of internally displaced persons contained in the analytical report "appears to be unnecessarily and inappropriately restrictive. We consider that the words 'suddenly or unexpectedly' should be dropped, the word 'flee' should be replaced by 'leave', and 'in large numbers' should be deleted.... While such a 'large number' definition could apply to a war type of situation, FAO [the organization of which the WFP is an operational arm] considers that the definition should cover the very many 'few thousands' evicted and displaced people". WFP maintains that all displacement problems should be examined on a case-by-case basis, regardless of their scale (which cannot be known until assessed), with a view to providing appropriate assistance.

37. ICRC replied that the definition in the analytical report "is too general to serve as a basis for a specific instrument". The underlying concern of the ICRC appears to be that it would be undesirable to distinguish between civilian populations displaced by armed conflict and those who have not been displaced, but whose needs are similar.

38. A number of non-governmental organizations suggested a definition which views internally displaced persons as "internal refugees". The Friends World Committee for Consultation, one of the NGOs which has taken the lead in putting the issue of displaced persons on the international agenda, proposed the following the definition: "Persons who have been forced to flee their homes and who have not crossed an international frontier".

39. IIDH proposed the use of the definition adopted by the 1989 International Conference on Refugees in Central America (CIREFCA) which suggests that internally displaced persons should be understood to mean persons in a refugee-like situation within their own country. CIREFCA's definition states that "displaced persons are persons who have been obliged to abandon their homes or usual economic activities because their lives, security or freedom have been endangered by generalized violence, massive violations of human rights, an ongoing conflict or other circumstances which have or are seriously disturbing the public order, but who have remained within their own countries". This definition is based largely on the broad definition of refugee set forth in the 1984 Cartagena Declaration on Refugees rather than the strict definition of refugee in the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, which requires fleeing one's country "owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion".

40. The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights takes a similar position, proposing an overarching concept of "dispossessed persons". This term encompasses four categories: "international refugees", which includes those who meet the definition of the 1951 Convention; "international forced migrants", comprising "those who meet the broader definition employed in the OAU [Convention] and the Cartagena [Declaration]"; "internal refugees", defined as those who have a well-founded fear of persecution on any of the grounds listed in the 1951 Convention but who have remained within their own country; and "internal forced migrants", embracing those who have fled for the reasons recognized by the OAU and the Cartagena Declaration, but remain within their own country.

41. IOM similarly advanced the idea of defining the problem in terms of displaced persons in general, rather than limiting it to "internally" displaced persons. This would avoid the risk of adopting a new definition which, in effect, gives the international community competence and responsibility for a second category of persons (in addition to refugees) but would not cover those in similar circumstances who nevertheless are neither refugees nor internally displaced. Defining the problem in terms of "displaced persons" would leave the door open to addressing the plight of externally displaced persons who do not meet the classical definition of refugee. Such a definition would ensure that the concept of displaced persons or returnees is applicable to former refugees who have returned to their own country but not their place of origin, and thus remain displaced.

42. The reply of WHO also indicated that the definition is not broad enough and advocated recognizing those who flee their homes for reasons of acute poverty, environmental degradation, or for social problems such as ethnic or racial tension. WHO submitted that "the root causes of displacement are primarily socio-economic; that is, the failure of the global development process which has led to unequal distribution of wealth both between and within countries". While WHO's line of argument points to an important aspect of displacement, it would not be useful to include within the concept of internally displaced persons all populations who migrate because of underlying socio-economic issues. Reinvigorating the global development process is a responsibility of the United Nations system that by far exceeds the mandate of this study.

43. Other respondents also point out the relationship between the larger problem of underdevelopment and the specific problem of the internally displaced, without advocating the inclusion of all those affected by poverty, uneven development or environmental degradation. This was essentially the view of the El Salvadorian authorities in their discussions with the Representative of the Secretary-General.

44. To a degree, this view is also shared by the Department of Humanitarian Affairs (DHA) which emphasized the needs concept, but not to the extent advocated by WHO. After stating that DHA considers the definition of the internally displaced in the analytical report to be adequate for the time being, the reply proceeded to quote the view of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees "that it made little sense for UNHCR to bring relief and protection to one group of suffering people, i.e. refugees under the 1951 Convention, and to disregard the misery of the other afflicted people". DHA proposed defining the question on the basis of needs and stated that

"what is important is that the scope of the target population in need of assistance, is broadened to encompass internally displaced persons and all groups of suffering people whose needs are likely to be left unmet by their own authorities and who, therefore, would be dependent upon the international community for relief and protection. The important question, as far as the humanitarian relief organizations are concerned, is not the category within which persons are classified but rather whether the persons concerned are in need of humanitarian assistance based on objective evaluation of existing criteria".

45. Persons in need of protection are what is emphasized by UNHCR. Its competence for refugees, it points out, "is based on the displacement of such persons coupled with their need for protection". Its "activities for persons displaced within their own country for refugee-like reasons" follow the same reasoning. "The lack of protection from their own country is the key aspect which makes internally displaced persons of concern to the international community". The refugee definition, it points out, "does not cover persons displaced from their homes for reasons of famine or natural disaster".

46. Several other themes expressed in the replies to the Representative of the Secretary-General relating to the definitional problem deserve mention. The reply of Egypt advocates a definition of the internally displaced as

"a group of persons permanently or normally residing at specific locations and who, as a result of political or other natural circumstances that cannot be forecast or averted, are suddenly forced to leave their original place of residence en masse, without prior preparations, and flee to another locality within their country where the necessary preparations have not been made to ensure their enjoyment of a minimum standard of living".

This definition takes particular note of the existence of sub-standard living conditions or lack of preparedness in the area to which the displaced flee. Accordingly, attention needs to be given to situations where the rights of the displaced are in jeopardy, either because of inadequate living conditions, discrimination, repression, or a combination of these factors.

47. Cyprus suggested that the element of being unable to return should be added to the definition. This suggests that efforts should focus on persons who have been displaced and are unable to return, if not to their own home in the strict sense, then to their place or region of origin. The right to stay or return home has also been strongly advocated by UNHCR.

48. The desire to return was the gist of the Representative's findings in the Sudan, where some people had returned to their region of origin despite the dangers of insecurity in the nearby war zone, and seemed better adjusted than those in camps around the capital city. It also explains the decision of many El Salvadorian peasants to return to their villages even while the war was still raging in those areas.

49. These concerns are pertinent to the protection and assistance of displaced persons whether or not they figure in the definition of displacement. They highlight the fact that victims of displacement include not only those who have been forcibly displaced, but also indigenous populations who may be suffering deprivation and whose demographic make-up, cultural autonomy and other rights have been adversely affected by an influx of outsiders. There are undoubtedly varying degrees of overlap between the category of internally displaced persons and other categories recognized by international human rights or humanitarian law, such as civilian populations affected by armed conflicts and populations at risk of starvation. Nevertheless, since groups of internally displaced persons share certain problems and characteristics, it is not only appropriate but even urgent to focus on the rights and needs of the millions of persons around the world who come within this specific group.

50. Perhaps the most important issue is whether efforts to study this phenomenon, and subsequent efforts to protect the rights of internally displaced persons, should focus exclusively on persons who have left their homes for the same reasons as refugees but who have remained in their own country, or should extend to migrants who have been forced to leave their homes for other reasons. There is much to support the contention that the working definition of internally displaced persons should focus on those who, if they had left their own country, would be considered refugees. This part of the internally displaced population would include both those who have left their homes because of a well-founded fear of persecution on the grounds of race, religion, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, and those who, according to the Cartagena Declaration (and similarly in the OAU Convention of 10 September 1969 governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in Africa) have been forced to migrate "because their lives, safety or freedom have been threatened by generalized violence, foreign aggression, internal conflicts, massive violations of human rights or circumstances which have seriously disturbed public order".

