Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-767nl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T13:17:35.220Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Institutional Proliferation and the Global Refugee Regime

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Alexander Betts
Alexander Betts
Affiliation:
MacArthur Foundation-funded Global Migration Governance project. E-mail: alexander.betts@politics.ox.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores the impact of institutional proliferation on the politics of refugee protection. The refugee regime mainly comprises the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Recently, however, new parallel and overlapping institutions have emerged in relation to two previously unregulated areas: internally displaced persons (IDPs) and international migration. This institutional proliferation has affected both state strategy and IO strategy in relation to refugee protection. It has enabled Northern states to engage in regime shifting. They have used the new institutions to prevent refugees reaching their territory, thereby avoiding incurring UN rules on refugee protection, and transferring burdens to Southern states. The resulting reduction in international cooperation in the refugee regime has contributed to UNHCR fundamentally redefining its strategy in order to become more relevant to Northern states. In particular, it has pursued states into the migration and IDP regimes into which they have shifted through a combination of stretching its mandate, engaging in the politics of the emerging regimes, and issue-linkage. The article's analysis draws attention to the potentially significant relationship between institutional proliferation and IO adaptation and change.

Type
Symposium
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 53 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aggarwal, Vinod. 2000. Reconciling multiple institutions: Bargaining, linkages, and nesting. In Institutional Designs for a Complex World, ed. Aggarwal, Vinod. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Barnett, Michael, and Finnemore, Martha. 2004. Rules for the World: International Organizations and Global Politics, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Betts, Alexander. 2008. North-South cooperation in the refugee regime: The role of linkages. Global Governance 14 (2): 157–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Betts, Alexander, and Durieux, Jean-François. 2007. Convention plus as a norm-setting exercise. Journal of Refugee Studies 20 (1): 509–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chahal v United Kingdom. 1996. (22414/93) [1996] ECHR 54 (November 15).Google Scholar
Crisp, Jeff. 2004. “A New Asylum Paradigm? Globalisation, Migration and the Uncertain Future of the International Refugee Regime.” New Issues in Refugee Research, Working Paper No. 100. Geneva: UNHCR.Google Scholar
Dubernet, Cecile. 2001. The International Containment of Displaced Persons: Humanitarian Spaces without Exit. Aldershot: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Garlick, Madeleine. 2006. The EU discussions on extraterritorial processing: Solutions or conundrum? International Journal of Refugee Law 18 (3): 601–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gorlick, Brian. 2000. “Human Rights and Refugees: Enhancing Protection through International Human Rights Law.” New Issues in Refugee Research, Working Paper No. 30. Geneva: UNHCR.Google Scholar
Guterres, Antonio. 2008. Millions uprooted, foreign affairs: Saving refugees and the displaced. Foreign Affairs 87 (5): 90–99.Google Scholar
Haas, Ernst. 1990. When Power Is Knowledge. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Loescher, Gil, Betts, Alexander, and Milner, James. 2008. UNHCR: The Politics and Practice of Refugee Protection into the Twenty-First Century. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
McAdam, Jane. 2007. Complementary Protection in International Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schuster, Liza. 2005. “The Realities of a New Asylum Paradigm.” COMPAS Working Papers Series, WP-05-20.Google Scholar
Tapia Paez v Sweden, CAT, Communication No. 39/1996.Google Scholar
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). 2007. Refugee Protection and Mixed Migration: A 10-Point Plan of Action. Geneva: UNHCR.Google Scholar
Weiss, Thomas, and Korn, David. 2006. Internal Displacement: Conceptualization and its Consequences. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar