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Fairness Transparency Accountability |
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1 August 2007 postings
Published elsewhere … Mauro De Lorenzo The Washington Post on 2 May 2007(external link) Dignity, Safety and Health for Refugees “Wherever UNHCR is responsible for determining refugee status, it fails to meet its own guidelines for fairness. And wherever UNHCR warehouses refugees in camps -- sometimes for decades -- it colludes in human rights violations on a large scale, with support from the American taxpayer.”
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9 July 2006 postings
George Kariuki Njamwitha Contesting the “principle applicant” rule: Gender equality requires spouses to file separate refugee claims “There should be mandatory extension of full RSD interviews to both husbands and wives, so that women’s recognition is not merely pegged on the claims of husbands, and to enable wives to lodge their own individual claims.”
Published elsewhere ... Mark Pallis (from The Guardian Unlimited online, 20 June 2006) “A significant number of the biggest problems facing refugees are not caused by under-funding or under-awareness but by the policies of UNHCR itself.”
16 June 2006 postings The Lessons of Cairo
This month, the American University in Cairo’s Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Program (FMRS) published a comprehensive report on the intense protests of Sudanese refugees in Egypt that ended in December with the death of at least 28 people.
The protests involved several thousand Sudanese frustrated by the suspension of refugee status determination and resettlement at UNHCR’s Cairo office. In this special forum update, RSDWatch publishes excerpts of the FMRS report and two commentaries that seek to find lessons for future refugee policy from the tragic events in Egypt.
Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Program (American University in Cairo) A tragedy of failures and false expectations (excerpts) “A series of failures on the part of the Egyptian government and UNHCR, combined with unrealistic expectations and grave miscalculations on the part of the demonstrators and their leaders, resulted in the tragedies of the forced eviction.”
Katarzyna Grabska A system of diffuse responsibility, with blame shared by all “The muddling through approach which has been adopted by the government and the UNHCR, with shifting responsibilities between different actors, leaves refugees and those seeking protection in a vulnerable position, often in a legal limbo.”
Michael Timmins “There is a complete misunderstanding within the entire refugee community in Cairo as to what resettlement actually is, and how the process works. The expectations are too high and this leads to considerable frustration.”
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Other forum contributions:
Burmese ask for an end to RSD and resettlement delays In an open letter to UNHCR sent on 27 April, Burmese refugees said that delays in refugee status determination and resettlement processing in Thailand forced them to live in prolonged insecurity.
Letter George Kariuki Support for a UN refugee court
13 November 2005 postings
Refugee Consortium of Kenya UNHCR RSD: The Kenyan experience “The RSD process takes up a lot of time and resources from UNHCR in Kenya. This may and can seriously affect the effectiveness/quality of the process as well as compromise UNHCR’s mandate for protection.”
Letter Jean-Pascal Obembo UNHCR should give clear reasons for rejection and an opportunity to appeal
9 October 2005 postings NGOs critique new RSD policy Seven NGOs offer UNHCR comments on RSD standards “We are pleased with the greater emphasis upon fairness of procedure. … Simultaneously, we are cautious about the ambiguous language used with regard to several issues. When combined with the absence of rigorous implementing procedures, these ambiguities risk undermining the relevance of the standards.”
24 August 2005 postings
Michael Kagan An advocate’s guide to UNHCR’s new RSD guidelines “UNHCR’s new guidelines should open with a simple declaration, explicitly or in spirit: ‘We practice what we preach.’”
9 August 2005 postings
Open letter to UNHCR NGOs call on UNHCR to re-affirm fairness in RSD standards “Gaps between what UNHCR says to governments and what UNHCR does in its own operations can only erode UNHCR’s credibility. This is something that neither UNHCR nor refugees can afford.”
20 June 2005 postings
Mark Pallis What’s holding back UNHCR accountability? “Even during the recent Global Consultations, there was little consideration of the ways in which UNHCR is itself responsible for implementing the Convention.”
Letter Jean-Pascal Obembo
12 June 2005 postings
NGO Comment AMERA and Frontiers (Ruwad) Toward a rights-based UNHCR urban policy “A challenge in developing a rights-based approach to UNHCR urban policy is the fact that the category “refugees in urban areas” does not exist in international law.”
Published elsewhere Refugees International Press release issued 16 May 2005 (external link) Cambodia, Vietnam and the US should protect Montagnard refugees “Even though it was not sought by either government, the UNHCR decided to impose a refugee screening determination (RSD) process … RI believes the UNHCR RSD process is badly flawed.”
Letter Jeff Crisp Thinking out of the box on RSD
11 May 2005 postings
Michael Kagan “Just as when a government agency wields power over people, there should be a mechanism of administrative checks and balances at the UN.”
Local focus Lynn Yoshikawa Between a rock and a hard place: Burmese asylum-seekers in Thailand “In handing over the RSD process to the Thai government, UNHCR needs to uphold its protection mandate and ensure that the screening process is just, transparent and will not be compromised by the real politik between Burma and Thailand.”
Letter Barbara Harrell-Bond Independence in UNHCR evaluations — Reply
20 April 2005 postings
Guglielmo Verdirame What the next High Commissioner should do about refugee status determination “The first change would be simply to admit the existence of the problem and to be transparent about current UNHCR practices.”
Local focus Ayman Halasa
Letter Jeff Crisp Independence in UNHCR evaluations
Published elsewhere … Peter Dennis The Washington Post on 11 April 2005 (external link) “Sex crimes are only one especially disturbing symptom of a culture of abuse that exists in the United Nations precisely because the United Nations and its staff lack accountability.”
28 February 2005 postings
Local focus UNHCR, refugee advocates warn of a government crackdown on migrants in Malaysia: Digests of recent reports
Published elsewhere ... Claudia Rosett Wall Street Journal on 23 February 2005 (external link) (external link to Wall Street Journal; Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.) UNHCR & N. Koreans in China: “Dismissing demurely the desperate needs of hundreds of thousands”
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