51. Displacement of large numbers of persons as a result of natural or man-made disasters such as floods, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and nuclear or chemical accidents may lead the population to experience some of the same problems as those who have been forced to leave their homes because of war, persecution, generalized violence and similar reasons because of the sudden and large-scale nature of the migration. There are also important distinctions: in most instances, they presumably would not suffer from discrimination, nor is there a priori any reason to presume that the authorities would be unwilling to respect their rights and provide needed assistance within the limits of available resources or with contributions from the international community. However, there have been well-documented cases of massive displacement resulting from a combination of natural causes and racial, social or political causes, in which serious and widespread human rights violations occurred. For these reasons, it would be preferable to include this particular type of category of displacement within the scope of the mandate on the internally displaced pending the availability of more information which might necessitate a different approach.

52. The task of drafting an appropriate definition of this concept should be coordinated with the work of the Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities which has been addressing the question of "population transfer". By resolution 1990/17, the Sub-Commission decided to include the question of the human rights dimension of population transfer in its future work programme and in resolution 1992/28, appointed two Special Rapporteurs to prepare a preliminary study on this question. While the Special Rapporteurs have not yet produced a working definition, some NGO documents have proposed definitions of population transfer which distinguish that concept from that of displacement. It will be necessary, as the work of the Sub-Commission on this issue proceeds, to ensure that the efforts of the Representative of the Secretary-General on internally displaced persons and the Special Rapporteurs on the human rights dimensions of population transfer are complementary and coordinated.

53. On balance, in the view of the Representative of the Secretary-General a conclusive definition at this stage may not be necessary. While a discussion of the definitional issues is important, it should not be suggested that agreement on a definition would, in and of itself, result in a resolution of the basic problem or that the absence of a single definition prevents the provision of assistance or protection now. For current purposes, it is useful to identify only the main features of a working definition. It should assist the Representative in his work and facilitate standard setting. The one provided in the analytical report should serve this initial purpose. It could be further developed, refined and modified in the light of comments received and experience. When it is decided that international standards concerning internally displaced persons need to be formulated more precisely, the appropriate definition would have to be carefully crafted as part of the standard-setting exercise.

54. The essential thrust of the proposals contained in this study is not to create new categories of persons having special rights, but rather to extend the protections already recognized as the rights of persons in certain situations to others in analogous situations, and thus promote a more harmonious and coherent approach to human rights. As a matter of priority, it is necessary to focus on situations where large numbers of persons have been displaced. Indeed, it may be that this is not merely a question of priority, but an issue that touches on the nature of the problem itself. It may be, in other words, that existing international human rights standards, doctrines and procedures are reasonably well adapted to the situations of individuals or small numbers of persons who are forced to leave their homes, but not well adapted to the issues which arise in situations that cause large numbers of persons to flee from one part of their country to another.

55. There is dispute about whether existing international legal instruments provide sufficient protection for the internally displaced and whether what is needed is more legal prescription or simply better implementation of existing law. The analytical report of the Secretary-General on internally displaced persons suggests that the problems of the internally displaced are so severe and particular that they cannot be adequately remedied by the general law applicable to human rights protection but should instead be addressed separately. Protection derived from the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 and the additional Protocols concerns persons displaced by armed conflicts and only applies to the contracting States parties. Some scholars argue that compiling and restating existing standards in the form of guiding principles, a code of conduct or declaration would not only help clarify the situation but also lend an added legal and moral force, especially among those who might claim not to have been parties to the original instruments.

56. Discussion of existing international standards and laws pertaining to the human rights of internally displaced persons can be classified under the principal sources of applicable law, the specific clusters of rights guaranteed by law, the extent to which they in fact provide adequate protection and ways in which they might be made more effective.

57. Human rights and humanitarian law may be seen as the principal sources of existing protections for internally displaced persons; along with refugee law, they also may be the foundations for articulating a basis for further protections. While these bodies of law are conceptually distinct, they have influenced and informed each other and also contribute to a general corpus of laws capable of application to the problems experienced by internally displaced persons.

58. Unlike refugee law, which largely applies only when a border is crossed, or humanitarian law, which applies to situations of armed conflict, human rights law proclaims broad guarantees for the fundamental rights of all human beings. The International Bill of Human Rights, composed of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, represents the basic corpus of human rights law, recognizing the inherent dignity and equality of all human beings and setting a common standard for the achievement of their rights. These instruments guarantee a panoply of rights applicable to the situations common to the internally displaced, varying from the so-called "negative" rights, such as the norm stating that no one shall be subjected to torture, arbitrary interference with family, home, or privacy and, under article 17 of the Universal Declaration, arbitrary deprivation of property, to "affirmative" rights, such as the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to liberty and security of person.

59. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its Optional Protocol elaborate on the principles enunciated in the Universal Declaration and provide a procedure for formal complaints and investigations. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is the primary source of obligations to take affirmative steps to ensure progressively the economic and social well-being of all persons. Among the rights specifically enunciated as forming the basis for assisting the internally displaced are the right to food, clothing, housing and medical treatment. Other international legal instruments such as the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, or the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families contain provisions offering a wide range of relevant human rights guarantees.

60. Regional human rights instruments, including the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the American Convention on Human Rights, provide similar and in some cases additional guarantees.

61. Although human rights law provides a basis for protection and assistance for internally displaced persons, it does not directly address some of the situations affecting the internally displaced, such as forcible displacement and access to humanitarian assistance.

62. The four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Additional Protocols of 1977 reaffirm the principle that, in situations of armed conflict, those not directly participating in the hostilities shall be treated humanely. Article 3, common to all four Geneva Conventions, categorically prohibits violence to life and/or person, the taking of hostages, and outrages upon personal dignity of persons in situations of "armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties". It affirms the due process requirement and further imposes an affirmative duty to provide the sick and wounded with medical care. The obligation to apply article 3 is absolute for "each Party to the conflict" and is not contingent on reciprocity.

63. Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions (1977) is also applicable to internal conflicts which involve "organized armed groups ... under responsible command" exercising control over territory (art. 1). The specific need for protection of persons internally displaced by civil conflict was recognized in article 17 (1) which states that "the displacement of the civilian population shall not be ordered for reasons related to the conflict unless the security of the civilians involved or imperative military reasons so demand", in which case "all possible measures shall be taken in order that the civilian population may be received under satisfactory conditions of shelter, hygiene, safety, and nutrition". And according to article 17 (2) "civilians shall not be compelled to leave their own territory for reasons connected with the conflict". Protocol II adds collective punishment, terrorism, rape, enforced prostitution, slavery, pillage and threats to commit any of the above to the list of prohibited actions.

64. The Geneva Conventions confer special status on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which is mandated by the Statutes of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement to protect and assist victims of armed conflict as provided for under humanitarian law.

65. Existing international standards specifically concerning the rights of internally displaced persons under humanitarian law, however, have limitations. While article 17 of Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions is a useful provision, it applies only to persons displaced because of armed conflict, and only to States parties to Additional Protocol II. Moreover, the security justification for displacement is broadly construed. The article would also appear not to cover cases where populations move because of generalized violence and fear - as opposed to being ordered or otherwise compelled to do so - which is often the case with the internally displaced.

