Displaced Without Advocates: Dissecting Efforts to Mainstream Internal Displacement Under Institutional Constraints

Husayn Jamal Edited by Bianca Ho

There must be a conscious effort to bring internal displacement into mainstream discourse rather than simply leaving them as a 'population of concern’ for UNHCR

ABSTRACT What structural features of the international system create conditions that privilege certain groups of forced migrants over others? Enduring legacies of the post-Westphalian global order alter how migrants in flight interact with borders and international organisations such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that provide protection only to refugees that fall in the gaps between states. This paper argues that efforts to mainstream the plight of those in protracted situations of internal displacement by UNHCR have been met with little success, despite the strong legacy and degree of expertise that the agency is ordinarily afforded vis-à-vis refugees. By bridging a constructivist perspective and rational choice framework for understanding domestic-level effects in international politics, internally displaced persons (IDPs) can be understood as conceptually shaped by states. This analysis frames IDPs as facing the same structural challenges as refugees but without explicit protection benefits, and therefore as significantly disadvantaged in the course of their forced displacement. The conceptual separation should thus be questioned, and the value of extending the same protections afforded to refugees to IDPs is one worth considering.

INTRODUCTION

Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) stand at the intersection of human rights issues, violence, marginalisation, absent or apathetic governments, and natural or man-made hazards. These challenges force them to flee their place of residence without ever crossing an internationally recognised state border. 1 They are a distinctly separate category from refugees as a matter of international law since they have not left their home state despite the fact that they “would be considered refugees if they crossed a border” and are often in need of similar protections for their material survival including food and shelter, as well as safeguards from human rights violations. 2 Since IDPs are not included in the formal mandate of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), further work has been required to expand the agency’s institutional practice in the face of restrictions arising from the interests of neoliberal states.

This paper argues that efforts by UNHCR to mainstream IDPs among domestic publics in Global North states has been unsuccessful due to the structural constraints it operates under, as well as the issue of compassion fatigue. Beginning with an analysis of the structural constraints and limited autonomy that UNHCR operates under vis-à-vis IDPs, attention will then turn to efforts by UNHCR to mainstream the issue of internal displacement in the common lexicon among domestic publics in the Global North as it relates to Putnam’s two-level game model of interstate bargaining. To conclude, an argument for stronger IDP protection regimes, and eventual integration of IDPs into the formal mandate of UNHCR, will be advanced by building upon the evidence presented in the foregoing sections, as well as highlighting areas for future research on both theoretical and practical levels.

77 McGill Journal of Political Studies | Winter 2020 IDPS IN THE INTERNATIONAL ARENA: UNHCR AND STRUCTURAL DEFICITS Individuals who flee their homes and cross an international frontier in search of protection are generally entitled to a robust and comprehensive regime made up of international organisations such as the UNHCR, the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, and numerous non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that all actively advocate for and specify the rights to which refugees are entitled. 3 This sort of comprehensive regime is notably absent in relation to IDPs; there is no international organisation empowered to protect and advocate for them, there are no binding international agreements that stipulate the rights and protections that should be afforded to IDPs, and the work of NGOs on the IDP portfolio is significantly smaller than that of refugees proper. 4 As a result of these structural deficits in the international system, IDPs are left particularly vulnerable to violations of their fundamental human rights.

In considering the historical development of UNHCR’s practices relating to IDPs, it is important to note the initial opposition by the agency to provide assistance to the internally displaced in South Vietnam in the 1960s when Sadruddin Aga Khan, as High Commissioner for Refugees, declined to provide assistance to the South Vietnamese “precisely because they were internally displaced.” 5 In this instance, UNHCR adopted a legalistic position, arguing that this group, as well as all IDPs, were firmly beyond the statutory scope of UNHCR which privileges the classical definition of a refugee laid out in the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol. Under this definition, UNHCR effectively denied protections to those who face similar conditions to refugees but have simply not crossed an international border. This line of reasoning adopts a very conservative position on the interpretation and application of international frameworks for refugees to IDPs, which reflects several structural constraints imposed on UNHCR. Such constraints include limited state-funding and heavy state intervention in the affairs and operations of UNHCR since the early days of the agency’s existence. 6 As a result, UNHCR evolved under these state-imposed constraints which have limited its ability to be a champion for the rights of IDPs.

Indeed, this conservative interpretation of refugee frameworks is consistent with one of the primary norms in international politics that has since been codified in the United Nations Charter, whereby it is prohibited to “intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State.” 7 Arising out of the Westphalian Treaties in 1648, these notions of state-centrism and absolute sovereignty are problematic because they exist in tension with individual-centred norms of human rights, which are also stipulated in the UN Charter. These Westphalian constructions of non-intervention, state borders, and absolute sovereignty are “analytic assumption[s] for neo-realism and neo-liberal institutionalism”; theories that may not fully reflect the empirical reality of the modern state system. 8 Instead, it would be more helpful to adopt a model that favours “normative discourse” in recognising a “more imaginative construction of institutional forms.” 9 In this way, a greater space for theoretical imagining opens and it may be possible to conceptualise refugees and IDPs as more similar

than different.

