Part 3 Protection, 10 International Cooperation, Protection, and Solutions

Abstract

This chapter addresses international cooperation, protection, and solutions. ‘Protection’ is useful shorthand to describe the complex of obligations derived from general international law and from international refugee and human rights law. ‘Protection’ is often an end in itself, but it also has a goal beyond that moment, which is a durable solution in which refugees can live in safety and with dignity, not subject to arbitrary expulsion, discrimination, or alienation. ‘Solutions’, in turn, is the overarching objective of the international refugee regime itself, premised upon international cooperation to solve humanitarian problems, which is among the purposes and guiding principles of the United Nations. The chapter considers the rights background which undergirds the situation of the displaced, and then examines the three traditional durable solutions of voluntary repatriation, local integration, and resettlement, as well as labour mobility and other complementary pathways that may secure refugees admission to, and inclusion in, a State.