66. Internally displaced persons have much in common with refugees; the critical, and in some instances only, distinction is that crossing an international border turns an internally displaced person into a refugee. While some have argued that this is an arbitrary distinction limiting the applicability of refugee law to internally displaced persons, it is of enormous consequence, as a displaced person's presence in a country other than his or her own implicates a well-established protective regime, and affords the person rights recognized under international law. In particular, crossing a border is vital to the concept of non-refoulement, the right of non-return, which is the core of refugee protection. For internally displaced persons, one of the most practically important rights drawn from refugee law may be the right to seek asylum. Recently, in such countries as Iraq and the former Yugoslavia, "safe haven" zones have been created to protect those internally displaced. It is important that such zones do not serve to prevent persons from exercising their rights to leave and seek asylum.

67. Although there has been no formal redefinition of the term "refugee" for the purposes of State's obligations under the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol, the competence of UNHCR has been extended to the plight of persons displaced in a manner other than that anticipated by the Convention. In some cases, the UNHCR mandate now reaches to those displaced for reasons other than a well-founded fear of persecution on the grounds outlined in the Convention, and even to those who have not crossed national boundaries.

68. Regional instruments, such as the OAU Convention and the Cartagena Declaration, provide variations broadening the definition of "refugee" by considering other causes of dislocation such as external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing public order in either a part or the whole of the country of origin or nationality, although the definitions still retain the criterion of crossing a border. UNHCR considers such persons to be of concern to its Office and in 1981 the General Assembly recognized the competence of UNHCR for a broader category of refugee. The UNHCR has thus provided protection and assistance to "de facto refugees" displaced by armed conflict, even if they did not meet strict interpretations of the Convention definition which requires individualized determinations of persecution. In addition, through its "good offices" function, UNHCR, at the request of the Secretary-General and General Assembly, has provided assistance to internally displaced persons in a rapidly increasing number of countries. UNHCR practice thus reinforces the view that there is now a general international concern for broader categories of displaced persons.

69. At the same time, it is often emphasized that any attempt to establish a comprehensive framework for the protection of the internally displaced should not undermine the obligations established in existing human rights and refugee law, in particular the right to seek asylum from persecution and to non-refoulement.

70. Generally speaking, the protection derived from refugee law in so far as internally displaced persons are concerned is limited by the very fact that the affected population, unlike refugees, are within the borders of their own countries, and the causes of their displacement are not always identical to those of refugees. Any extension of refugee law to them can only be partial and therefore only partially protective.

71. Emerging from the responses is a tension between those who believe that the existing law provides adequate coverage for the rights of the internally displaced and those who advocate a new regime. Both are motivated by the same policy considerations. Those who consider the present law adequate want to strengthen its protection by reaffirming it and focusing attention on implementation and enforcement mechanisms. Those who advocate a new regime are particularly concerned that the internally displaced often suffer unusual hardships, deprivations and gross violations of human rights which require special attention and remedial measures.

72. There can be little if any doubt that internally displaced persons suffer from severe problems that do not confront individuals under normal conditions. All people may be entitled to physical security, shelter, food, water, health care and other basic amenities, and under normal conditions they receive these services in varying degrees along with others in society. Displacement is often created by, and in turn results in, crisis situations where the rights normally taken for granted are acutely compromised. Under these conditions both the norms and their application need to be tailored to the nature and the magnitude of the crisis. In effect, the challenge becomes more than one of enforcement and mechanism. Just as certain categories of vulnerable groups, such as refugees, the disabled, women and children, require special regimes for protection, so do the internally displaced.

73. What is particularly important to bear in mind is that law is not an abstract set of rules detached from the realities of political, economic, and social conditions. Quite the contrary. It is reflective of the dynamics of the community processes in which people, whether individuals or groups, seek certain objectives, through established institutions and using resources, with certain short- to long-term consequences. Law is the outcome of a decision-making process in which a few authoritative decision makers play a pivotal role, but in which the community members participate to a lesser or greater degree, depending on a wide variety of factors, including the availability of resources. The outcome, that is the law, will therefore vary considerably according to the leverage of certain institutions or particular interest groups.

74. The chronic lack of implementation itself may be an indication that existing human rights and humanitarian standards may not be adequately tailored to meet the challenge of the crisis. The inadequacy of the current response may therefore be a symptom of a deeper normative deficiency.

75. The analytical report indeed concluded that there is at present no clear statement of the human rights of internally displaced persons, or those at risk of becoming displaced. The applicable international law is a patchwork of customary and conventional standards: parts of it are applicable to all persons, parts only to certain subgroups of displaced persons such as those displaced as a result of armed conflict, and parts may not be applicable in certain situations, such as an emergency threatening the life of the nation or, on the contrary, may be applicable only during a state of emergency. There are about 24 million internally displaced persons around the world, most of whom suffer, have suffered or risk suffering extremely serious violations of their basic human rights. This constitutes a humanitarian and human rights crisis of major proportions, which calls for clear guidelines that could be applied to all internally displaced persons, regardless of the cause of their displacement, the country concerned, or the prevailing legal, social, political or military situation.

76. According to the analytical report, elaboration of such guidelines would consist, at least in part, of clarifying the implications of existing human rights and humanitarian law for persons who are internally displaced and fashioning from existing standards one comprehensive, universally applicable body of principles which addresses the main needs and problems of such persons. Among the issues recommended for consideration are: the circumstances justifying restriction or temporary suspension of freedom of residence; procedures and safeguards intended to ensure that involuntary displacement is not imposed or implemented arbitrarily, or that voluntary resettlement is voluntary; principles governing the protection and enjoyment of basic human rights frequently affected by displacement, such as freedom of movement, family unity, non-discrimination and equal protection of law; general principles concerning the provision of and access to emergency relief, care and essential services; and principles concerning the duration of displacement, reparation and the right to return.

77. The inadequacy of existing law and the need for stipulating new standards that would incorporate and add to the provisions of international instruments pertaining to the internally displaced persons was underscored by the reply of the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, who wrote:

"It is evident that there are gaps in the legal protection of the various categories of displaced persons and that the current situation is not satisfactory as far as basic legal protection of displaced persons is concerned. It would consequently be desirable to undertake a more detailed review of available legislation, national and international, and on that basis, consider whether new instruments are required to improve the safety and well-being of the victims of displacement."

78. The Governments of Burkina Faso, Cyprus, Guatemala and Norway also indicated the need for new standards specifically designed to protect the internally displaced. In the discussions with the Representative of the Secretary-General, officials of the Russian Federation argued that while existing instruments did not provide sufficient protection for the internally displaced, they offer a basis for the formulation of some form of document that would set forth more adequate protection. They saw the formulation of a convention as a long-term objective, but argued for developing guiding principles or a declaration that would help pave the way for a legally binding instrument in the future. The replies of UNESCO, the United States Committee for Refugees and Lawyers Committee for Human Rights also supported the development of new international standards.

79. The Refugee Policy Group suggested specific areas for which new standards would be desirable:

"While we strongly urge that greater attention be paid to better implementation of existing standards of human rights and humanitarian law, and that a compilation of existing standards would be useful, we believe that new guidelines and standards are necessary. The standards or guidelines should contain express prohibitions against the forcible displacement of persons on political, racial, religious or ethnic grounds, as well as stringent restrictions on the displacement of persons in wartime. They should elaborate fully on the right to food and focus on obstruction of people's ability to produce or find food as well as interference with humanitarian assistance. Special provisions should be included for vulnerable groups such as women, children, the elderly and the handicapped. No derogation from these standards, even in time of emergency, should be permissible. The standards should apply not only to governments, but also to insurgent groups under whose control large numbers of displaced persons are often located."

