States bear major responsibility for implementing durable solutions for internally displaced persons

NEW YORK (24 October 2013) – The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons (IDPs), Chaloka Beyani, today made an appeal to the international community, when addressing the UN General Assembly, to resolve internal displacement with concerted and consolidated efforts.

“States bear the primary duty and  responsibility to establish conditions for implementing durable solutions for internally displaced persons based on their participation to decide whether to return voluntarily, or integrate locally, or settle elsewhere in the country,” stressed the Special Rapporteur. “ Yet, cooperative and coordinated efforts by Governments, international organizations, including humanitarian and development actors, the international community, internally displaced persons and relevant national actors are crucial in the long process of ending displacement,” he added.

The Special Rapporteur recommended States affected by displacement to “develop national legislation and policies on internal displacement that address barriers to solutions, including access to justice mechanisms and transitional justice; protection of and access to housing, land and property rights; and the re-establishment of livelihoods as an essential element to build the resilience of internally displaced persons.” Mr. Beyani said “Achieving durable solutions will require adequate budgetary provisions and human resource capacity” he added.

“It is imperative to include durable solutions in national and local development plans, poverty reduction and alleviation plans, national economic reconstruction plans, transition plans, urban development plans and peacebuilding and stabilization efforts” said Mr. Beyani while noting the need to undertake early, participatory and joint planning, ensuring the engagements of local authorities.

The Special Rapporteur strongly encouraged donor states to take an active role and to recognize the resolution of internal displacement as an essential element of effective transition, peacebuilding, economic reconstruction, or resilience and stabilization efforts, and consequently to bring more balance to development and humanitarian assistance.

Mr. Beyani recalled relevant international frameworks and initiatives to address durable solutions, which are the Secretary General’s Framework, the IASC Framework, the Transitional Solutions Initiative, the post-2015 development agenda and the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States. Regarding the Secretary-General’s and IASC Frameworks he stressed that “integrated implementation of the two frameworks is particularly important in order to respond to the question of the extent to which durable solutions have been achieved, using the criteria and indicators identified in the IASC Framework.”

The Special Rapporteur called upon international humanitarian, human rights, development and peacebuilding organizations to review their current approaches on internal displacement, to use existing frameworks and tools, and to further collaborate with other organizations across sectors.
“In order to strengthen evidenced-based programming, States and United Nations country teams are encouraged to utilize the services of specialized actors, such as the Joint IDP Profiling Service, to collect, update, analyse and disseminate quantitative and qualitative data on internal displacement. They should also develop tools to monitor and evaluate progress towards the achievement of durable solutions based on the IASC Framework,” he said.
“National and international actors are urged to offer technical and capacity development support to national authorities to support the development and implementation of relevant national legislation and policies”, Mr. Beyani concluded.

Chaloka Beyani, professor of international law at the London School of Economics, was appointed as Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons by the Human Rights Council in September 2010. As Special Rapporteur, he is independent from any government or organization and serves in his individual capacity Lear more, visit: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IDPersons/Pages/IDPersonsIndex.aspx

(*) Check the full report by the Special Rapporteur:  http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?si=A/68/225

For more information and media requests, please contact:
In New York: Nenad Vasic (+1 212 963 5998 / vasic@un.org)   
In Geneva: Marta Franco Parra (+41 22 9179268 / mfranco@ohchr.org) or write to idp@ohchr.org

UN Human Rights, follow us on social media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/unitednationshumanrights
Twitter: http://twitter.com/UNrightswire
Google+ gplus.to/unitednationshumanrights   
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/UNOHCHR
Storify: http://storify.com/UNrightswire

Watch “20 years of human rights - the road ahead”: http://youtu.be/yW7s-Q8S14E