Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme Statement by Volker Türk

Abstract

75th Meeting of the Standing Committee, Geneva, 18–20 June 2019 Agenda item 2: International Protection 18 June 2019 Mr. Chairperson, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, Thank you for the opportunity to provide an overall introduction to the more specific protection and solutions items of this Standing Committee. Since this is my last opportunity to speak before you in my current function, I would like to share some broader reflections on protection that are born out of my long-standing engagement with refugee, displacement and statelessness issues. First: it is about the primacy of the individual and communities. The compass in our work is bettering the life of the individual human being and of the communities they have formed and live in. This is what motivates us and helps us to navigate through troubled waters. This is especially the case when core humanitarian issues become politicised, as they do on occasion – for example, in the granting of asylum or envisaging refugee return. I have experienced this a lot over the years, and especially around return issues. Some see it as a logistics exercise; others as an indication that peace has returned [even when it has not]; and yet others don’t want to engage in return at all because it could be perceived as supporting a particular government or deprive them of a bargaining tool in on-going negotiations.