Refugee at Home.

• Author: Cohen, Roberta

A defining feature of the post-cold-war era is the large number of persons forcibly uprooted within their own countries as a result of civil wars, policies of "ethnic cleansing', generalized violence and systematic violations of human rights. Called internally displaced persons, there are as many as 20-25 million worldwide who remain at risk within the borders of their own countries. Africa has as many as 10 million, Europe and Asia some 5 million each, and Latin America up to 2 million.

Unlike refugees who cross national borders and have access to an established system of international protection and assistance, those who are displaced in their own countries suffer from the absence of a legal and institutional basis for receiving protection and assistance from the international community. Because their own Governments fail or are often unable to provide for their well-being and security, the internally displaced persons (IDPs) are frequently at fisk of starvation, suffer from high rates of preventable diseases and are vulnerable to severe human rights abuse. Whether in Kosovo, the Sudan, Sierra Leone or Afghanistan, the IDPs are in need of international attention, as news reports bring graphic descriptions of mass killings, deliberate starvation, slavery, mutilations, forced conscription and sexual violence.

In 1992, to gain a better understanding of the problem, the United Nations Secretary-General appointed a Representative on Internally Displaced Persons, at the request of the Commission on Human Rights. The Representative, Dr. Francis M. Deng, a former diplomat from the Sudan, visited 13 countries with serious problems of internal displacement, established dialogues with Governments, developed a legal framework for dealing with internal displacement, and has generally served as a catalyst, raising international awareness of the problem and advocating better protection, assistance and reintegration and development aid for the IDPs.

In large measure, Dr. Deng found that the victims of displacement in internal conflicts, especially when race, religion or ethnicity play a role, are often not viewed by their Governments as citizens to be protected and assisted, but rather as part of "the enemy" to be persecuted. As a conceptual framework for international efforts, he put forward the doctrine of sovereignty as responsibility.

This means that a State can claim the prerogatives of sovereignty only so long as it carries out its internationally...