DIfference between IDP and Refugee
IDPs
1. Difference between IDPs and refugees
There are 200 million IDPs in the world, there is growing concern that despite the magnitude of the problem there exists no legal regime for it. Challenges which are there are
Of providing material assistance
And ensuring the protection and respect for the fundamental rights of the IDPs.
It is important to distinguish between the IDP and the refugee.
The first element which distinguishes the refugee from IDP is that: the claimant must have crossed the border of the country. This is an absurd requirement because many of the people if not most of them who flee their homes are unable to cross the borders, their plea may be as serious as the plea of those who have crossed the border but they don’t fall under the refugee protection definition.
The heavy insistence on this territorial principle has prompted a concern on the mismatch of the definition and the human sufferings. In other words one may say that excluding the IDPs from the refugee definition is unfair. The definition of the refugee protection doesn’t recognize the social, economic or cultural barriers which prohibit to reach for the international protection.
The convention on refugee protection was formulated in three fold historical rationale which states that the convention was formulated by keeping in view the
Limited resources of the international community
Shift of responsibility from the governments to the international community
Respecting the sovereignty of the state.
Criticism on historical threefold rationale:
This is not the matter of the limited resources, not of the shifting the responsibility of the government to international community neither it is about sovereignty its about the physical access of the international community to the IDPs.
2. Need for separate instrument
There are two schools of thoughts on this:
One who believe that the existing standards are adequate for the IDP protection they
1. Difference between IDPs and refugees
There are 200 million IDPs in the world, there is growing concern that despite the magnitude of the problem there exists no legal regime for it. Challenges which are there are
Of providing material assistance
And ensuring the protection and respect for the fundamental rights of the IDPs.
It is important to distinguish between the IDP and the refugee.
The first element which distinguishes the refugee from IDP is that: the claimant must have crossed the border of the country. This is an absurd requirement because many of the people if not most of them who flee their homes are unable to cross the borders, their plea may be as serious as the plea of those who have crossed the border but they don’t fall under the refugee protection definition.
The heavy insistence on this territorial principle has prompted a concern on the mismatch of the definition and the human sufferings. In other words one may say that excluding the IDPs from the refugee definition is unfair. The definition of the refugee protection doesn’t recognize the social, economic or cultural barriers which prohibit to reach for the international protection.
The convention on refugee protection was formulated in three fold historical rationale which states that the convention was formulated by keeping in view the
Limited resources of the international community
Shift of responsibility from the governments to the international community
Respecting the sovereignty of the state.
Criticism on historical threefold rationale:
This is not the matter of the limited resources, not of the shifting the responsibility of the government to international community neither it is about sovereignty its about the physical access of the international community to the IDPs.
2. Need for separate instrument
There are two schools of thoughts on this:
One who believe that the existing standards are adequate for the IDP protection they