The Process and Prospects for the U.N. Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement to Become Customary International Law: A Preliminary Assessment
![handle is hein.journals/geojintl35 and id is 493 raw text is: THE PROCESS AND PROSPECTS FOR THE U.N.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES ON INTERNAL
DISPLACEMENT TO BECOME CUSTOMARY
INTERNATIONAL LAW:
A PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT
PATRICK L. SCHMIDT*
I. INTRODUCTION
In 1992, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights decided to appoint
a Representative of the Secretary-General to study the global crisis of
internal displacement; Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali asked
Dr. Francis Deng to fill the position.' At the outset, the Representative
recognized that, unlike the protection afforded refugees by the 1951
Convention on Refugees,2 there was no analogous international treaty
for protecting the internally displaced. The Commission on Human
Rights and the General Assembly asked the Representative to work with
a team of legal experts to undertake a study of whether international
law provided adequate protection for internally displaced persons.4
The legal experts set forth their work in a two-part Compilation and
Analysis of Legal Norms in which they concluded that, although interna-
tional law provided some protection to internally displaced persons,
present international law contains certain gray areas and even gaps.5
Upon receiving the Compilation and Analysis of Legal Norms, the
Commission on Human Rights and the General Assembly requested
that the Representative develop an appropriate framework for the
protection of the internally displaced.6 The mandate did not specify
* B.A. Harvard College;J.D. Georgetown University; M.I.P.P.Johns Hopkins University.
1. See Francis M. Deng, The Global Challenge of Internal Displacement, 5 WASH. U.J.L. & POL'Y
141, 141-44 (2001).
2. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, openedfor signatureJuly 28, 1951, 19 U.S.T.
6259, 189 U.N.T.S. 150 (entered into force Apr. 22, 1954).
3. See Deng, The Global Challenge of Internal Displacement, supra note 1, at 146.
4. See id.
5. WALTER KALIN, GUIDING PRINCIPLES ON INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT: ANNOTATIONS 3 (ASIL
Studies in Transnational Legal Policy No. 32, 2000) [hereinafter KALIN, GUIDING PRINCIPLES
ANNOTATIONS].
6. SeeWalter KIlin, How Hard is Soft Law?, The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement
and the Need for a Normative Framework, Lecture Sponsored by the Brookings-CUNY Project on
Internal Displacement at the City University of New York Graduate Center (Dec. 19, 2001), in
RECENT ComMENTARiES ABouT THE NATuRE AND APPLICATION OF THE GUIDING PRINCIPLES ON INTER](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/geojintl35&div=20&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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