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Displaced: A Proposal for an International Agreement to Protect Refugees, Migrants, and States

Knowledge Platform

Displaced: A Proposal for an International Agreement to Protect Refugees, Migrants, and States

How can international law protect both international security and the human rights of displaced people? Existing international law protects only displaced refugees: those who flee persecution on the basis of religion, race, nationality, or political opinion. This article argues that a new Displaced Persons Convention must be created to protect the human rights of the world’s other 35 million victims of civil conflict and climate change who do not meet this narrow definition. International Refugee Law must be preserved as it is because it enshrines critical protections for minority rights that must not be diluted. However, an additional instrument of international law is necessary to resolve an issue that is at once one of the greatest human rights issues of our time and a threat to international peace and security. To support this argument, this article presents a comprehensive history of refugees in international law, combining primary sources and original interview data to trace how states have agreed for centuries that refugee law should protect minority rights, even as shifting state interests have changed refugee protection over time. This article refutes other scholarly proposals and UN practices that expand the category of “refugee.” It also contributes to growing scholarly interest in the history of human rights law by arguing that refugee law predates the modern human rights regime, challenges its foundations, and extends its claims to universality.

Date of Publication
Type of Resource
Target Audience
Academia
Civil Society
General Public
Government
Intergovernmental Organization
Author
Jill I. Goldenziel
Language
Geographic Scope
Workstream Output
No
Regional Review Process
No
SDGs
SDG.17 - Partnerships For The Goals
Keywords
Forced migration or displacement
International and intergovernmental organisations in travel & migration
Legal regulations and traveller & migrant protection
Migrant rights
Migration policy and other public policies
Other
Tags
law
legal
international organizations
forced migration
displacement
refugees
UNHCR
Status
Published

*References to Kosovo shall be understood to be in the context of United Nations Security Council resolution 1244 (1999).