Address by Mr. Enrique ter Horst, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Standing Committee on International Protection Executive Committee of the Programme of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Geneva, 23 June 1998


Mr. Chairman, distinguished delegates,

It is an honour for me to be with you here today. In the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, we welcome the opportunity to address and participate in the meetings of UNHCR Executive Committee; equally, we are always keen to see HCR address and participate in UN human rights meetings. As pointed out in the Note on International Protection prepared for this meeting, there is a strong, positive and expanding relationship between the offices of the two High Commissioners, both at the headquarters level and in the field, and we look very much forward to increasing this cooperation.

The strength of this relationship is a natural result of the close connections between the respective mandates entrusted to the two High Commissioners by UN Member States. Providing international protection to refugees, and seeking solutions to their plight, is in many ways an advocacy function devoted to securing respect for the rights of a very vulnerable group of people. As Madame Ogata pointed out in her address to the Commission on Human Rights in 1994:

"By seeking actively through its presence and programmes to protect the human rights of refugees, returnees and the internally displaced, UNHCR today is very much an operational human rights organization, albeit for certain specific categories of people."

The very broad mandate of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which includes the task of protecting the effective enjoyment by all of all human rights, is greatly assisted when specific UN agencies, to the extent possible and appropriate, see their work for the category of people within their concern in human rights terms. I believe that it is thus appropriate for your deliberations today to include the relationship between human rights and refugee protection. I wish to offer only a few points for your consideration.

For many years now, the United Nations has explicitly recognized the link between respect for human rights and the existence of refugees. Numerous resolutions of the Commission on Human Rights and the General Assembly have recognized that gross violations of human rights are one important factor leading to population displacement. This point was also explicitly recognized in the Vienna Declaration adopted at the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights by over 170 States. The large numbers of refugees and displaced persons in the world bear witness to the continued failure of efforts to secure full respect for fundamental human rights and freedoms. Looked at from the perspective of the mandates of the two High Commissioners, failures to achieve the protection of human rights today results in violence, displacement of large numbers of people and refugee flows and in new funding appeals being made by the UN’s refugee agency tomorrow. As we sit here, the proof of this observation can be seen again today in the events in Kosovo and Sierra Leone. And how could I fail to mention Rwanda? The international community, including the United Nations, bears a very grave responsibility for failing to do, in time, what we needed to do when the Rwandans, all Rwandans, needed us most.

Mr. Chairman, the link between human rights violations and refugee movements is well-established. But there are two other important aspects of the relationship between human rights and refugee protection that should also be taken into account.

First, refugees and asylum-seekers, no less than anyone else, are entitled to respect for their human rights and fundamental freedoms. With very few exceptions (such as, for example, the right to vote) the human rights guarantees set out in the main UN treaties apply equally to citizens and non-citizens of a country, thus including refugees and asylum-seekers in a host country. Restrictions on the rights of refugees and asylum-seekers must be clearly justified under the accepted limitation clauses of these treaties. Therefore, the human rights treaties can considerably complement the rights set out in the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, and the supervisory mechanisms of those treaties can be important tools in ensuring that refugees’ rights are respected. In recent years in particular, both regional and global human rights supervisory mechanisms have shown how important their role can be in ensuring that refugees and asylum-seekers are not, for example, subjected to arbitrary detention, or unjustifiably denied their right to re-unite with their families. This point too is highlighted in the Note on International Protection, and we welcome the strengthening of the ties between the UNHCR and human rights supervisory mechanisms.

A second, often overlooked connection between human rights and refugee protection concerns the question of solutions, and in particular the voluntary repatriation of refugees to their country of origin. No one can doubt that voluntary return is the preferred solution for refugee populations. It is not only a matter of considering the concern of States who bear the burden of hosting large numbers of refugees. Return to one’s own country is a fundamental human right. A life in exile, though it might well be necessary, can only be a second-best solution precisely because it implies a continued violation of the right of individuals to return in safety and freedom to their homes and communities.

The difficulty lies not in recognizing that voluntary repatriation is desirable, but in creating the conditions in the country of origin which make such a repatriation achievable. Refugees cannot be expected to return to conditions where they are at risk of serious human rights violations. Often, however, the situation is ambiguous, and there is difficulty in determining whether in fact it is safe for refugees to return. Such difficulties are familiar to this Executive Committee and to the staff of UNHCR, and obviously there are no easy answers.

