Putting Idps on the Map: Achievements and Challenges in Commemoration of the Work of Roberta Cohen
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December 2006 special issue Putting IDPs on the map: achievements and challenges in commemoration of the work of Roberta Cohen Brookings Institution-University of Bern Project on Internal Displacement Forced Migration Review Forced Migration Review provides a forum for contents the regular exchange of practical experience, information and ideas between researchers, refugees and internally displaced people, and those who work with them. It is published in Introduction English, Spanish, Arabic and French by the by Francis Deng and Walter Kälin ................................................... 3 Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford. A personal tribute to Roberta Cohen by Francis M Deng ............................................................................ 4 Editors Marion Couldrey & Dr Tim Morris The future of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement Forced Migration Review by Walter Kälin ................................................................................. 5 Refugee Studies Centre Placing IDPs on the international agenda: lessons learned. Department of International Development by Petter F Wille ................................................................................ 7 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB, UK Email: [email protected] I first met Roberta... Tel/fax: +44 (0)1865 280700 by Maria Stavropoulou ..................................................................... 8 Skype: fmreview Humanitarian reform and new institutional responses by Dennis McNamara ...................................................................... 9 Website UNHCR’s role in IDP protection: www.fmreview.org opportunities and challenges by Erika Feller .................................................................................11 Designed by ProCap: new approach to protection..........................................14 Art24 (www.art-24.co.uk) Protection of IDP women, children and youth Printed by by Dale Buscher and Carolyn Makinson .......................................15 LDI Ltd Improving IDP data: prerequisite for more effective protection ISSN 1460-9819 by Elisabeth Rasmusson ............................................................... 16 IDP protection at the national level in South Asia Brookings-Bern Project by Paula Banerjee ..........................................................................18 on Internal Displacement A road map to the end of displacement in Sri Lanka? Tens of millions of people have been forced by Jeevan Thiagarajah ................................................................... 20 from their homes by armed conflict, internal strife and systematic violations of human rights How far may Colombia’s Constitutional Court go to protect IDP rights? but remain within the borders of their own by Manuel José Cepeda-Espinosa ................................................ 21 countries. The Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement was created to promote a more Regional or national protection for Great Lakes IDPs? effective national, regional and international by Zachary A Lomo ......................................................................... 23 response to this global problem and to support the work of the Representative of the UN Development-induced and conflict-induced IDPs: bridging the research divide Secretary-General on the Human Rights of by Michael M Cernea ..................................................................... 25 Internally Displaced Persons. The Project is co- directed by Walter Kälin, the Representative Studying IDPs: retrospect and prospect of the Secretary-General, and Elizabeth Ferris, by Susan Martin ............................................................................. 27 Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. The Project: a replicable model of innovative response? by Thomas G Weiss ........................................................................ 29 www.brookings.edu/idp [email protected] Looking to the future by Elizabeth Ferris .......................................................................... 30 Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement The Brookings Institution In her own words tribute from FMR editors ............................................................... 32 1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20036 USA Tel: +1 (202) 797-6168 Copyright and disclaimer Front cover photo: Opinions in FMR do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or the School boys rehearse for a musical Refugee Studies Centre, or the policies and opinions of the Brookings-Bern Project. Any FMR print or online material may be freely reproduced, provided performance at an IDP camp in Alero that acknowledgement is given to the source and, where possible, the FMR District, northern Uganda, August 2006. URL and/or the article-specific URL. We welcome comments on the content Manoocher Deghati/IRIN and layout of FMR – please email, write or use the form on our homepage. FMR/BROOKINGS-BERN SPECIAL ISSUE Introduction by Francis Deng and Walter Kälin After twelve years as Co-Director of the Project on least 24 million people internally displaced by conflict alone and many Internal Displacement at the Brookings Institution, millions more have been displaced Roberta Cohen retires at the end of 2006. by development projects and natural disasters. It also reflects the new Roberta recounts that she arrived at and policy documents on issues willingness of the international the Brookings Institution in 1994 to an around displacement, humanitarian community to consider intervening to empty desk, wondering how to define interventions and aid. In recent protect the rights of IDPs, confirming an IDP. Today internal displacement years she has been at the forefront the principle of the ‘responsibility to is a fully-fledged field of study and of Brookings work on Darfur protect’ agreed by 192 governments at operations. Roberta’s contribution and North Korea. Referring to the World Summit in 2005.3 Another to this transformation reason is that an increasing cannot be underestimated. number of countries are now developing their Roberta has worked tirelessly own national laws and to support our respective policies on IDPs and mandates as Representatives significant institutional of the UN Secretary-General changes are underway on Internal Displacement within the UN system. (Deng) and the Human Rights of IDPs (Kälin). This special issue therefore She played a key role in provides the opportunity steering the preparation of not just to commemorate the Guiding Principles on Roberta’s work but also Internal Displacement.1 She to take stock. The articles has been at the forefront explore lessons learned from of applying the Principles trying to apply the Guiding through fundraising for Principles, the implications their translation and of institutional changes for dissemination, organising the protection of IDPs and and speaking at countless opportunities and challenges seminars, conferences and for putting the protection workshops and lobbying of IDPs into practice. The within the UN system authors remind us how and with governments. much progress has been She has placed IDPs on made and the importance the agendas of national of Roberta’s contribution. human rights institutions However, they also warn especially in Asia, hosted Roberta Cohen us how much remains to numerous meetings with be done. In different ways NGOs and worked directly the two of us continue to with IDPs themselves. Roberta’s retirement and new advocate for the rights of IDPs. We status as non-resident Senior count on Roberta’s continued support Roberta can be credited with defining Fellow, the Brookings president, and look forward to working with a field of academic and intellectual Strobe Talbott, insists that the her successor, Elizabeth Ferris. study. She and her Brookings ‘retired’ remains in quotation marks colleagues have established the case and the ‘non’ in non-resident be Francis Deng was the Representative for IDPs as a category of concern, diminished. “Roberta’s contribution of the UN Secretary-General on elaborated the concept of ‘sovereignty to Brookings and the world is Internal Displacement. Email: as responsibility’ and conducted immense and must continue.” [email protected]. research on topics ranging from peace processes to mortality rates. That so many of the senior policy Walter Kälin is the Representative She has edited and authored or co- makers and leading academic of the UN Secretary-General on authored seminal academic texts thinkers in the field of internal the Human Rights of IDPs. Email: on internal displacement, most displacement have contributed to [email protected] significantly Masses in Flight2 in 1998. this special issue of FMR is in itself testament to the far-reaching impact 1. www.brook.edu/fp/projects/idp/articles/guiding.htm 2. www.brook.edu/press/books/massflgt.htm As befits a Senior Fellow at the of Roberta’s work. But it is also 3. www.un.org/summit2005/ Brookings Institution, Roberta indicative of the scale of internal has written numerous op-eds displacement. Today, there are at PUTTING IDPS ON THE MAP A personal tribute to Roberta Cohen by Francis M Deng Although I have received generous praise over the years institutional arrangements in response to internal displacement. for my efforts on behalf of the world’s internally displaced She was also keenly aware of the role persons as representative of the UN Secretary-General that regional organisations could on the issue, I say, without