Introduction: Understanding Global Refugee Policy

Researchers visiting the Headquarters of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva will frequently encounter discussions about efforts to develop ‘global refugee policy’. These efforts may relate to changes to existing UNHCR programmes, such as its approach to refugees in urban areas, or to new areas of activity, such as the organization’s response to displacement resulting from natural disasters. These efforts become ‘refugee policy’ when they result in a formal statement of a problem relating to protection, solutions or assistance for refugees or other populations of concern to the global refugee regime and a proposed course of action to respond to that problem. According to Soroos (1990: 318), this policy is ‘global’ when it takes the form of ‘either regulations that define the limits of permissible behavior for national governments and those under their jurisdiction or, alternatively, as programs administered by international agencies,’ such as UNHCR. UNHCR, states and NGOs invest considerable time and resources to develop, adopt and implement global refugee policy. Since 2007, for example, UNHCR has adopted new policies on: age, gender and diversity (UNHCR 2011); statelessness (UNHCR 2010); protection and solutions in urban areas (UNHCR 2009a); displacement resulting from natural disasters (UNHCR 2009b); return and reintegration (UNHCR 2008); and internal displacement (UNHCR 2007). This is in addition to Conclusions adopted by UNHCR’s Executive Committee (ExCom) on refugees with disabilities (2010), protracted refugee situations (2009) and refugee children at risk (2007), all of which constitute global refugee policy. Other notable examples of global refugee policy include the 2002 Agenda for Protection and UNHCR’s policies on older refugees (2000), refugee children (1993) and refugee women (1990). In this way, global refugee policy is a discernible area of activity for the global refugee regime. This activity results in a particular product, namely the document that formally details a given policy, such as those listed above. More generally, however, global refugee policy may also be understood as a process through which particular issues or problems compete for prominence on the agenda of the global refugee regime’s decision-making bodies, where the interests of different actors affect decisions on responses to these issues, and where a range of factors condition efforts to implement these decisions in various regional, national and local contexts. As argued in this introduction, this understanding of global refugee policy as a product and as a process allows for a more rigorous and systematic engagement with this area of ongoing activity within the global refugee regime. Although Refugee Studies has long been concerned with the elements and implications of policies relating to refugees and other displaced persons, our understanding of the process that leads to these policies at the global level, and factors affecting implementation at the local level, is surprisingly limited. While considerable literature exists on the process by which policies are developed at the national or regional levels (such as Guild 2006; Jacobsen 1996), there is very limited literature on the factors that affect the policy-making process at the global level and the impact this policy has on the lives of refugees. While a range of authors have examined the origins, evolution and politics of the global refugee regime (such as Barnett 2002; Loescher 2001), this literature has not systematically engaged with the process by which global refugee policy is made and the factors that affect its implementation. The result is an important gap in the literature, especially given the prominence of policy discussions, the time and resources they require, and their implicit claim to have a positive impact on conditions for refugees and other forced migrants. In response to this gap, the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, devoted its 30th Anniversary Conference in December 2012 to the theme ‘Understanding Global Refugee Policy’. The conference, which attracted more than 70 participants, provided important insights on various aspects of global refugee policy, both through the 65 papers presented and through the background paper and literature review prepared for the conference (Bauman and Miller 2012; Miller 2012). In addition, the conference was preceded by a day-long workshop entitled ‘The making, methods and movement of global refugee policy.’ Supported by funding from the Refugee Research Network,1 the workshop included 10 papers that considered either the policy-making process within UNHCR or the relationship between global refugee policy and policy responses in specific regional or national contexts. The articles in this special issue draw primarily from papers first presented at this workshop. Articles for the special issue were selected for their ability to help unpack particular analytical and methodological questions relating to the study of global refugee policy. Miller’s review essay engages with the study of global public policy, with its tendency to be process-focused, issue-driven and norm-oriented, to provide a set of conceptual tools to help define and study global refugee policy. Fresia builds from an examination of the negotiation of the 2007 ExCom Conclusion on Refugee Children at Risk to illustrate the process by which policy agendas are set and how the interests of actors involved affect the formulation of global refugee policy. Landau and Amit draw on the case of South Africa to argue that, as refugees are and local protection are by global refugee policy and more by other urban policies and to the to the of the study and of refugee policy. on the case of refugees in to the factors that the limited impact of global policy on solutions for protracted refugee situations in a particular national the of and policies as an of policy from the formal decision-making of the global refugee regime and the that international refugee as an of global refugee policy, has in the implementation of these the relationship between global refugee policy and the policy-making process at the regional the case of the how the interests of actors the policy-making also how UNHCR and the these articles to an understanding of global refugee policy, how global refugee policy is is involved with the global refugee policy how the impact of global refugee policy may be and how global refugee policy other policy that impact of concern to the global refugee regime. The articles also provide examples of different to the study of global refugee policy and how various may be for in this they argue for a more and systematic study of global refugee policy to the process by which it is and and the impact it has on the of those it to The articles also the of especially efforts to or implement global policy in regional, national or local they that a more systematic and rigorous understanding of the global refugee policy process may to more of policy to conditions for refugees and other forced migrants. 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