Refugees, Internally Displaced Persons and the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine

Abstract

This paper explores the implementation of the prevention pillar of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, and assesses its relevance to protection of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). I argue that a political analysis of the recent R2P debates show that the doctrine is at a juncture, and there are costs and benefits to the overall goal of refugee and IDP protection by aligning with the R2P campaign. Refugee and IDP advocates tend to contemplate the R2P doctrine with the overlay of a humanitarian or human rights lens. This paper challenges the proposition that stronger international acceptance of the R2P doctrine leads inevitably to stronger refugee and IDP protection. I enumerate the logical and conceptual connections between the goals of R2P and refugee and IDP protection, and they are substantial. The very fact of the political organs of the UN engaging meaningfully and more often with protection debates should be beneficial. However, there are certain signs that these latest 2009 developments bode ill for refugee and IDP protection, and not because of the more usual charge of political selectivity of R2P, but because of more subtle flaws. The prevention pillar of the R2P doctrine has been reinterpreted with a very narrow operational definition. Refugees are often perceived by the Security Council as a threat to international peace and security, destabilising influences, especially since 2001, and at best as the ‘passive recipients’ of protection. Nevertheless, the reference to refugees as the subject of protection does now appear in the Secretary-General’s 2009 report, partly due to UNHCR advocacy, but not IDPs. If R2P is to become an ally of refugee and IDP advocacy, there is serious conceptual work to be done to ensure the human rights foundations of the doctrine shine though, and to encourage voices from the Global South.