80. The report submitted by IIDH also supports the adoption of a declaration on the rights of internally displaced persons as a first step, to be followed by the elaboration of a convention at some future time. The Friends World Committee for Consultation suggests that, as a first step, a compilation of existing standards which protect the rights of internally displaced persons should be prepared. The Representative of the Secretary-General (or any alternative mechanism decided upon by the Commission) "should then be requested to identify gaps in the existing law, and prepare draft guidelines or principles to fill the lacunas and compliment existing standards".

81. Other replies emphasized the need for implementation of existing standards and perhaps some compilation and reformulation of standards. The reply of ICRC focused exclusively on the rights of displaced persons within its area of competence, and did not address the question of the possible need for standards concerning all displaced persons, including those displaced for reasons other than armed conflict. In general, the reply emphasizes the need for better compliance with existing standards. The reply of IOM likewise suggests that existing standards appear to be adequate, and that the main problem is failure to comply with human rights and humanitarian law.

82. The view that existing law is adequate does not appear to contradict the value of compiling and consolidating existing instruments and norms. Even those who questioned the need to develop new standards expressed fewer reservations on, and even support for, the idea of an effort to restate and reaffirm existing standards, with some specifying the need for a "code of conduct" to identify minimum rights.

83. One area for new standards that will require extensive consideration is the issue of humanitarian access. There are certainly international legal presumptions in support of aid to massive numbers of people at risk of starvation, death, genocide, or other humanitarian disasters. As UNHCR points out,

"in order to provide effective protection to internally displaced persons, access of humanitarian agencies to those in need and access of internally displaced persons to safety and relief are fundamental principles which must be addressed ... More work could be done to develop the legal concept of humanitarian access which following General Assembly resolution 46/182 should be based on the consent of the affected country. Consideration should be given to the creation of a mechanism which could be used to obtain such consent and thereby guarantee access".

84. In some cases, however, it is the withholding of consent which constitutes the basis for the humanitarian crisis. Recent events have shown that increasingly the application of Chapter VII of the Charter has been expanded to include massive starvation and other human rights violations, when there is agreement that these constitute threats to international peace and security. In such cases, States are obliged by this prescription to provide access and cooperate in the delivery of humanitarian assistance to those in need. This is certainly critical to internally displaced persons since access is often essential to their survival. As the Department of Humanitarian Affairs stated in its reply to the Representative of the Secretary-General,

"A crucial question for this Department, and the humanitarian agencies, is the problem of access to victims of emergencies and displacement. Many governments see the regulation of access as a fundamental question of the sovereignty of the State. While that viewpoint is understandable, the consensus in the international community appears to be gradually moving in a new direction as may be seen in the recent resolution of the Security Council on Somalia. Further reflection, apart from the guiding principles laid down in General Assembly resolution 46/182 last year, will assist in the evolution of international norms guaranteeing access to the victims of humanitarian emergencies and mass displacement. It is basically a question of striking a balance between sovereignty and solidarity with people in need."

85. The reply of WFP stressed the need for standards concerning the right of humanitarian access:

"WFP, along with a number of other operational UN agencies, has become more frequently involved in delivering relief assistance to internally displaced persons in situations of conflict and civil disorder. Sometimes, as in Somalia, Liberia, Mozambique and Rwanda, WFP is obliged to function in places and at times where there has been a complete breakdown of law and order and there are no authorities to ensure the security of relief operations. In these instances food is frequently the most volatile type of assistance, becoming a magnet for armed elements who extort food or money for protection, or who simply loot entire consignments."

86. Admittedly, the State's obligations to protect certain fundamental rights may be abridged only in narrowly circumscribed emergency situations. Indeed, the emergency situations which have resulted in displacements have not, in many cases, justified a State's derogation from its obligations under the law. But this has not stopped States from denying protection to internally displaced persons. While some legal scholars see the challenge in making enforcement mechanisms more effective, others hold the view that new standards specially tailored to the exigencies of internal displacement would improve the prospects for a more effective regime of protection and assistance.

87. Review and analysis of the various replies sent to the Representative of the Secretary-General lead to the conclusion that it would be useful to prepare a compilation of the existing international standards which are most relevant to the protection of the rights of internally displaced persons. The compilation and evaluation should contain a commentary on the implications of these standards, the extent to which they address the problems faced by internally displaced persons, and practical proposals for their implementation. Such a compilation would be of great practical value to Governments and international bodies. The question of what additional standards specifically concerning internally displaced persons are needed would then be addressed after the compilation of existing standards has been completed.

88. Meanwhile, it is important to emphasize as a matter of urgency that in some cases, effective protection of the human rights of displaced persons to such survival needs as food, water, shelter, medical care and protection against unlawful physical violence and military force, depends on access to humanitarian assistance. These are rights to which every person is entitled, and which every State is obliged to respect. However, experience has shown that there is a need to go further in defining the implication of these universally accepted standards, and in particular the relative rights and responsibilities of individual States and of the international community when faced with large-scale crises in which the lives of tens or hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of persons are at stake.

89. Responsibility for assisting internally displaced persons lies in the first instance with the home country, but if a country is unable or unwilling to meet the minimum standards required by humanitarian or human rights law, these guarantees may be met only through international assistance. Increasingly, gross violations of human rights, especially when they involve masses of people, are being drawn to the attention of the international community, often under pressure from public opinion. Moreover, the international community has demonstrated increasing concern with humanitarian and human rights principles and their application to internally displaced persons. Further, international mechanisms have been instituted and are still being developed to provide protection for victims of gross violations of human rights, whoever commits them and wherever they take place. Measures to implement emerging norms also are being taken, ranging from diplomatic persuasion to more active international action. These trends overlap and interplay, but should be seen as providing a conceptual basis for justifying principles and operational mechanisms for the protection of the internally displaced.

90. Recent developments in the international protection of fundamental human rights have established two concepts critical to the treatment of internally displaced persons. First, an established body of rights now exists which benefits all persons, including the internally displaced. Second, when these basic rights are threatened, the protection of the population involved, including the provision of humanitarian assistance, becomes a matter of international concern.

91. The General Assembly, for example, has acknowledged that, in cases of both civil and natural disaster, the condition of internally displaced persons is of concern to the international community. General Assembly resolution 43/131 on Humanitarian assistance to victims of natural disasters and similar emergency situations recognizes that persons outside the original definition of "refugees" are also within the scope of international, and therefore United Nations, concern. In resolution 46/182 of 19 December 1991, which created the position of Emergency Relief Coordinator, the General Assembly affirmed that humanitarian assistance for victims of natural disasters and other emergencies was a matter of international concern. The Secretary-General has also approved guidelines "stress[ing] the responsibility of States to take care of the victims of emergencies occurring on their territory and the need for access to those requiring humanitarian assistance" (A/47/277-S/24111 of 17 June 1992).

92. Increasing attention to the relief needs of the internally displaced, however, has not been accompanied by increased attention to protection. There is still no mechanism in the United Nations human rights system whose mandate explicitly covers the protection needs of internally displaced persons. The Commission has special rapporteurs and working groups in the areas of enforced or involuntary disappearances, summary or arbitrary executions, torture, arbitrary detention, religious intolerance, the question of mercenaries and the sale of children. But the overall plight and circumstances of internally displaced persons do not fit into these categories and they generally remain outside Commission consideration. The appointment of the Representative is a recognition of this gap although the mandate is envisaged as a first phase covering the preparation of this report.

