Print Pub ication Date: Jun 2014 Subject: Po itica Science, Internationa Re ations, Comparative Po itics
On ine Pub ication Date: Aug 2014
DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199652433.013.0019
Internal Displacement
Walter Kalin
The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies
Edited by Elena Fiddian Qasmiyeh, Gil Loescher, Katy Long, and Nando Sigona
Oxford Handbooks Online
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter examines the development of an international protection regime for internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have not crossed a border to become refugees, as well as the protection gaps that remain. It begins with a discussion of the causes of internal displacement, such as armed conflict and natural disasters, and the estimated number of IDPs worldwide. It then explains the differences between IDPs and refugees and considers the debate over whether to consider IDPs as a distinct category of concern. It also looks at the legal framework for protecting IDPs, focusing on the
‘Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement’ developed by the Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons, along with conventions, laws, and policies.
Keywords: protection, internally displaced persons, refugees, internal displacement, armed conflict, natural disasters, conventions, laws, policies, United Nations
Introduction
The 1998 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement describe internally displaced persons (IDPs) as
persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized state border.
This notion has become part of the legally binding 2009 African Convention on the Protection and Assistance for Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (hereinafter: Kampala Convention) as well as the Protocol on the Protection and Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons, adopted in 2006 by the Member States of the International Conference on the Great Lakes (hereinafter: Great Lakes IDP Protocol). The definition has also been incorporated into a series of national laws and policies, including in Uganda, Nepal, Iraq, and Sudan.
The coerced or otherwise involuntary character of movement and the fact that affected persons have not crossed ‘an internationally recognized state border’ are the two constitutive elements of this notion. The list of causes of
displacement is only indicative, meaning that potentially a wide range of events that force people to leave their homes or places of habitual residence can count as a relevant cause.
It is important to stress that the notion of who is an IDP contained in the Guiding Principles is not a legal definition conferring a special legal status similar to refugee status. Rather, as citizens or habitual residents of an affected state who are in a situation of special vulnerability IDPs are entitled to the enjoyment of all relevant guarantees of human rights and humanitarian law applicable to the permanent population of (p. 164) the country concerned whether or not they are formally recognized as being displaced. This does not rule out the possibility of administrative measures such as
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registration by authorities or international organizations to identify those who are displaced and need special assistance and are entitled to special measures to address their specific vulnerabilities. However, lack of such registration would not deprive IDPs of their entitlements under applicable international human rights or humanitarian law.
Internal Displacement: Causes and Numbers
With an estimated 28.8 million people displaced within their own countries by armed conflict and other forms of violence at the end of 2012, internally displaced persons outnumber the roughly 16–17 million refugees and asylum seekers by far.
While the overall figure of IDPs has remained roughly the same for the past ten years situations are often very volatile:
thus, in 2012 more than 6.5 million people were newly displaced while over 2.1 million IDPs were reported to have returned to their areas of origin (IDMC/NRC 2013a: 9–10). Typically, internal displacement caused by armed conflict lasts often very long and continues beyond actual hostilities. Protracted displacement where the process of finding durable solutions for IDPs is stalled and people remain in displacement for five, ten, or even 20 years and more exists in at least 40 countries (IDMC/NRC 2012: 14–15).
Very large numbers of people are displaced in the context of natural disasters with figures strongly fluctuating from year to year: while 14.9 million such IDPs were identified in 2011 the figure reached 42.3 million a year before and rose again in 2012 to 32.4 million (IDMC/NRC 2013b: 5). However, these estimates are incomplete particularly because smaller sudden-onset disasters are underreported and reliable figures of those displaced by slow-onset disasters such as drought are hardly available (IDMC/NRC 2012: 7). In many cases, people displaced by natural hazards are able to return after relatively short periods in displacement but there are also cases where, for instance due to a lack of sufficient support for rebuilding destroyed houses and infrastructure, people remain in protracted displacement.
