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including more than 3 million newly displaced during the year (The Global IDP Project
2004, p.4.).
Since they do not cross the border, they do not qualify for the refugee
status under international law; and this is where a new framework for their protection
has been called for.
The UN has been spearheading the effort, with the appointment in
1992 of Francis Deng as the first Special Representative of the Secretary-General
(SRSG) on IDPs.
An inter-agency network and committee have been in place, served
by a newly created IDP unit within the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) also changed its
operational orientations to address the problems within refugee-producing countries and
to protect IDPs and others who had not erstwhile fallen under its mandate.
Francis Deng’s now well known approach to internal displacement has served as a
powerful guide for these initiatives.
He argues:
[I]n order to be legitimate, sovereignty must demonstrate responsibility, which
means at the very least ensuring a certain level of protection for, and providing the
basic needs of the people; that most governments under normal circumstances do in
fact discharge that responsibility; that when they cannot do so for reasons of
incapacity, they will call upon the international community to assist; but that under
those exceptional circumstances when governments fail to discharge this
responsibility and masses of its citizens become threatened with severe suffering
Convention