UNHCR and the Algerian war of independence: postcolonial sovereignty and the globalization of the international refugee regime, 1954–63

Malika Rahal,Benjamin Thomas White

doi:10.1017/s1740022821000449

Abstract

AbstractThe Algerian war of independence (1954-62) was crucial to the extension of the modern international refugee regime beyond Europe. It is also the exemplar of how that regime became a site for the establishment of postcolonial sovereignty, globally. Tunisia and Morocco, newly independent, requested UNHCR’s help in assisting hundreds of thousands of Algerian refugees: interacting with the refugee regime allowed them to establish their credentials as independent states while asserting sovereignty over their own territories. In Algeria, the 1951 Refugee Convention applied before the war started, and UNHCR worked there to support ‘old’ refugees. During the war, the Front de Libération Nationale asserted itself as a state-in-waiting by engaging with UNHCR outside Algeria as the agency coordinated a vast relief operation. After the war, as refugees returned to a landscape riven by mass displacement, interacting with the refugee regime helped the new state assert sovereignty over Algeria’s territory, and Algerian bodies.

Highlights

The Algerian war of independence (1954–62) was crucial to the extension of the modern international refugee regime beyond Europe.1 The 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees had initially been intended to settle Europeans still out of place after the Second World War
The article draws on sources from the archives of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, supplemented where possible by narrative sources. It starts with UNHCR’s operations in Algeria before and during the war. It looks at the experiences of the 300,000 or so refugees from Algeria who fled to Morocco and Tunisia during the war, and how these states interacted with the international refugee regime
A second group that relied on support from UNHCR was composed of Algerian refugees who fled into Morocco and Tunisia during the war

Summary

Introduction

The Algerian war of independence (1954–62) was crucial to the extension of the modern international refugee regime beyond Europe. The 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees had initially been intended to settle Europeans still out of place after the Second World War. In north Africa, shortly afterwards, the arrival of tens of thousands of Algerians fleeing French repression led Morocco and Tunisia—newly independent from French colonial rule—to request its help too They were among only five states outside Europe to adhere to the convention before 1960.2. The FLN developed national institutions of health care and humanitarian assistance, in a struggle with the colonial state for sovereignty over Algerian bodies that was a struggle for international legitimacy.. It looks at the experiences of the 300,000 or so refugees from Algeria who fled to Morocco and Tunisia during the war, and how these states interacted with the international refugee regime It explores the much larger landscape of displacement that refugees returned to at the end of the war. Throughout, we will stress global comparisons for the Algerian case

UNHCR in Algeria

Algerian refugees and postcolonial sovereignty in Morocco and Tunisia

Refugee return and landscapes of displacement

UNHCR and the old and new refugees of independent Algeria

Findings

Conclusion