P R I S O N S O F T H E S Tat E L E S S
jacob stevens
P R I S O N S O F T H E S TAT E L E S S
The Derelictions of UNHCR
T
here are currently over 20 million people ‘of concern’ to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees. Just over half of those are internally displaced or stateless, with 8 million having fled across an international border. Established in 1950, unhcr was charged by the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees with the protection of their interests: full political and economic rights in the country of asylum, with the hope of eventual voluntary repatriation. As a brutal testament to its contemporary failure, at least 3.5 million of those refugees currently struggle for survival in sprawling camps in Africa and Asia. Fleeing from genocide, imperial aggression and civil war, only to be herded into camps or sent back to the country they were escaping, these asylum-seekers and returnees are part of a seemingly endless human tragedy. If it was originally a guarantor of refugee rights, unhcr has since mutated into a patron of these prisons of the stateless: a network of huge camps that can never meet any plausible ‘humanitarian’ standard, and yet somehow justify international funding for the agency.
Like many of the un’s specialized agencies—the World Food Programme, the un Development Programme and others—unhcr functions independently of the General Assembly. Most of these bodies have their own assemblies and compete with each other for their portfolio, prestige and funds.1 Responsibility for the 4 million Palestinian refugees remains with the un Relief and Works Agency but, partly through its support for both refugee camps and repatriation, unhcr has successfully encroached on the territory of the development organizations. Financed by donations and periodic appeals, rather than as a structural part of new left review 42 nov dec 2006
53
54
nlr 42
the United Nations, it has always been constrained by the interests of the rich ‘donor nations’, and its
P R I S O N S O F T H E S TAT E L E S S
The Derelictions of UNHCR
T
here are currently over 20 million people ‘of concern’ to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees. Just over half of those are internally displaced or stateless, with 8 million having fled across an international border. Established in 1950, unhcr was charged by the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees with the protection of their interests: full political and economic rights in the country of asylum, with the hope of eventual voluntary repatriation. As a brutal testament to its contemporary failure, at least 3.5 million of those refugees currently struggle for survival in sprawling camps in Africa and Asia. Fleeing from genocide, imperial aggression and civil war, only to be herded into camps or sent back to the country they were escaping, these asylum-seekers and returnees are part of a seemingly endless human tragedy. If it was originally a guarantor of refugee rights, unhcr has since mutated into a patron of these prisons of the stateless: a network of huge camps that can never meet any plausible ‘humanitarian’ standard, and yet somehow justify international funding for the agency.
Like many of the un’s specialized agencies—the World Food Programme, the un Development Programme and others—unhcr functions independently of the General Assembly. Most of these bodies have their own assemblies and compete with each other for their portfolio, prestige and funds.1 Responsibility for the 4 million Palestinian refugees remains with the un Relief and Works Agency but, partly through its support for both refugee camps and repatriation, unhcr has successfully encroached on the territory of the development organizations. Financed by donations and periodic appeals, rather than as a structural part of new left review 42 nov dec 2006
53
54
nlr 42
the United Nations, it has always been constrained by the interests of the rich ‘donor nations’, and its