A Half-Century of International Refugee Protection: Who's Responsible, What's Ahead

Abstract

The dawning of a new century and millennium in the year 2001 roughly coincides with the commemoration of fifty years of responsibility-sharing by States in an international system designed to protect and assist refugees. Toward the end of 2000, we will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). On December 14, 1950, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution creating the office of a High Commissioner for Refugees. This position, under the auspices of the United Nations, would provide "international protection" to refugees and seek "permanent solutions" for the problem of refugees in conjunction with the governments of member states. In the year 2001, we will reach another landmark: 50 years since the adoption of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Under different circumstances, the endurance for half a century of an institution in which all the world's States and citizens continue to be stakeholders would have called for a celebration. Why are we not celebrating? It is indicative of the ambivalence with which most people view the refugee issue that the UNHCR, after much internal reflection, has decided that now would not be a good time to "celebrate." Indeed, one doubts whether there could ever be a good time to celebrate such an issue. Instead, a decision was made to focus on the strengths, potential and resilience of refugees as individuals and as communities throughout the world, in order to bring into sharp relief both the plight of refugees and their proximity to the ordinary person in the street. In so doing, the UNHCR hopes also to affirm the morale and value of all those who, along with the UNHCR, assist and advocate for the rights of refugees and the forcibly displaced. In December of 1950, the establishment of the UNHCR was a preliminary, and necessary, step toward achieving the goal of an effective, although young,