Disaster induced displacement is likely to increase in the context of climate change (McAdam 2010). Five relevant scenarios have been identified in this context (Kälin 2010): (1) hydro-meteorological sudden-onset disasters such as flooding, hurricanes, or landslides; (2) slow-onset disasters such as drought or erosion of coastlines and salination of soil and groundwater due to rising sea levels; (3) low-lying small island states likely to become inhabitable due to sea-level rise, thus at risk of ‘disappearing’ as a whole; (4) designation of areas as high-risk zones too dangerous for human habitation or as areas set aside for mitigation (e.g. expansion of forest areas to create ‘carbon sinks’ binding greenhouse gases) or adaptation measures (e.g. creation of large water (p. 165) reservoirs built to address increasing drought); and (5) violent conflicts over diminishing resources such as water and pastures.
Finally, people may be forced to leave their homes because authorities or private actors implement development projects such as mines, dams, airports, and upgrading of urban areas or decide to protect forests and other natural habitats from human intrusion. Such decisions result in internal displacement where companies or authorities fail to relocate affected people and communities in accordance with international standards or do not properly compensate them. While information about the number of persons affected by projects funded by development banks are available, knowledge about development induced displacement outside this context remains scarce.
While the media often portray IDPs as people living in camps, the reality is different. In most countries affected by internal displacement, the majority of IDPs stay with host families, live in informal settlements, squat in public buildings, or manage to live on their own in rented houses or apartments. Many live in urban areas where it is often difficult to identify them, a challenge resulting in a certain degree of neglect by humanitarian actors (Fielden 2008; Beyani 2011: 7–18).
Overall, more research on the dynamics of urban IDP flows is needed to develop appropriate approaches.
Internally Displaced Persons and Refugees: A Fundamental Difference
Refugees and IDPs alike experience the perils of flight, find themselves in a new, often difficult environment, and hope to find a durable solution allowing them to rebuild their shattered lives. This is why some—in particular social scientists—
regard both categories as essentially similar victims of forced migration (see Bakewell 2011: 15). Others, particularly legal scholars, insist that a sharp line must be drawn between the two (Hathaway 2007).
From a legal perspective, refugees are fundamentally different from IDPs: as they cannot turn to their own government for protection they are in need of protection abroad. The institution of asylum, the principle of non-refoulement, and the mandate of UNHCR to provide protection and assistance to refugees are the cornerstones of such international2
Internal Displacement
protection. In contrast, IDPs have not left their own country and thus they remain under the jurisdiction of their
government even in cases where governmental forces or authorities are responsible for their displacement. By virtue of state sovereignty, the international community is not entitled to substitute for national authorities but plays a subsidiary role of supporting or complementing governmental action. Thus, while refugee protection is essentially international protection, the protection of IDPs ‘is primarily national protection’ (UNHCR 2012: 120) even if in ‘failed state’ scenarios where a government has collapsed or withdrawn its presence (p. 166) from important parts of the country the
international community may step into the vacuum.
To qualify IDPs as a kind of ‘refugees’ risks ultimately lowering the level of their rights: while refugees as foreigners regularly do not enjoy all the rights available to the citizens of a country, it is important to insist that IDPs do not lose any rights because they are displaced, even if in reality they may be discriminated against and treated as second class citizens.
Internally Displaced Persons: A Distinct Category of Concern?
One of the current debates concerns the issue as to whether or not it is meaningful to look at IDPs as a distinct category of concern. The International Committee of the Red Cross, for instance, maintains that ‘ICRC does not believe that someone displaced is automatically more vulnerable than someone who is not’ (ICRC 2009: 20) and a study by the Overseas Development Institute stressed that identifying IDPs as a distinct category has not ameliorated their situation (Collinson, Darcy, and Waddell 2009: 53). Similarly, James Hathaway has asked: ‘Why should they be treated as a category of concern distinguished from other internal human rights victims who have not been displaced?’ (Hathaway 2007: 360).
Roberta Cohen, one of the key proponents of an IDP-specific approach, responded by asking whether Hathaway wanted to ‘turn the clock back to an earlier time when only refugees, or individuals who flee across borders from persecution, could expect attention from the international community’ (Cohen 2007: 370). Others too have insisted that there are good reasons to have a specific focus on IDPs in legal and operational terms (Kidane 2011).