The challenge with a neoliberal perspective regarding IDPs is that there is very little economic incentive in the entire issue of humanitarian-based migration programs for states. Since the underlying logic of neoliberalism is that states in the international system will be largely immune to competition-based pressures to maximise their material gains, on concerning an issue like IDPs where there are very few gains to be had at all, states are unlikely to have any incentive to act. 10 Much of the international refugee regime was built with this neoliberal perspective that privileges the Westphalian status quo in a refusal to compromise on state sovereignty. At its creation, states had a vested interest in ensuring that UNHCR was not an operational agency and, as such, was “created by Western governments in such a way that it would neither pose a threat to their sovereignty nor impose new financial obligations on them.” 11 Especially at the height of the Cold War, refugee politics was heavily politicised as an instrument to grant safe haven to those fleeing communist countries, which supported Western ideology and meant that “refugee policy was simply considered too important by American leaders to permit the United Nations to control.” 12 This in turn created structural and funding deficits for UNHCR that significantly limited the global scale of its activities. What such an argument misses, however, is that it is precisely because refugee and IDP policy is so important that it cannot be left to states to administer on their own and that a UN Agency must be involved to help ensure respect for human rights.

The UN Member States quite clearly limited the potential operational capacity of UNHCR in order to limit its scope for IDPs as was articulated in General Assembly resolution 47/105. Resolution 47/105 imposed specific structural constraints in UNHCR, specifying that there must be a “request from the Secretary-General or other competent authority, and the consent of the State concerned” before intervention by UNHCR can occur. 13 It is well documented that the “restrictive and impractical nature of UNHCR’s original Statute” has often been an impediment to the agency assisting IDPs. 14 This lack of an official mandate to protect IDPs has resulted in a situation where responses to crises of internal displacement are often ad hoc, such that they “fall through the cracks of the international assistance and protection regime,” which is detrimental to UNHCR’s codified protection mandate of displaced populations. 15 As a result, there has historically been little institutionalised response to the plight of IDPs and so the underlying structural conditions have been left largely unchanged.

Expecting UNHCR to protect IDPs without an explicit mandate by means of a convention or protocol acceded to by states is already a significant barrier to realising the ideal of universal respect for human rights by states. However, the imposition of structural constraints on the agency limits the ability of UNHCR to respond to crises of internal displacement in a meaningful way by setting state consent as a prerequisite for assistance. A status quo such as this devalues the notion of universal human rights, continues to perpetuate the privileged status of absolute state sovereignty, and harms legitimate humanitarian relief efforts by casting them as political decisions carried out by UNHCR on the orders of more powerful states. 16 The structural constraints imposed on UNHCR there

fore leave IDPs without an advocate or strong legal basis to assert their rights in the international system.

A MODEL FOR MAINSTREAMING IDPS AT THE DOMESTIC LEVEL

Thus far, this paper has advanced an argument that identifies the lack of explicit mandate or institution dedicated to the protection of IDPs as a product of the imposition of structural constraints on UNHCR. Still missing from this analysis is the specific effect that domestic actors have on domestic leaders, which in turn shape state policy positions that determine how constrained UNHCR is in its efforts to mainstream IDPs. In this context, mainstreaming is the process of bringing the Refugee Convention into practice in such a way that it is no longer “in isolation from international human rights law.” 17 While it may seem contradictory to integrate a rational choice, two-level game approach with an argument based in the constructivist nature of international politics and the refugee/ IDP regimes, it provides an important insight into the multi-level interactions that occur within the discourse surrounding IDPs and UNHCR’s work in mainstreaming them. Since constructivism argues that prevailing norms and practices diffuse amongst states in the international system and eventually come to shape their behaviour, bridging these two approaches may not be wholly irreconcilable. The theoretical basis for this argument lies first in the rational choice two-level game model where at Level I, negotiations take place between states and a tentative agreement is reached, and at Level II, the policy must be ratified and implemented through domestic processes. 18 From this, the conceptual framework for overlapping areas of interest and shared win-sets emerge, such that any potential agreement among states must be feasible at both Level I (international) and Level II (domestic) to be viable. This therefore creates a need for state leaders that are negotiating agreements to ensure that such agreements have the support of their domestic constituents, as was the case for the Refugee Convention.

