SECURITY AND RIGHTS: THE UNHCR'S VI

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Subject: SECURITY AND RIGHTS: THE UNHCR'S VIEWS

/* written 25 Sep 6:00am 1996 by drunoo@xxxxxxxxxxxx in igc:reg.burma */
/* -------------" Security and Rights: the UNHCR views "------------- */

Following is excerpts from UNHCR policy book, "The State of the World's
Refugees 1995: In search of solutions", regarding with Security, Sovereignty
and Rights. --- U Ne Oo.
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The State of the Worlds Refugees: In search of solutions
1995 - Oxford University Press, A$ 24.95 (paperback)

pp-38

New notion of security
----------------------
The end of the Cold War and other recent international developments have
prompted a redefinition of the notions of national and international
security. During the era of superpower rivalry, politicians and strategists
on both sides of the East-West divide tended to percive such concepts
almost exclusively in terms of military strength, strategic alliances,
technolotical progress and industrial performance. A state, in other words,
was only as strong as its capacity to project power and to defend its
territory from attack.

Now that the threat of superpower confrontation and nuclear war has receded,
new notions of security are emerging, based on a recognition that states
and their citizens are confronted with a much wider range of problems:
environmental pollution and the depletion of the world's natural resources,
rapid demographic growth, the production and distribution of drugs,
organized crime, international terriorism, human rights violations, the
proliferation of small arms, unemployment and economic deprivation as well
as mass migratory movements, to give just a few examples.

 .................................

At the same time, governments are now paying much closer attention to the
linkages between different security issues, and recognizing the need to
address them in an integrated manner. An interesting attempt to
institutionalize this approach can be seen in the decision to appoint an
Undersecretary for Global affairs in the US State Department, responsible
for placing issues such as refugees, the environment, democratization and
humanitarian assistance in the mainstream of the foreign policy process. At
the international level, a similar orientation informed the March 1995
World Summit for Social Development, which stressed the interdependence
between issues such as poverty, unemployment and social disintegration on
the one hand, and insecurity, violence, conflict and human rights
violations on the other.

The debate over sovereignty
---------------------------
Ever since the UN Security Council passed Resolution 688 in 1991, insisting
that the government of Iraq `allow immediate access by international
humanitarian organizations to all those in need of assistance,' it has
become commonplace for analysts to observe that the world is witnessing an
erosion in the notion of national sovereignty and a declining commitment to
the principle of non-interference in the domestic affairs of states.
Subsequent UN resolutions and governmental actions with regards to
countries such as Haiti, Rwanda and Somalia would appear to confirm this
analysis. In contrast to the Cold War era, there is now a much greater
readiness amongst the world's more powerful states to acknowledge that
events taking place within a country can constitute a threat to
international peace and security.

The notion that the principle of sovereignty is in terminal decline is much
more difficult to sustain. When approving Resolution 688, for example, the
Security Council was careful to avoid any explicit reference to the use of
military force and to reaffirm `the commitment of all Member States to the
sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of Iraq.' In
the past year or two, moreover, the consensus necessary to approve such
interventions has started to subside. On the question of former Yugoslavia,
for example, some significant differences have emerged both within and
between important institution such as the UN Security Council, the European
Union, NATO and the OSCE. At the same time, many of the world's
less-developed and newly industralized countries, which are not permanently
represented in the institutions, have expressed their serious misgivings
about the interventionist trend and their eagerness to uphold the principle
and practice of sovereignty. .....................

Even so, it is difficult to disagree with the UN Secretary-General's
statement that `the time of absolute and exclusive sovereignty' has passed.
For in the contemporary world, no country can hope to shield itself from
external influences and attention. As the Commission of Global Governance
has observed, `an increasingly interdependent world, old notions of
territoriality, independence and non-intervention lose some of their
meaning. National boundaries are increasingly permeable - an in some
respects, less relevant. A global flood of money, threats, images and ideas
has overflowed the old system of national dikes that perserved state
autonomy and control.'


pp-64
Economic and social rights
--------------------------
A frequently neglected relationship between human rights and human
displacement is to be seen in the effort to meet the material and social
needs of uprooted populations. Form many years, UNHCR maintained a sharp
distinction between activities intended to safeguard the legal and physical
security of refugees ( which were described as `protection'), and
programmes designed to assist displaced populations with food, shelter,
health care and income-generating opportunities (which were known as
`assistance'). While the organization recognized that there was a
connection between its protection function and the broader task of
safeguarding human rights, the provision of assistance itself was never
regarded as a human rights activity.

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
however, makes it clear that questions of material welfare can also be
regarded in human rights terms. Thus the covenant recognizes that everyone,
including refugees and other displaced people, has a right to be free from
hunger, to be educated, to have adequate clothing and housing, and to enjoy
a `continuous improvement of living conditions.' In this sense, the
reintegration and rehabilitation programmes implemented by UNHCR and other
humanitarian organizations can also be regarded as a form of human rights
protection - although it is not to suggest that material assistance can
ever be substitute for the legal and physical protection which refugees
require.

Human rights are therefore much more than abstract principles. In one
sense they contribute to the prevention of refugee movements by placing
constraints on the actions of governments and by reinforcing the
accountability of states for the treatment of their citizens. At the same
time, they contribute to the resolution of refugee situations by providing
a set of standards and objectives for the operational activities undertaken
by UNHCR and its partners. One of the principal challenges now confronting
the international community is to ensure that the search for solutions to
refugee problems is undertaken in a way which is fully consistent with the
protection of human rights.

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