93. Several States have indicated that the Commission on Human Rights should play a greater role in improving the human rights position of the internally displaced. Cyprus urged greater coordination between humanitarian and human rights bodies within the United Nations system, and added that "human rights bodies should also show an even greater interest in refugee and displaced persons issues, with particular emphasis on human rights violations and on means of protection". Guatemala and Jordan also replied that the Commission should assume a greater role in the promotion and protection of the human rights of displaced persons, on a permanent basis. Similarly, Switzerland recalled that the President of the Confederation in his statement before the forty-eighth session of the Commission, had suggested the creation of a working group of five experts to examine both internal and external displacement with a view to identifying the causes and helping to bring about conditions permitting refugees and displaced persons to return to their homes. No State expressed opposition to the idea that the Commission on Human Rights should assume a more active role in this regard.

94. Among the specialized agencies, WHO considered monitoring and promotion of human rights for displaced populations on a permanent basis to be intricately linked to preventive action designed to avoid situations which lead to conflict and flight. According to WHO, the Commission on Human Rights has an important role to play within a coordinated, overall United Nations strategy.

95. Within the United Nations system, the role of UNHCR is perhaps the most pertinent to the needs of the internally displaced. In its reply to the Representative of the Secretary-General, UNHCR gave a brief but comprehensive review of the areas in which it has been involved in the protection of the internally displaced. In the Horn of Africa and Iraq for example, returnees whom UNHCR was assisting became intermixed with internally displaced persons living in the same areas. Another situation is the "special operations" undertaken at the request of the Secretary-General or the General Assembly. Such was the case with the designation of UNHCR as the lead agency in the relief operations in the former Yugoslavia. The mechanism of a lead agency has proved to be of vital importance in mobilizing the resources of the various organizations whose mandates may not be focused on internally displaced persons, but could nonetheless render valuable protection and assistance under certain circumstances. The third type of situation occurs through participation in international or regional arrangements for the provision of development and humanitarian assistance to refugees and internally displaced persons, for example SARRED in Southern Africa and CIREFCA in Central America.

96. A 1992 Note on International Protection (A/AC.96/799), which reflects the findings and recommendations of an internal Working Group on International Protection established to advise the High Commissioner on how to address new challenges faced by her Office, provides a detailed account of areas in which UNHCR has been actively involved in extending protection to internally displaced persons around the world. It is obvious from the range of activities described that UNHCR's involvement in such significant and multifaceted operations and situations has extended its protection role to new areas. Indeed, UNHCR appears to be prepared to respond to the increasing challenge which the trend of displacement presents to the international community. As the Note states:

"From an examination of the common needs of the various groups for which UNHCR is competent, it is clear that, with protection at the core of UNHCR's mandate, displacement, coupled with the need for protection, is the basis for UNHCR's competence for these groups. The character of the displacement, together with the protection need, must also determine the content of UNHCR's involvement.

The Working Group considered that the same reasoning held true for persons displaced within their own country for refugee-like reasons. While the Office does not have any general competence for this group of persons, certain responsibilities may have to be assumed on their behalf, depending on their protection and assistance needs. In this context, UNHCR should indicate its willingness to extend its humanitarian expertise to internally displaced persons, on a case-by-case basis, in response to requests from the Secretary-General or General Assembly." (paras. 15-16)

97. UNHCR sees its role in the context of complementary inter-agency cooperation, in particular with the Commission on Human Rights. The Note calls for the development of "a joint strategy with human rights bodies, notably the Centre for Human Rights and the United Nations Commission on Human Rights" in "monitoring the basic human rights and physical safety of internally displaced persons". UNHCR, however, stipulates conditions for such involvement; these include a request by the Secretary-General, the consent of all the parties concerned, the availability of adequate funds, and the political support of the international community. The important contribution that UNHCR can make in protecting the rights of internally displaced persons should therefore not obscure the essential difference in the mandate of that Office and a special thematic mechanism on internally displaced persons. In its reply to the Representative of the Secretary-General, UNHCR indeed states that "in the case of internally displaced persons, there is no specific legal instrument that addresses their particular protection needs let alone a body unequivocally mandated to undertake the protection of internally displaced persons who are not receiving such protection from their own country." The High Commissioner herself, in a meeting with the Representative of the Secretary-General, indicated that her Office would welcome the opportunity to cooperate more closely with the Commission in the protection of the human rights of internally displaced persons, including through any thematic procedure which the Commission might decide to create.

98. ICRC indicated that "in the field, cooperation with the organizations on the spot is very often necessary in order to avoid a duplication of relief work", as long as this does not lead to "a confusion of the respective mandates" of the agencies and organizations concerned, nor prejudice the unique role of the ICRC as "custodian of the rules designed to limit human suffering in times of armed conflict".

99. IIDH strongly supported the creation by the Commission on Human Rights of a thematic mechanism with monitoring functions.

100. The non-governmental organizations which replied also supported the creation of a thematic mechanism on internally displaced persons, in some cases offering suggestions as to the functions which it might assume. The Friends World Committee for Consultation suggested a list of functions which include: to seek and receive information, liaise with relevant parts of the United Nations system and concerned regional organizations, enter into dialogue with concerned parties, undertake fact-finding missions and monitor existing situations, initiate case studies of situations of internal displacement, draft new protection principles, advise the Secretary-General on measures to be taken to alleviate the plight of internally displaced persons, and provide the Secretary-General with early warning of internal displacement and potential refugee flows.

101. The Refugee Policy Group submission emphasizes the need for international monitoring and reporting on the worldwide situation of those internally displaced. "At present, there is no systematic collection of information about internally displaced persons or any public international reporting about their protection needs." To effectively address the human rights dimension of internal displacement, "a permanent thematic mechanism should be created and tailored to meet the specific needs of internally displaced persons". Specifically, the RPG submission recommended that the Representative of the Secretary-General on internally displaced persons (assuming it is the mechanism chosen by the Commission) be given fact-finding, monitoring, and reporting functions so that he/she might fill the reporting and monitoring gap on the internally displaced.

102. RPG also recommends that the Representative has the authority to promote dialogue and remedies and further emphasizes the need for coordination with humanitarian agencies. Since UNHCR, DHA, the United Nations resident coordinators and the specialized agencies are all involved in the provision of assistance and relief to internally displaced persons, it is essential that the Representative "maintain a direct relationship" with these parts of the United Nations either personally or through the office of the Secretary-General in order to reinforce the humanitarian efforts of United Nations agencies.

103. Some replies viewed the mandate of the Representative quite broadly and went further in suggesting how the United Nations system as a whole could respond more effectively to the plight of internally displaced persons. The reply of Guatemala proposed the establishment of a United Nations Office for the Protection of Displaced Persons having both protection and assistance functions. A similar suggestion was made by representatives of the Sudan. In their view, the United Nations should establish an institution comparable to UNHCR for the protection of internally displaced persons. This position was subsequently confirmed in the meetings held by the Representative with the authorities during the visit to the Sudan.

104. China and WFP suggest that the mandate of UNHCR should be formally redefined to include the internally displaced. Among the elements stipulated by WFP are first, that displaced persons, refugees and returnees should be combined as one category of beneficiaries; second, that the United Nations human rights system should operate within the existing United Nations operational mechanism for emergencies where the most immediate effect on the welfare of the beneficiaries, including human rights, would be achieved; third, that UNHCR should be the lead agency for operations related to displaced persons as they are now for refugees; and fourth, that the Department of Humanitarian Affairs is the appropriate mechanism for emergency action, including displaced persons and refugees.

105. Because of the major gap in the existing mechanisms of the international community for the protection of the internally displaced, the appointment of a mandated person with close institutional connection with the Secretary-General and therefore the cooperation of the various organs of the Secretariat and the United Nations system has been uniformly well received. In his reply to the Representative, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs called for close cooperation between his Department and the new mechanism on the internally displaced:

"We welcome your appointment as the Representative of the Secretary-General on the human rights issues related to internally displaced persons. The conditions they face and their growing number require that their need for legal protection and humanitarian assistance be addressed comprehensively and effectively. In our efforts to coordinate and bring coherence to the response of the United Nations system to humanitarian emergencies, including natural disasters, the problem of addressing the needs of the internally displaced has been a particularly difficult one. We therefore see the need for, and are ready to assist in efforts to improve their legal, economic, and social situation.