However, I do feel that there is some potential for making better use of the UN human rights programme in questions of return. Could not the resources and expertise of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights be better exploited in creating conditions conducive to return? for example, in technical cooperation activities designed to assist States to create an independent judiciary, or to provide human rights training for police forces. Similarly, the UN’s human rights monitoring mechanisms could play a greater role in addressing the difficult question of whether in any given situation it is safe for refugees to return. The determination that refugees can safely return to a given country should take into account whatever information UN human rights bodies and mechanisms have provided about the human rights situation in the country.

In all aspects of the relationship between human rights and refugee protection we must continuously strengthen the co-operation between the Offices of the two High Commissioners. Spurred by the Secretary-General’s reform agenda, the “mainstreaming” of human rights into all aspects of the UN’s work is now well underway.

The somewhat artificial distinction between “humanitarian” actions and human rights protection is breaking down, as we come to see the human rights dimensions of, for example, decisions about how relief is distributed in a refugee camp taking into account the implications for the protection of women’s rights. Among civil society too, it is heartening to see that many groups active in the promotion and protection of human rights are now increasingly taking up the issue of refugee protection. Such developments can only be welcomed, as non-governmental organisations in the human rights sector have a crucial role to play in the protection of refugees. The human rights focus helps us to see refugees not as mere objects of pity, but as individuals who -- being human beings -- are entitled to certain minimal guarantees.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,

There have been important recent developments on the issue of the interface between humanitarian affairs and human rights which I would like to bring to your attention. After discussions in ECHA and in the IASC-WG in New York and in Geneva at the beginning of this month, a sub-group has been established with the participation of key humanitarian actors to start dealing with this issue. The humanitarian Forum in Wolfsberg organized by the ICRC and attended also by Ms. Ogata earlier this month allowed new ideas to be presented and considered at a senior level among Government officials, multilateral and bilateral donors and NGOs.

The central point of these recent discussions has been the need for ensuring a continuum between human rights law, humanitarian law and refugee law, keeping in mind that the protection of the victim should be the overriding concern of the UN and its agencies and programmes. In this sense, greater complementarity in the action of the institutions concerned, in the full respect of their different mandates, may actually increase - and not decrease - the level of protection we may be able to provide to individuals and vulnerable groups.

If human rights violations are often the root causes of humanitarian crises, then there ought to be merit in looking into these underlying causes systematically. The human rights machinery is today made up of a large number of international human rights experts from the treaty bodies and the mechanisms of the Commission on Human Rights covering a human rights questions worldwide. Our office therefore believes that we have to strengthen the early warning capacity of the UN also in the humanitarian field and enhance the substantive exchanges between relevant Departments and Programmes, integrate human rights concerns before crises arise and, prepare the ground for effective cooperation both in terms of preparedness and in responses to crises.

Human rights training should be considered as part of the overall training background of all UN humanitarian staff. This would in time allow to make better use of the human rights machinery and the mechanisms of the Commission in such a way as to enhance the protection of the victims and affected populations and the ability of the humanitarian actors to accomplish their delicate mission.

In connection with the human rights aspects of UN humanitarian operations, it would be important to learn from past experiences and thus attempt to: integrate human rights concerns whenever possible; include human rights experts in (if possible even prior to) large humanitarian operations; and emphasize the protection and promotion of human rights, including, whenever applicable, the creation of solid national human rights institutions or infrastructures that could prevent the recurrence of the same humanitarian crises.

At the point at which a humanitarian operation is considered, the human rights dimension should be part of the planning, requiring close cooperation between humanitarian actors and OHCHR. While the need and opportunity for the inclusion of human rights field officer(s) or adviser(s) within humanitarian operations may vary, an explicit human rights strategy could be part of the planning of major humanitarian efforts. Such a strategy could be of an advisory nature and cover training and institution-building issues that could provide support and assistance to the UN in establishing human rights infrastructures and institutions which may become bastions of human rights promotion and protection at the national level after the emergency.

We are encouraged by recent statements by UNHCR aimed at a strengthening of its protection efforts and look very much forward to working closely with it so as to devise a modus operandi which would allow us to move beyond recognizing the importance of the relationship between human rights and refugee protection and to agree on how in practice this relationship can better the plight of the millions of women, children and men who live as refugees in countries around the world.

Thank you.