Forced Migration in the OIC Member Countries:
Policy Framework Adopted by Host Countries
16
provisions of international law27 and serve as a tool for states and international organizations
to deal with internal displacement, although they are not legally binding. At a regional level
the African Union has made efforts to address the rights of the internally displaced through
the AU Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa
(also known as the Kampala Convention). Even though IDPs are not part of the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees' (UNHCR) original mandate, the agency has expanded the scope of
its work over time, at the request of the UN, to include providing humanitarian assistance to
the internally displaced who are in refugee-like situations.
Finally, Palestinians in the historic lands of Palestine (excluding Israel) and in neighboring
countries who were displaced by the partitioning of the country between 1946 and 1948 also
do not fall under the mandate of UNHCR or under the protections of the 1951 Convention—
although Palestinians outside of UNRWA's geographic field of operations are able to access the
protection of both.28 The UN General Assembly created the UN Relief and Works
Administration for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in 1949 to provide
assistance and support to Palestinians in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank, and the Gaza
Strip. UNRWA's mandate was specifically limited to providing maintenance and support to
Palestinian refugees (and their descendants) displaced by the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict.
Unlike UNHCR, UNRWA’s mandate does not include provisions regarding access to protection
or solutions to displacement, so as not to jeopardize the right of Palestinians to govern
themselves and to return to their home, a priority for Palestinians and others involved in
negotiations following the conflict.29
1.3. The International Protection Regime: Robust in Practice?
As the scale of international displacement has increased, concern has grown that the
protection regime built around the 1951 Convention and UNHCR is under threat or is failing to
meet its goals. The growing mismatch between the reasons why individuals are compelled to
move and the grounds for protection as a refugee is an integral part of this challenge. Perhaps
more troubling, however, is the increasingly protracted nature of displacement.30 For many
groups, displacement stretches across decades, and the affected refugees (and IDPs) are left
without access to basic rights or services or, perhaps more important, hope of resuming
something resembling their lives pre-displacement.
1.3.1. Gaps in protection at the national level
For many of the displaced, the most salient challenge is the growing gap between the full set of
rights to which states that sign the 1951 Convention commit themselves and what is available
in practice at the national level. Refugee protection, as originally set out under the 1951
Convention, encompasses a range of state commitments beyond basic nonrefoulement that
protect a refugee's ability to exercise fundamental freedoms (of religion, free expression, and
free association, for example), earn a living, access basic services, and move legally within
their country of asylum and internationally.
27 These include among others the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention of Civic and Political Rights, the
Convention on Economic and Social rights, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. UN OCHA, Guiding Principles on
Internal Displacement.
29 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), State of the World's Refugees: Fifty Years of Humanitarian
Action (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2000).
30 UNHCR reports that rates of return for refugees in 2015 were the lowest since 1983. UNHCR, World at War: UNHCR Global
Trends: Forced Displacement in 2014, 20.