"I attach great importance to the work you have already initiated. It is timely and will, no doubt, assist the international community to act on the overall issue of displacement. The process so far has mostly been practice-oriented, but there is no doubt that the legal dimension is of great significance. The Commission on Human Rights should be encouraged to play a greater role in promoting and protecting the human rights of the displaced. I am confident that a coordinated approach towards the monitoring of human rights practices, with a closer link between the work of the Commission on Human Rights and the activities of my Department and the humanitarian bodies, could result in improved care for, and protection of, the displaced populations. Indeed this will also assist this Department in carrying out the responsibilities entrusted to it by resolution 46/182."

106. Cooperation with both UNHCR and DHA is rendered the more vital by the fact that UNHCR has extended its protection mandate to the internally displaced only on an ad hoc basis, while DHA has no protection mandate on human rights matters. This clearly indicates a vacuum in terms of institutional policy formulation and operational activities concerning internally displaced persons for which a special mandate is needed. Indeed, both UNHCR and DHA believe that the Commission should play a greater role in providing protection for internally displaced persons.

107. It would appear timely and appropriate to establish a focal point on displaced persons within the United Nations human rights system. Such focal point could take the form of reaffirming and expanding the mechanism of the Representative of the Secretary-General, or appointing a Special Rapporteur of the Commission or a Working Group composed of independent experts.

108. The Representative, Rapporteur or Working Group on internally displaced persons could be a focal point in a strategic process involving three sets of interconnected functions. One would comprise collecting information concerning displacement; investigating allegations; making contact with Governments and displaced populations and promoting dialogue and remedies; and reporting and maintaining liaison with other competent United Nations bodies. In contrast to existing thematic procedures, which focus primarily on individual cases, the work of the Representative, Rapporteur or Working Group would mainly concern situations involving groups of persons. While there may be inherent inconsistencies or conflict in the monitoring, fact-finding and mediation functions of the envisaged mechanism, aspects of these various roles would need to be played by the Representative, Rapporteur or Working Group, perhaps with the assistance of "independent" authorities with "delegated" fact-finding or monitoring functions to safeguard effective neutrality, objectivity or credibility with both parties.

109. It is essential that field missions be an integral part of the working methods, subject to the agreement of the States concerned. A significant part of this would be intercession on behalf of the internally displaced. This procedure has already been initiated, albeit to a limited degree, by the Representative of the Secretary-General, who visited since his appointment in July 1992 five countries in Africa, Europe and Latin America, all of which have or have had large numbers of internally displaced persons. His contacts with those Governments, as well as with United Nations agencies, foreign missions and non-governmental bodies in those countries, convinced him that such an approach is not only feasible, but could indeed be an effective way of achieving concrete results.

110. Once established, there are a number of measures which the Commission could take through the mechanism of the Representative, Rapporteur or Working Group, for example the stationing of regional or country human rights monitors in the field. In addition to providing information about the needs of those internally displaced, monitors also can act as a deterrent to human rights abuse. The General Assembly, as well as the Commission on Human Rights, recently requested that the Secretary-General provide the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the former Yugoslavia with staff based in the territories of the former Yugoslavia and adequate to ensure effective continuous monitoring of the human rights situation there.

111. The proposed mechanism could present a comprehensive annual report to the Commission on Human Rights. In addition, it should provide reports when urgent situations arise, which could be considered by the Commission under its recently established emergency procedure. The extent to which access to relief assistance is being provided would be covered in the reports. As UNDP pointed out in its submission for the analytical report, the international community should be able to acknowledge that refusing available relief assistance to persons in need constitutes a fundamental human rights violation and that practical steps should be taken to include "the monitoring and acting upon such violations as part of the mainstream work of human rights groups, including the United Nations Commission on Human Rights."

112. The Representative, Rapporteur or Working Group should coordinate its activities with UNDP, DHA, UNHCR, WFP, WHO, IOM, ICRC and other agencies and organizations which provide relief and assistance to displaced persons in order to ensure complementarity in their respective efforts. While respecting the mandates and technical competence of such agencies, the Representative, Rapporteur or Working Group would also be able to help them ensure that human rights criteria are sufficiently understood and taken into account in the planning and execution of their activities in favour of displaced persons. In this regard, the Representative of the Secretary-General found that the experience of participating in the mission of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the former Yugoslavia provided useful insight into the constructive and mutually supporting role a human rights mechanism can have in collaborating with other United Nations and international agencies and missions.

113. Strengthening collaboration of the proposed mechanism with the different country mechanisms can serve to increase Commission protection for the internally displaced. Since the reports on specific countries focus only on the countries concerned and, moreover, cover a broad range of human rights problems and cannot be expected to deal in detail with the protection needs of the internally displaced, country mechanisms can serve as complements to the proposed mechanism for the internally displaced.

114. Cooperation between the envisaged mechanism and human rights bodies at the regional level could contribute significantly to advancing protection for internally displaced persons. Significant among these organizations are the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). It is noteworthy that the Representative of the Secretary-General has already established contact with the African Commission through its Chairman and during his visit to the former Yugoslavia was able to cooperate with field representatives of the CSCE who also found the mission of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the former Yugoslavia very useful for their purposes.

115. Critical to protection is the development of preventive strategies to deal with the human rights violations causing the massive uprooting of people. Some have suggested an annual review of human rights violations in specific countries and regions that give rise to mass exodus. Others have recommended that the Commission call upon the Secretary-General to establish direct contacts with Governments of countries from which mass exoduses may originate. This was actually proposed by the Commission in 1980 (resolution 30 (XXXVI)). Holding Governments responsible for mass exodus was also among the recommendations of the Group of Governmental Experts on International Cooperation to Avert New Flows of Refugees which presented its final report to the General Assembly in 1986 (A/41/324, annex).

116. An effective early warning system will be needed to alert the international community to impending mass displacements. In this regard it should be noted that in April 1991 the Administrative Committee on Coordination (ACC) decided to set up an Ad Hoc Working Group on Early Warning regarding New Flows of Refugees and Displaced Persons with a view to developing an effective United Nations early warning system. In its report to the ACC, the Working Group recommended the establishment of a United Nations early warning system through a building process that would begin with the immediate creation of a United Nations inter-agency consultative mechanism.

117. The proposed consultative mechanism would entail each participating United Nations organization collecting and analysing relevant information in its area(s) of competence. They would send this information, together with possible recommendations for United Nations action, on a monthly basis to a focal point. A substantial part of this information collection and analysis could be done at the country level.

118. Regular monthly consultations among the participating organizations would be organized by the focal point to arrive at collective conclusions and recommendations for submission to the Secretary-General, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, and the heads of the participating United Nations organizations and agencies. Ad hoc special consultations could be arranged and alert bulletins created on an emergency basis as required.

119. The report of the Ad Hoc Working Group includes the Centre for Human Rights among the agencies or offices which should participate in the consultative mechanism. The Centre could certainly have a role in collecting human rights information and helping to identify situations leading to massive displacements. The Centre's capacity, however, is limited given the fact that it does not at present have field offices which could make assessments and provide rapid and reliable first-hand information in a systematic way. Nevertheless, through country missions by the Representative, Rapporteur or Working Group, and possible location of monitors at national or regional levels, developments liable to lead to massive population movements can sometimes be detected and brought to the attention of the international community, in particular the Commission on Human Rights.

