In December 2009, the UNHCR adopted an ExCom Conclusion on protracted refugee situations. The purpose of this policy brief is to examine in detail the history and process of identifying protracted refugee situations as a significant international policy problem, the steps leading to the 2009 ExCom Conclusion and a consideration of the text of the Conclusion.

In presenting recommendations on addressing these constraints, this briefing first addresses the nature and scope of protracted displacement, some of its causes and consequences, and a short history of international responses to protracted refugee situations before examining in detail the process leading to the 2009 ExCom Conclusion and the steps required by states, UNHCR and NGOs to adequately respond to protracted refugee situations in the future.

• Responding to Protracted Refugee Situations: Lessons from a Decade of Discussion
• Other Policy Briefings from the RSC
  

Sahrawi boys playing football outside the precinct of the 27 February Women's School (2007). © 2007 Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh

A new collection of photographs: “The 27 February Camp: Sahrawi refugees in Algeria” is now available on Forced Migration Online.

Approximately 155,000 Sahrawi refugees are currently distributed amongst four major refugee camps in South-Western Algeria, named after the main cities in the Western Sahara (Aaiun, Ausserd, Smara and Dakhla).

A fifth camp, the ’27 February Camp’, is relatively small, having grown up around the National Women’s School. This collection of photographs focuses on life in the 27 February Camp.

The photographs in this collection were kindly provided by Dr Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Departmental Lecturer in Forced Migration at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford. Elena carried out fieldwork in the 27 February Camp between 2001 and 2009.

• View the photographs

In a lecture focusing on forced displacement, protection and humanitarian action, Guterres called for international action on global refugee crisis.

The Harrell-Bond Lecture is held annually in honour of Dr Barbara Harrell-Bond, founding former director of the Centre and of the academic field of refugee studies or forced migration studies.

• Listen to the podcast

A series of events and activities in more than 100 countries will seek to promote a better understanding of why people become refugees, and to highlight the challenges involved in trying to help them. These events will involve government officials, humanitarian aid workers, celebrities, civilians and the forcibly displaced themselves.

• UNHCR: World Refugee Day 2010
• Video: High Commissioner António Guterres’ message for World Refugee Day
• Red Cross – Look Beyond the Label
• Simple Acts: learn and do more with refugees
• FMO: resources on World Refugee Day and Refugee Week

FMO has launched the first of a series of podcasts recorded at the Protecting People in Conflict & Crisis conference, held by the Refugee Studies Centre (in collaboration with the Humanitarian Policy Group) between 22th and 24th September 2009 at Harris Manchester College, Oxford. The opening address was given by Erika Feller, Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, UNHCR. Further details about the conference can be accessed on the event page.

• Podcast
• Subscribe via iTunes

• Refugee Week
• Asylum Dialogues
• British Red Cross ‘Look beyond the label’
• FMO World Refugee Day and Refugee Week

A Forced Migration Review supplement ‘Islam, human rights and displacement’ is now in the digital library (FMR is one of five journals available).

The Forced Migration Review Editors have produced this 12-page supplement to enhance debate and understanding of the concepts and instruments of international human rights in the Islamic world.

The supplement includes the full text of the UDHR and the ‘Cairo Declaration’ in the hope that they will both inform and enable those concerned with assisting and protecting displaced people to advocate more strongly on their behalf. We have also included three articles that take up aspects of the debate over the applicability of international laws and conventions in Islam.

Full Issue

• FMR 2009, Supplement: Islam, human rights and displacement

Individual Articles

• Islam, international law and the protection of refugees and IDPs
• The rights of refugee women and children in Islam
• Child rights and Islam

A special issue of Forced Migration Review ‘Ten Years of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement’ is now in the digital library (FMR is one of five journals available).

This 40-page special issue of Forced Migration Review (FMR), published by the Refugee Studies Centre of Oxford University, reflects discussions at the international conference on the Ten Years of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (‘GP10’) held in Oslo on 16-17 October 2008.

The FMR special issue includes shortened versions of some of the conference presentations, plus a selection of other articles, most of which present case studies on the application of the Guiding Principles in different countries.

Full Issue

• FMR 2008, Special Issue: Ten Years of the Guiding Principles

Individual Articles

• The genesis and the challenges
• Achievements, challenges and recommendations
• Assessing the impact of the Principles: an unfinished task
• The Guiding Principles and the Responsibility to Protect
• Achievements and limitations of the Guiding Principles in Burma
• Protecting IDPs in Europe
• Experience of the Guiding Principles in Georgia
• Africa: from voluntary principles to binding standards
• Can the Guiding Principles make a difference in Kenya?
• Uganda’s response to displacement: contrasting policy and practice
• Guiding Principle 29 and the right to restitution
• Obstacles to realising Guiding Principle 29 in Afghanistan
• Seeking electoral equality for IDP voters
• Time to apply the Guiding Principles in Nepal
• Returnees in Sierra Leone
• Guiding Principle 27 and Philippine typhoon response
• Internal displacement in the Central African Republic
• UNHCR and the Guiding Principles
• Training to strengthen protection of IDP rights
• The future of the Guiding Principles

Professor Roger Zetter, Director of the Refugee Studies Centre was among the experts interviewed for the recent BBC World Service programme, The Instant Guide to Refugees.

According to the latest official figures there are some eleven million refugees in the world, almost one in five of them from Afghanistan. This week the Instant Guide looks at the status of the world’s refugees – their rights, where they mostly are and at life in a refugee camp.

The RSC recently added three new titles to its Working Paper Series: ‘Salah Sheeks is a refugee: New insights into primary and subsidiary forms of protection’, ‘UHCR as an Autonomous Organisation: Complex Operations and the Case of Kosovo’ and ‘Family Reunification: A Right for Forced Migrants?’.

• Refugee Studies Centre Working Papers
• Family Reunification: A Right for Forced Migrations? (PDF file 207 KB)
• UNHCR as an Autonomous Organisation: Complex Operations and the Case of Kosovo (PDF file 203 KB)
• Salah Sheekh is a refugee: New insights into primary and subsidiary forms of protection (PDF file 139 KB)