Over fifty years ago governments established the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to protect the world's refugees. The UNHCR was created to be a human rights and advocacy organization. But governments also created the agency to promote regional and international stability and to serve the interests of states. Consequently, the UNHCR has always trod a perilous path between its mandate to protect refugees and asylum seekers and the demands placed upon it by states to be a relevant actor in world politics. This is the first independent history of the UNHCR. Gil Loescher, one of the world's leading experts on refugee affairs, draws upon decades of personal experience and research to examine the origins and evolution of the UNHCR as well as to identify many of the major challenges facing the organization in the years ahead. A key focus is to examine the extent to which the evolution of the UNHCR has been framed by the crucial events of international politics during the past half century and how, in turn, the actions of the eight past High Commissioners have helped shape the course of world history. Each chapter tells the story of an individual High Commissioner and examines the unique contributions made to the development of the Office. The history of the last fifty years shows how the UNHCR has initiated and capitalized on international political developments to progressively expand its scope and authority as an important actor in world politics. The book argues that the UNHCR has overstretched itself in recent decades and has strayed from its central human rights protection role. The protection of refugees remains a litmus test of the international community's commitment to defend human rights and to uphold liberal democratic values. Loescher offers a series of bold policy recommendations aimed at making the agency a more effective and accountable advocate for the millions of refugees in the world today.

This revised and expanded second edition of The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) continues to offer a concise and comprehensive introduction to both the world of refugees and the organizations that protect and assist them. This updated edition also includes: up to date coverage of the UNHCR’s most recent history and policy developments evaluation of new thinking on issues such as working in UN integrated operations and within the UN peacebuilding commission assessment of the UNHCR’s record of working for IDP’s (internally displaced persons) discussion of the politics of protection and its implications for the work of the UNHCR outline of the new challenges for the agency including environmental refugees, victims of natural disasters and survival migrants. Written by experts in the field, this is one of the very few books to trace the relationship between state interests, global politics, and the work of the UNHCR. This book will appeal to students, scholars, practitioners, and readers with an interest in international relations.

Drawing together the work and ideas of a combination of the world's leading and emerging International Relations scholars, Refugees in International Relations considers what ideas from International Relations can offer our understanding of the international politics of forced migration. The insights draw from across the theoretical spectrum of International Relations from realism to critical theory to feminism, covering issues including international cooperation, security, and the international political economy.

Rules for the World provides an innovative perspective on the behavior of international organizations and their effects on global politics. Arguing against the conventional wisdom that these bodies are little more than instruments of states, Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore begin with the fundamental insight that international organizations are bureaucracies that have authority to make rules and so exercise power. At the same time, Barnett and Finnemore maintain, such bureaucracies can become obsessed with their own rules, producing unresponsive, inefficient, and self-defeating outcomes. Authority thus gives international organizations autonomy and allows them to evolve and expand in ways unintended by their creators. Barnett and Finnemore reinterpret three areas of activity that have prompted extensive policy debate: the use of expertise by the IMF to expand its intrusion into national economies; the redefinition of the category "refugees" and decision to repatriate by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; and the UN Secretariat's failure to recommend an intervention during the first weeks of the Rwandan genocide. By providing theoretical foundations for treating these organizations as autonomous actors in their own right, Rules for the World contributes greatly to our understanding of global politics and global governance.

This volume is an authoritative contribution to scholarly and policy debates surrounding forced displacement, as well as to practice.

This book considers the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ contribution to international refugee law since the establishment of UNHCR by the United Nations General Assembly in 1951. The book explores the historical and statutory foundations that create an indelible link between UNHCR and international refugee law. This book charts the significant evolution that has occurred in the organisation’s role throughout the last sixty years, looking at both the formal means by which UNHCR’s mandate may be modified, and the techniques UNHCR has used to facilitate the changes in its role, thereby revealing a significant evolution in the organisation’s role since the onset of the crisis in refugee protection in the 1980’s. UNHCR, itself, has demonstrated its organizational autonomy as the primary agent for the adaptation of its responsibilities and work related to international refugee law. The author does suggest however that UNHCR needs to continue to extend and strengthen its role related to international refugee law if UNHCR is to ensure a stronger legal framework for the protection of refugees as well as a fuller respect for refugees’ rights in practice. UNHCR and International Refugee Law should be of particular interest to refugee lawyers as well as academics and students of refugee law and international law, and anyone concerned with the important role that UNHCR plays in the protection of refugees today.

First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The current refugee crisis sweeping Europe, and much of the world, closely intersects with largely neglected questions of religion. Moving beyond discussions of religious differences, what can we learn about the interaction between religion and migration? Do faith-based organisations play a role within the refugee regime? How do religious traditions and perspectives challenge and inform current practices and policies towards refugees? This volume gathers together expertise from academics and practitioners, as well as migrant voices, in order to investigate these interconnections. It shows that reconsidering our understanding and approaches to both could generate creative alternative responses to the growing global migration crisis. Beginning with a discussion of the secular/religious divide - and how it shapes dominant policy practices and counter approaches to displacement and migration - the book then goes on to explore and deconstruct the dominant discourse of the Muslim refugee as a threat to the secular/Christian West. The discussion continues with an exploration of Christian and Islamic traditions of hospitality, showing how they challenge current practices of securitization of migration, and concludes with an investigation of the largely unexplored relation between gender, religion and migration. Bringing together leading and emerging voices from across academia and practice, in the fields of International Relations, migration studies, philosophy, religious studies and gender studies, this volume offers a unique take on one of the most pressing global problems of our time.

The 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, and its 1967 Protocol, and many other important international instruments recognize the unique role the UNHCR plays in protecting refugees and supervising international refugee law. This in-depth analysis of the UNHCR's supervisory role in the international refugee protection regime examines the part played by key institutions, organizations and actors in the supervision of international refugee law. It provides suggestions and recommendations on how the UNHCR's supervisory role can be strengthened to ensure greater State Parties' compliance to their obligations under these international refugee rights treaties, and contributes to enhancing the international protection of refugees and to the promotion of a democratic global governance of the international refugee protection regime.

For half a century (ever since the Japanese invasion of 1942), much of Southeast Asia has been racked by war. In the last 20 years alone, some three million people fled their homes in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. This book is their story. It is also the story of the international community's response. Spearheading this was the United Nations agency responsible, UNHCR. It pioneered innovations like the Orderly Departure Programme, anti-piracy and rescue-at-sea efforts, and later on, ambitious reintegration projects for returnees. Today the camps in Southeast Asia are closed. Half a million people have returned home. Over two million have started new lives in the United States, Canada, Australia and France. This compelling book is the history of this modern exodus. It also takes stock and poses important questions. How did the flight of refugees and international response evolve? How do we measure the achievements and the failures of that international effort? What has been the legacy in Asia itself? And what lessons can be drawn for use in other refugee situations around the world?