120. For example, the reports of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the former Yugoslavia have identified areas where massive human rights violations and displacements might occur. It would be useful if all the thematic and country mechanisms could be tasked to identify situations of rapidly deteriorating human rights conditions that have the potential to produce massive displacements. When such situations are identified, the Commission could bring them to the attention of the Secretary-General for rapid international action.

121. The Commission could also consider how its own monitoring mechanisms could help assist appropriate operational bodies, such as UNHCR, ascertain when conditions are sufficiently safe to warrant the return home of internally displaced persons and refugees. It could explore whether a system of international monitoring could be created to report on returnees and seek to ensure that the right of return is exercised in safety. In the Sudan the Representative of the Secretary-General observed the difference between those able to return home to a situation of relative security and dignity and those suffering often degrading conditions in camps.

122. The Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, in his reply to the Representative of the Secretary-General, noted that "The work also need[s] to include the search for opportunities for displaced persons to return home and for reintegration into their own communities, as well as long-term socio-economic development strategies that would facilitate their resumption of a normal life in conditions of security and stability, either in their native land or in a third country." Interceding with the authorities and the donor community to facilitate the return of those among the displaced in the camps around Khartoum who wished to return to their areas of origin was one of the positive outcomes of the Representative's visit to the Sudan.

123. Since the human rights dimension of the displacement problem often intersects with the political and security problems of the countries concerned, the question arises whether the role of the Representative, Rapporteur or Working Group as envisaged in the original mandate and elaborated in this study will adequately meet the challenge or whether additional mechanisms within the Secretariat and the wider United Nations system will be required. As mentioned earlier, Guatemala and the Sudan suggested that the United Nations should aim at establishing a mechanism for internally displaced persons comparable to that accorded refugees through the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, especially considering that the number of displaced resulting from internal conflicts is greater than the dislocations in Europe following the Second World War that motivated the establishment of the regime for refugees.

124. Pending the resolution of this institutional issue, it would be useful for each of the major organs of the United Nations system whose mandate is relevant to the internally displaced, whether they be operational or standard setting in function, to consider establishing units within their system to focus on the problems of internally displaced persons.

125. In view of the monumental demands which a thematic mandate is bound to entail, in order for it to be effective in providing significant protection for the internally displaced populations around the world the Representative, Rapporteur or Working Group will need to rely very heavily on the assistance and support of the Centre for Human Rights, especially in the collection and processing of information on the conditions of the internally displaced. This would require enhancing the present meagre resources of the Centre for this particular purpose, and would also allow the use of monitors in serious situations.

126. Within the envisaged institutional framework, the Representative, Rapporteur or Working Group would focus on the human rights dimension of the problem and act as a link and a catalyst among the various organs of the United Nations involved with policy formulation and operational programmes, reporting to the Commission on Human Rights, the Secretary-General and, through him, to the General Assembly and the Security Council, as necessary.

127. There is at present no single organization within the United Nations system responsible for the protection and assistance of the internally displaced. Several organizations, most notably UNHCR, operationally manage programmes that reach internally displaced persons, but only in an ad hoc manner. Given the magnitude of the problem and the likely increase in the numbers of the internally displaced, the United Nations is called upon to create some mechanism, whether a Representative, Rapporteur or Working Group, that can serve as a focal point for international protection, help mobilize the efforts of existing United Nations bodies involved with assistance and protection, and can act to dialogue and advocate on behalf of internally displaced persons.

128. Because the needs and challenges associated with the internally displaced cut across so many operational and organizational lines within the United Nations system, such a mechanism, to be most effective, would benefit from an institutional association with the office of the Secretary-General.

129. If a Representative of the Secretary-General on internally displaced persons is mandated, the position would have two roles. The first would be to monitor conditions and alert the international community as necessary to initiate needed actions. The second is an operational role that would include interceding with States and other concerned parties to alleviate problems and assist in providing protection and assistance. As these two roles could conflict in specific situations, due regard would have to be given to insuring that neither is compromised, perhaps through the use of independent monitors by the Representative of the Secretary-General.

130. In the longer run, it would be desirable for the United Nations either to explicitly mandate UNHCR or set up an equivalent body to cater more specifically to the needs of internally displaced persons. Indeed, one of the subsidiary objectives of the Representative of the Secretary-General may well be to study the available options and to recommend action at an appropriate time.

131. Meanwhile, the crisis confronting the internally displaced cannot wait for the ultimate resolution of the institutional ambiguities. Practical normative and operational measures are urgently needed to alleviate the crisis. Even where existing international norms apply to internally displaced persons, enforcement is seriously lacking. The international community, once informed of an impending or existing problem by the envisaged mechanism of the Representative of the Secretary-General, could use its full range of resources to extend protection and assistance to those in need.

132. A crucial factor in understanding the problem of displacement is that most displaced persons are in and from developing countries with acute problems of nation-building: crises of national identity and unity, ineffective authority and control, limited capacity for economic productivity and resource distribution and, above all, tension between central political and economic forces and the demand for autonomy and equitable participation on the part of component constituencies. While international legal standards and enforcement mechanisms are critically important to remedying the gross violations of human rights that emanate from internal conflicts, appreciating the underlying causes of these conflicts is crucial, both to designing appropriate measures aimed at addressing the problems at their domestic roots and to initiating ameliorative actions before problems reach the crisis level.

133. When massive displacements of populations occur, the provision of emergency relief must be combined with measures to protect human rights and with longer-term strategies that address the underlying causes. Reconciling the external perspective of universal standards and the internal dynamics calls for widening the global consensus behind respect for human dignity on which the principles of protection for the internally displaced persons are ultimately founded. Unless the relativist perspective agrees with and reinforces universal standards, it cannot be sustainable in a world of increasing global consciousness and active concern.

134. In order to appreciate the challenge facing the international community in confronting the increasing problems of the internally displaced, it is necessary to have a good understanding of the evolutionary process that has led to the current crisis of displacement and the foundation of the emerging global concern with the crisis. This process has occurred in three principal phases: the phase of the imperial and cold war domination from which self-liberation was the collective cause of the dominated; the independence period and the repressive impact of the cold war; and the post-cold-war challenges of the rising demand for democracy and the protection of fundamental human rights and humanitarian principles.

135. The starting-point in many of the affected countries has to be the colonial State and its unification of the diverse groups which it kept, paradoxically, separate and unintegrated. Ethnic groups were broken up and affiliated with others within the artificial borders of the new State system. While the colonial powers were the third-party moderators of ethnic coexistence and interaction, they imposed a superstructure of law and order that often was stratified on the bases of racial, ethnic, cultural and religious differences and inequities. Although the basic needs of survival were provided by the State, social, economic and political development were low on the priority list of the colonial State.

136. The independence movement reinforced the notion of unity within the framework of the newly established nation State. Independence came to most of these countries as a collective gain that did not initially disaggregate who was to get what from the legacy of centralized power and wealth. And indeed, colonial structures and processes of control had divested the local communities and ethnic groups of much of their indigenous autonomy and sustainable livelihood and replaced them with a degree of centralized authority and dependency on the State system.

137. In the countries of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, comparable conditions prevailed in that a superstructure of authority and control maintained a system of law and order that suppressed the aspirations of nationalities, ethnic groups, and other identities. Although the basic material needs of the population were provided by the State, a massive violation or denial of fundamental political and civil rights eventually generated the democratic movement that contributed to the collapse of the system.

138. Once the control of these centralized institutions and sources of survival passed on to the nationalists, the inevitable outcome was conflict over power, wealth, and developmental opportunities. These conflicts often led to gross violations of human rights, denial of civil liberties and disruption of economic and social life, with consequential frustration of development and weakening of the national capacity to meet the basic needs of the masses of the population.

