A surrogate state? The role of UNHCR in protracted refugee situations

The paper argues that humanitarian agencies in general, and UNHCR in particular, have
been placed in the position of establishing and assuming responsibility for such
“sprawling camps” in order to fill gaps in the international refugee regime that were not
envisaged at the time of its establishment after the Second World War.3 It goes on to
suggest that the UN’s refugee agency has been limited in its ability to address the
problem of protracted refugee situations, mainly because of the intractable nature of
contemporary armed conflicts and the policies pursued by other actors, but also because
of the other issues which the organization has chosen to prioritize and the limited amount
of attention which it devoted to this issue during the 1990s. The paper concludes by
examining the organization’s more recent and current efforts to tackle the issue of
protracted refugee situations, and identifies some of the key principles on which such
efforts might most effectively be based.