The Expansion of International Space: UNHCR’s Establishment of its Executive Committee (“ExCom”)

Abstract

This article argues that “international space” indeed exists. It substantiates this claim by examining how the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees orchestrated the creation of its own Executive Committee. Originally envisaged as a Consultative Committee, High Commissioner Van Heuven Goedhart created the Executive Committee so as to break the ban upon the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees capacity to execute rescue operations, which the United States and France imposed through their financial strain over the nascent refugee agency. The examination of archival sources from Belgium, Israel, the United Kingdom and the French State archives confirm that it was the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees which created its own Executive Committee, and that within this process Nation States largely “tagged along”. Thus, it was the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees – a multilateral non-state body who instigated the actions undertaken by Nation States on its behalf, and not the other way around. This understanding has far-reaching implications regarding the ontological standing of non-étatist bodies which belong to the international community.