139. Given the cold war conditions that pervaded the international system, these global actors responded to their ideological or strategic considerations rather than the proper domestic context of competition for power and resources. The rival ideological camps often aggravated the conflicts by providing military and economic assistance to their allies or satellites and only rarely sponsored peaceful resolution efforts. The superstructures of the cold war, however, kept an effective lid on these internal boiling pots to maintain a notion of global order that was more interested in apparent or formal stability than in its substantive and qualitative content in terms of peace, democracy, prosperity, and respect for human dignity.

140. When the end of the cold war began to manifest itself, stimulated by and stimulating the democratization process in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, many saw a new and promising era emerge on the global scene. What many did not fully anticipate was that the bipolar confrontation of the cold war would be replaced by the disintegration of the Soviet Union; that Yugoslavia, which had stood as a model of unity in diversity, would fall apart; that ethnic tensions and conflicts would proliferate in many parts of the world.

141. While the end of the cold war has eliminated ideologically driven alliances that were insensitive to local demands for legitimacy, it also removed the "global arrangements" of the super-Powers as moderators and mutually neutralizing allies. The results have been unmitigated brutality and devastation in many parts of the world.

142. It can be credibly argued that these internal conflicts present an opportunity and a challenging paradox in that the ethnic pieces that were welded and kept together by the colonial glue, reinforced by the cold war order, are now pulling apart and reasserting their demands for equitable national unity and in some cases calling for autonomy or independence from the controls of centralized authority. Identities that were undermined and rendered dormant by the structures, values, and institutions of the nation State system are re-emerging and redefining the standards of participation, distribution, and legitimacy. New identity groups are also emerging, asserting themselves, and contesting the patterns of distribution of power, wealth, and other resources.

143. Two contradictory trends, toward enlarged unity and fragmentation, seem to be occurring concurrently: the tendency toward broadened regional arrangements in Europe, North America and other regions illustrates the first while the developments in the successor States of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Ethiopia, along with a host of other countries, dramatize the second. These two models suggest that those who have been oppressed by concentrated control are asserting the need for self-expression and recognition, while those already free are choosing to move pragmatically toward larger cooperative frameworks. The challenge then becomes one of balancing the rights of various groups, especially majorities and minorities. When the problems involved concern the suffering of the masses to the point of starvation to death and gross violations of fundamental human rights, to which the world community cannot close its eyes or conscience, the need for international action becomes imperative. The internally displaced are often among the most affected in those humanitarian tragedies.

144. These conflictual internal conditions did not adequately draw the attention of the peacemaking actors at the international level. Cold war global politics stifled international attention to the problems of human rights and created deadlocks in the major international organizations that largely prevented effective action on a cooperative basis.

145. Certain leaders in developing States used the existence of super-Power rivalry to gain access to military and economic resources that helped them remain in power. By siding with one or another power in the cold war competition, these leaders benefited from the bipolar international system, thereby allowing them to ignore the appeals of their own citizens for more attention to human rights and democracy. By involving themselves in the cold war global system, a number of authoritarian leaders received international support if not legitimacy. This pattern was particularly pronounced in areas deemed strategically important to one of the super-Powers. In regions of lesser importance to the United States or the Soviet Union, cold war competition had a lesser impact on indigenous political and social developments. Some leaders explicitly sought to avoid the entanglements of external competition and tried to remain non-aligned or to build organizations focused on the underdeveloped South.

146. The end of the cold war fortunately has opened up a new era for international protection of the internally displaced. The international community can now address internal conflicts on a cooperative basis and thereby help countries deal with the problems of displacement at their root causes. In the case of developing countries, the emerging post-cold war international order has decidedly removed the external factor of super-Power rivalry and placed their problems in their regional and national contexts. Causes and effects are now increasingly recognized as primarily internal, a development which has both positive and negative implications, posing acute problems and challenging opportunities.

147. The positive is that attention is being appropriately focused on the internal challenges of nation-building: equitable national unity, sharing of political power, economic growth and patterns of distribution. The negative aspect is that unless the root causes of these internal conflicts and their consequences are preventively addressed, gross violations of human rights and indeed humanitarian disasters will continue to afflict large portions of humankind. It is important in this respect to realize that ethnicity often overlaps with class. After all, regional differences are a consequence of different rates of modernization or development and can become equivalent to ethnic class differences. All these factors should play a critical role in designing solutions to the problems of internal conflicts, including displacement induced by poverty and economic deprivation. It is this complexity and the socio-economic dynamics of internal displacement that make the required protection more than one of legal norms or prescriptions, even though legal standards provide important guiding principles.

148. The objectives for such international assistance and protection invoke two sets of principles: one is the immediate alleviation of the situation by providing emergency relief, protection and assistance for the affected communities or persons; the other is the establishment of structures and institutional arrangements for the long-term sustainability of a functioning system of protection that meets the minimum standards of human dignity prescribed by the international instruments.

149. International concern with humanitarian tragedies of the magnitude now being experienced by Somalia and the former Yugoslavia, to mention two among many, and the action needed to alleviate the suffering cannot end with the mere delivery of relief assistance. Ultimately, the range of international assistance may extend from short-term relief and protection to international help in reconstructing public order and civil society.

150. The operative principles in both phases must be equity, justice and human dignity, subsumed in the protection of fundamental human rights. The observance of these principles often requires a third party as mediator, moderator and peacemaker. Regional organizations have a vital role to play, although lack of resources and political will constrain their ability to act effectively. In certain situations of massive humanitarian crises, the ultimate authority with global legitimacy and responsibility is the United Nations. Such a role, aimed at establishing peace, justice, security and the protection of fundamental human rights, has a compelling and legitimate moral justification.

151. International concern with these fundamental human rights issues is in full accord with the cardinal principle of sovereignty. No Government can legitimately invoke sovereignty for the deliberate purpose of starving its population to death or otherwise denying them access to protection and resources vital to their survival and well-being. The presumption that if a Government is incapable of providing protection and assistance then the international community should act, either on the invitation of the host country or with international consensus, to fill the vacuum is in consonance with the principle of sovereignty.

152. Changing patterns which favour international action are reflected in the recent approaches of the human rights policy-making bodies which have increasingly resorted to the appointment of special rapporteurs, working groups or representatives with mandates relating to sensitive and complex matters of human rights protection and assistance to persons in the domestic context. These procedures contrast very sharply with those followed by the United Nations in the past and signify considerable progress on behalf of universal humanitarian and human rights protection and assistance.

153. Judging from the evidence on the ground in the countries visited by the Representative of the Secretary-General, these new trends have significantly transmitted the message of global concern to the affected masses of the internally displaced. Their aspirations for international protection and assistance have been commensurately lifted. The sense of optimism and empowerment that is emerging with this lifting of aspirations and expectations is also fostering cooperative responsiveness on the part of Governments and other controlling authorities. The prospects of international cooperation, diplomatic persuasion, and, in exceptional circumstances, collective international action, all interplay to promote greater attention to the rights and needs of the affected population.

154. The increasing concern of the international community with the cause of the internally displaced persons should not, however, be exaggerated as having adequately met the challenge posed by the humanitarian and human rights agenda for their protection and assistance. Indeed, one of the major on-site observations of the Representative of the Secretary-General was the degree to which aspirations and expectations within the affected countries by far exceed the capacity of the United Nations bodies to deliver the protection and assistance which their visibility promises the needy. The challenge is, of course, not to diminish the visibility, but rather to enhance the capacity of the United Nations to deliver.