The Historical Evolution Of The International Refugee Law And The UNHCR

Shruti Chaturvedi, Assistant Professor, School of Law, UPES, Dehradun

ABSTRACT

The past decade has seen the upsurge in the refugee crisis throughout the globe. Refugee crisis is the forceful displacement of people from their country due to lack of a political solution. It arises due to several factors such as internal conflicts, wars, climate crisis, human rights violations and so on. Whatever may be the cause, the result is the loss of home, loss of livelihood, separation from families, deprivation of nationality and death in extreme cases. The victims are forced to move from their country to other countries-usually through illegal means-and be dependant on the host country for their survival. More often than not their basic civil liberties and humanitarian standards of survival are not met with. The history is replete with such incidents starting from Russian Refugee Crisis to German Refugee Crisis to Rohingya Refugee Crisis of the present. This article is an attempt to trace the historical evolution of the International Refugee Law in response to the refugee plight through different timelines. It highlights the role of several agencies in dealing with the crisis as and when it unfolded, leading to the formation of a legal framework on Refugee Crisis. The article underlines the development of the Refugee Convention, the evolving definition of ‘Refugees’ and the establishment of the UNHCR as a body for addressing the catastrophe.

Keywords: Refugee Crisis, Historical Evolution, Refugee Convention, UNHCR