This debate, however, is largely academic insofar as states clearly have accepted to look at IDPs as a specific category of concern and there are no indications that they want to depart from that approach: at the universal level, they regularly reaffirm their unanimous recognition of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement as an ‘important international framework for the protection’ of IDPs. At the regional level, the adoption of the Kampala Convention is a strong reaffirmation of an IDP-specific approach; and at the domestic level the number of states adopting IDP specific laws, strategies, and policies is growing. Nevertheless, the question as to whether a deeper justification for a specific focus on IDPs exists is well founded and relevant.
That IDPs as citizens or permanent residents of the country they are displaced in are protected by human rights exactly as the rest of its population and are not necessarily more vulnerable than non-displaced people is often used as a key argument against looking at IDPs as a particular category of concern. While these observations are correct, they overlook the fact that IDPs have specific needs that non-displaced persons do not possess (Cohen and Deng 1998: 23–9;
Mooney 2005; Kälin et al. 2010: in particular (p. 167) 19–22, 342–5, 377–82, 515–23). While their individual predicament may vastly differ—with some barely surviving and others quickly regaining normal lives in another part of the country—
IDPs have in common that unlike non-displaced people they need to (1) be protected against being displaced; (2) be able to leave the danger zone and reach a safe location and not be forced to return to danger zones; (3) find a place to stay temporarily, whether in- or outside a camp; (4) be protected against discrimination on account of their being displaced, for instance regarding access to basic services or the labour market; (5) have lost personal documentation replaced and documents issued to children born during displacement even if, according to the law, documentation can only be obtained in the area of habitual residence; (6) be able to register as voters and participate in elections and referenda even if, according to the law, these political rights can only be exercised at the place of habitual residence; (7) have real estate and other property left behind protected against being taken over by others and, where this has
happened, to have the appropriate assets restituted at a later stage; and (8) find a durable solution to their being displaced through sustainable return to the place of former habitual residence, or sustainable local integration where they had been displaced to, or in another part of the country. These eight displacement-specific needs of IDPs have been amply illustrated by the reports on country missions by the Representatives of the Secretary-General and the Special Rapporteur on (the Human Rights of) Internally Displaced Persons but further empirical research would be useful.
Many IDPs face problems and vulnerabilities that are not limited to the displaced but become particularly relevant in the context of internal displacement: there is some evidence that without humanitarian assistance IDPs run a higher risk than
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those remaining at home to suffer malnutrition and be in need of food assistance; have their children recruited into armed forces or non-state armed groups; become victims of gender-based violence, particularly in camp situations; become separated from family members, particularly during flight; be excluded from education; suffer from more serious health problems than non-displaced people; or remain in extreme poverty without any access to adequate livelihood
opportunities. In Afghanistan, for instance, the World Bank found that in urban settings ‘IDP household heads have substantially lower literacy rates and formal levels of education’, live ‘in much more hazardous housing conditions’ and earn substantially less than the urban poor (World Bank 2011: 7). Similarly, in Colombia IDPs belong to the poorest among poor urban populations and many became poorer after having been displaced from rural areas (Carrillo 2009:
534). However, in the Ivory Coast’s largest city Abidjan IDPs were found to not be significantly more vulnerable than non- IDPs (Jacobsen 2008). While higher levels of vulnerability of IDPs have been observed in many situations, more research on the factors determining this outcome would be welcome.
Looking at IDPs as a specific category of concern should not be understood as a reason to provide them with
humanitarian assistance to the detriment of other vulnerable people. Assistance should always be provided on the basis of assessed needs and vulnerabilities and not on grounds of categorization, but looking at IDPs as a specific category of concern helps to ensure that such assistance in fact meets their specific needs.
(p. 168) In this context, the notion of displacement-affected communities can be helpful to develop adequate
responses. This notion acknowledges that host communities and communities expected to reintegrate IDPs once return becomes possible are also affected by the effects of internal displacement. To assist such displacement-affected communities, too, or to support them with area based development interventions (for instance by upgrading infrastructure such as water and sanitation or local health and education services) not only helps to reduce tensions between IDPs and local populations but also addresses the burden imposed on such communities by the arrival of displaced people.
Protecting Internally Displaced Persons: The Legal Framework