Anatomy of a Resolution: The General Assembly in UNHCR History
If any organization epitomizes the phrase, “You've come a long way, baby,” it may be the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). UNHCR has indeed come a long way from its original mandate as set out in the 1951 Convention on Refugees and modified by the follow-up Protocol adopted in 1967. While UNHCR was originally intended to provide legal protection and minimal humanitarian assistance to approximately one million refugees who were still displaced in the aftermath of World War II, it now deals with over 33 million people including refugees, internally displaced persons, returnees, and stateless persons “of concern to the Office.”
Whereas its primary function was to have been legal protection (and the Office still considers this its primary mission), it now provides assistance in the areas of health, sanitation, education, shelter, food delivery, special services to women, and even short-term development projects. Instead of providing this assistance in the increasingly stable atmosphere of post-World War II Europe, it now operates in areas suffering from intense conflict where the lives of its personnel are in danger.
And, rather than working primarily with governments of asylum-granting countries, UNHCR now interacts with host countries, countries of origin, donor countries, numerous UN agencies, the Interagency Standing Committee, the United Nations Development Group, the Peacebuilding Commission, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement and hundreds of non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
In other words, despite a limited mandate, UNHCR has become actively involved with human rights, humanitarian assistance, and the transition from relief to development. Its budget has grown to well over a billion dollars. Finally, while its original mandate had to be renewed periodically, this “temporal limitation” was removed by General Assembly resolution 58/153 (o.p. 9) “until the refugee problem is solved.” How did these changes evolve and what does an analysis of these changes have to say about the United Nations system itself?