The challenge that state leaders face is that of compassion fatigue, where there is only a finite amount of domestic support that can be mobilized across all issue areas. Compassion fatigue is particularly a problem in relation to how socially constructed interpretations of IDPs can influence individual willingness or capacity to advocate for internal displacement as an issue requiring national attention. Compassion fatigue can be defined as emotional overload when there appears to be no easy or meaningful contribution for an individual to alleviate the tragedy they are seeing, reading, or hearing. Bluntly, it is the awareness that “no five dollar contribution, no vote, no online petition will fix the problem.” 19 Compassion fatigue is critically important in understanding how domestic actors influence domestic leaders to set state preferences within a rational choice model because it is disruptive to how norms of behaviour, including treatment of IDPs, diffuse between and across states. More explicitly, compassion fatigue often leads to disengagement which removes the “common experience” and “focal points” around which the “social structure and normative context shape the actions of agents” in advocating for norms. 20 This disengagement thus prevents domestic actors’ advocacy efforts from reaching the tipping point where they can effec-

tively persuade domestic leaders to set national preferences in favour of more explicitly codifying rights and protections for IDPs.

Given that norms are so important in how IDPs are perceived, the constructivist perspective neatly complements the two-level game approach in that the discourse and media coverage surrounding IDPs is also relevant and further reduces domestic advocacy in favour of greater national priority to be placed on IDPs. Due to the geographic distance of individuals in the Global North from the epicentres of most internal displacement crises, media outlets have significant latitude to “tinker with their coverage” in a way that would prevent “certain audiences turning away from difficult news stories.” 21 Media institutions, as well as international organisations including the UN and UNHCR, are running up against another problem related to compassion fatigue; the “been-there, seenthat attitude” which has resulted in the need to sensationalise headlines and coverage in an effort to keep audiences engaged and continue the important work of mainstreaming internal displacement in common discourse. 22 A very clear effort towards mainstreaming made by UNHCR in response to compassion fatigue on the IDP issue was the appointment of Angelina Jolie as UN Special Ambassador of Peace who visited an internal displacement camp in Syria. Her visit was a step towards building support for more robust international regimes for IDPs among Global North domestic publics. This was a reasonable approach to “bring attention to news that matters” in the face of declining coverage by media outlets and increasing fears that audiences will turn away from IDP issues. 23 Refugees, on the other hand, are able to more closely and directly influence domestic politics because the provision of asylum and resettlement is often undertaken by countries in the Global North as refugees seek shelter. This places them squarely within the awareness of domestic actors at Level II, making their treatment more difficult to ignore which defines state preferences in a way that is more in favour of broad humanitarian protections for refugees. 24 In the absence of this same direct connection to the Global North, IDPs are left with few international regimes affording them protection and even fewer actors advocating for the expansion of these regimes.

The building compassion fatigue therefore turns individuals in the Global North away from coverage of IDPs and demonstrates the need for mainstreaming activities. Media outlets respond to this fatigue by reducing coverage of IDP issues, which is countered by civil society groups and international organisations that involve celebrities and other prominent individuals to maintain continued relevance and bolster mainstreaming efforts. Overall engagement at the domestic level with IDP issues falls as news coverage also falters, which leads to decreased advocacy at the domestic level and prompts domestic leaders to set national preferences based on this apathy and in the absence of pressure to act on the deficits present in IDP regimes. Since every new issue area reduces the size of potential win-sets at Level I, maintaining the status quo in negotiations enlarges potential win-sets. Domestic actors at Level II are left too fatigued to press further, leaving IDPs without advocates at the domestic level in the Global North as well.

This paper has presented the structural constraints imposed on UNHCR by states, as well as growing compassion fatigue at the domestic level in Global North countries as detrimental to UNHCR’s important efforts to mainstream IDPs in common discourse. The present state of affairs leaves a considerable amount of ambiguity insofar as what UNHCR and other international actors can and cannot do with regard to IDPs. This provides for very few binding prescriptions in terms of state obligations to IDPs, and continues to perpetuate a neoliberal state-centric approach that holds the threshold of crossing a state border as a necessary prerequisite for broad international protection. It is wholly antithetical to the purpose of human rights that they be applied differently based on seemingly arbitrary criteria, such as having the economic resources necessary to flee across an international border or being permitted to cross an international border by the state in question. This holds particularly true for states that may fear negative publicity or international condemnation at a massive exodus, or for people who are physically incapable of fleeing which is most relevant for pregnant women, families with young children, and the elderly. 25 This paper therefore asserts that the efforts of UNHCR thus far on mainstreaming the IDP portfolio have been limited by the structural constraints imposed on it by states and the growing phenomenon of compassion fatigue in the Global North. These challenges leave IDPs without advocates in the international system. From a broader normative perspective, there must be a conscious effort to bring internal displacement into mainstream discourse rather than simply leaving them as a ‘population of concern’ for UNHCR. This includes a responsibility on the part of media outlets “to show the faces of those who have been caught in the maelstrom of conflict and disaster.” 26 There must be support for the integration of IDPs into humanitarian discourse to ensure that they are afforded the necessary protections for their material well-being while also upholding their rights and basic dignities. This is not to prioritise them or their rights above refugees or any other group, nor is it meant to imply that IDPs and refugees have identical needs, but rather to assert that the universal human rights of every person should be respected and that those in dire need of international assistance should be able to receive it without regard for politics or appearances.

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