In the first section the author gives a brief description of various groups of refugees based on his own experience of engaging in relief work, such as the Palestine refugees (under UNRWA), Indochinese refugees, Afghan refugees and “famine” refugees in Africa (under UNHCR). The author in this way intends to offer general concepts of refugees and various features of their problems.
Then, in the second section explanations are given on the present situation and the manner of responding to them by international society, and especially UNHCR and VOLAGs (voluntary agencies), under existing international legal instruments. Refugees are defined under the “Refugee Convention” of 1951 and “Refugee Protocal” of 1967. Besides these “definition refugees, ” for whom UNHCR has the primary responsibility of protection and assistance under its Statute, there have been other groups of refugees UN General Assembly resolutions have placed under UNHCR. This resulted from the recent situation, where the mass flow of refugees made the definition of refugees almost out-of-date. The second problem concerns the attitudes and policies of the countries which accept refugees (countries of first asylum). The ASEAN states, for instance, do not allow the refugees the “local settlement or integration”. Then, for the durable solution of the refugee problem two other formulas have been applied by UNHCR; namely (the third country) resettlement and voluntary repatriation. Such countries as the USA, Canada, Australia, Japan and other “advanced” countries have been according the refugees the chance for re-settlement. Through voluntary repatriation great many Cambodian refugees and about 3, 000 Laotian refugees have been repatriated, for whom UNHCR have given some relief goods. In addition to these measures, as a special counter-measure for the potential refugees in the countries of their source, UNHCR made an agreement for authorized departure from Vietnam in 1979, although the flow of “boat-people” from Vietnam has not yet been totally absorbed.
Special attention is given to Cambodians who are staying along the Thai-Cambodian borders, amounting to about 250, 000. Since international relief organizations will not give food and other relief goods to the combatants of the so-called Tripartite Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea, an exile regime, the combatants have been using these displaced Cambodians as a utensil for receiving relief goods. Recently some VOLAGs working at the border areas or inside Cambodia (People's Republic of Kampuchea) for humanitarian purposes, took steps to appeal to the UN and their respective governments that these Cambodians should be treated as refugees, be accorded the care of UNHCR and be moved to safer area in Thailand.
In the third section recent moves in the international society for seeking new approaches to the fluctuating refugee problem are pointed out. In the late 1970s the UN asked Prince Agha Khan to study the mass displacements of people. He submitted the so-called Agha Khan Report in which he offered some proposals and suggestions including an early warning system on refugees. But, this report has not been given much attention in international society. Prince Agha Khan then set up, together with the Crown Prince of Jordan and other prominent personalities, the Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues (ICIHI), which is in the future expected to produce its final report on various problems or issues, including the refugee problem. In Japan a group of experts was formed in 1984, under the co-sponsorship of the UN University and Soka University (Institute of Asian Studies), and submitted an interim report and the final report, respectively in 1985 and 86, on the potential refugees in Asia.
Although these reports would be of much importance for the future response of international
抄録全体を表示