The state of the world's refugees, 2000 : fifty years of humanitarian action.

Format:

Book

Government document

Contributor:

Cutts, Mark.

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Refugees--International cooperation--History--20th century.

Refugees.

Humanitarian assistance--History--20th century.

Humanitarian assistance.

Refugees--Legal status, laws, etc--History--20th century.

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees--History--20th century.

History.

Refugees--Legal status, laws, etc.

Refugees--International cooperation.

Physical Description:

xi, 340 pages : illustrations (some color), maps ; 25 cm

Other Title:

Fifty years of humanitarian action

Place of Publication:

Geneva : UNHCR ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2000.

Summary:

Refugees and other displaced people are the victims of events beyond their control: persecution, armed conflict, and human rights violations. Increasingly, they are also recognized as an important factor affecting both national security and world politics. With over a million people forced to flee their homes in Kosovo, East Timor, and Chechnya in 1999 alone, it is clear that the problem of forced displacement will remain a major concern of the international community in the 21st century.

This book describes the development of international refugee law and the establishment of institutions devoted to the protection of refugees and other displaced people. It traces the major crises in which UNHCR has been involved since its establishment 50 years ago. Beginning with the mass displacement in Europe after the Second World War, the book addresses the flight of refugees from Hungary in 1956, crises associated with the process of decolonization in Africa, the Bangladesh refugee emergency in 1971, the sustained exodus from Indochina which began in the 1970s, and the large outflows resulting from the protracted wars of the 1980s in Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, and Central America.

Looking at the challenges of the 1990s, the book examines the population shifts in the former Soviet region, the Kurdish exodus from northern Iraq following the Gulf war, the increasingly restrictive asylum policies in Europe and North America, and the recent crises in the Balkans, the Great Lakes region of Africa, East Timor, and the Caucasus.

In this timely and important publication, UNHCR emphasizes the need to find lasting solutions to problems of forced displacement. Without human security, it argues, there can be no peace and stability.

Contents:

International approaches to refugee protection

History of forced displacement

1 The early years 13

The UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration

The International Refugee Organization

The establishment of UNHCR

The drafting of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention

The Hungarian crisis of 1956

1.1 High Commissioners Nansen and McDonald 15

1.2 United Nations assistance to Palestinian refugees 20

1.3 The 1951 UN Refugee Convention 23

1.4 Germany's refugee compensation scheme 28

1.5 Chinese refugees in Hong Kong 33

2 Decolonization in Africa 37

The Algerian war of independence

Decolonization south of the Sahara

Rwanda and the Great Lakes region

Expanding the international refugee regime

2.1 Flight from Rhodesia, return to Zimbabwe 45

2.2 The 1967 Protocol to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention 53

2.3 The 1969 OAU Refugee Convention 55

3 Rupture in South Asia 59

The birth of the state of Bangladesh

Repatriation and population exchanges

UNHCR's expanding role in Asia

3.1 The Tibetan refugee community in India 63

3.2 The expulsion of South Asians from Uganda 69

3.3 The plight of the Rohingyas 75

4 Flight from Indochina 79

War and exodus from Viet Nam

Cambodian refugees in Thailand

Laotian refugees in Thailand

Indochina as a turning point

4.1 International conferences on Indochinese refugees 84

4.2 Piracy in the South China Sea 87

4.3 Vietnamese refugees in the United States 90

4.4 Indochina's unaccompanied minors 94

5 Proxy wars in Africa, Asia and Central America 105

War and famine in the Horn of Africa

Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran

Mass displacement in Central America

Conflict resolution and repatriation

5.1 Refugee camps and settlements 108

5.2 Mozambican refugees in Malawi 112

5.3 The 1984 Cartagena Declaration 123

5.4 Chile under General Pinochet 126

6 Repatriation and peacebuilding in the early 1990s 133

The Namibian repatriation

Repatriation in Central America

The Cambodian repatriation

The Mozambican repatriation

Changing approaches to repatriation and reintegration

6.1 Protecting refugee children 138

6.2 Linking relief and development 142

6.3 Human rights and refugees 150

7 Asylum in the industrialized world 155

The evolution of asylum policy in Europe

Resettlement and asylum in North America

Asylum policies in Australia, New Zealand and Japan

Preserving the right to seek asylum

7.1 European Union asylum policy 159

7.2 Non-state agents of persecution 163

7.3 Funding trends 166

7.4 Haitian asylum seekers 176

8 Displacement in the former Soviet region 185

The Soviet legacy

Conflicts in the South Caucasus and Tajikistan

New challenges in CIS countries

Conflict in the North Caucasus

The challenges ahead

8.1 Statelessness and disputed citizenship 189

8.2 Non-governmental organizations 194

8.3 Armed attacks on humanitarian personnel 206

9 War and humanitarian action: Iraq and the Balkans 211

The Kurdish crisis in northern Iraq

War in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Kosovo crisis

Limits of humanitarian action in times of war

9.1 Internally displaced persons 214

9.2 East Timor: the cost of independence 236

9.3 International criminal justice 240

10 The Rwandan genocide and its aftermath 245

The mass exodus from Rwanda

Flight from the refugee camps

Searching for lost refugees in Zaire

A new phase in the Congolese war

10.1 The problem of militarized refugee camps 248

10.2 Refugees and the AIDS pandemic 253

10.3 Somalia: from exodus to diaspora 256

10.4 War and displacement in West Africa 260

10.5 Western Sahara: refugees in the desert 266

11 The changing dynamics of displacement 275

Technical notes on statistical information 301

1 States party to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, the 1967 Protocol, the 1969 OAU Refugee Convention and members of UNHCR's Executive Committee (EXCOM), as on 31 December 1999 302

2 Number of refugees and others of concern to UNHCR, 31 December 1999 306

3 Estimated number of refugees by region, 1950-99 310

4 Refugee populations by main country of asylum, 1980-99 311

5 Largest refugee populations by origin, 1980-99 314

6 Refugee populations by origin and country/territory of asylum, 31 December 1999 316

7 Refugees per 1,000 inhabitants: top 40 countries as on 31 December 1999 319

8 Number of refugees in the Great Lakes region of Africa, 1960-99 320

9 Asylum applications and refugee admissions to selected industrialized states, 1990-99 321

10 Main country/territory of origin of asylum seekers in Western Europe, 1990-99 325

11 UN High Commissioners for Refugees, 1951-2000 326.

Notes:

"Managing editor and principal author, Mark Cutts ... Main contributing authors, Joel Boutroue ... [et al.]"--P. [iii].

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

019924104X

0199241066

OCLC:

45786142