RSD Reform Update

10 August 2005

 

 

NGOs call on UNHCR to re-affirm fairness standards

 

Eight refugee rights organizations have written to UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, calling on him to not back down from standards of fairness when UNHCR publishes guidelines on refugee status determination procedures for use in around 80 countries.

 

Last month, RSDWatch reported that UNHCR will publish on 1 September procedural guidelines that it distributed internally in 2003.

 

Guterres took the position of High Commissioner in June. The eight organizations, including grassroots legal aid and advocacy programs in South Africa, East Africa, the Middle East and Turkey, told Guterres that reforming “RSD is one of the chief challenges that you have inherited,” citing longstanding criticisms that UNHCR’s RSD procedures fail to meet minimum standards of fairness to asylum-seekers.

 

The NGOs warned UNHCR that it must hold itself to the same standards that it has set for governments. “Retreat from these standards would simply lower the bar rather than engage in real reform,” they wrote. “Gaps between what UNHCR says to governments and what UNHCR does in its own operations can only erode UNHCR’s credibility.”

 

The full letter has been published in the RSDWatch forum.

 

 

 

 

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