Duration of Internal Displacement at the Intersection of Law and Politics

Matijević, Milica V. and Madžarević, Jelena and Giantin, Stefano (2022) Duration of Internal Displacement at the Intersection of Law and Politics. Godišnjak fakulteta pravnih nauka - APEIRON, 12 (12). pp. 23-37. ISSN 2232-9668

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Abstract

Even though the question of when internal displacement ends was the subject of the UN-led standards-seting eff orts and addressed in the resulting international sotilaw norms, in practice, the determination of when an internally displaced person (IDP) is no longer in need of assistance and protection is still performed arbitrarily and on ad hoc basis. There are diff erent explanations of why the rights-based criteria on the duration of displacement have not served their aim. In this paper, the authors identify another one by arguing that their ineff ectiveness is caused in the fi rst place by the essentially political nature of the matier they are supposed to regulate. The paper’s aim is to serve as a preliminary investigation and set the ground for a more systematic and in-depth analysis of the relationship between the law and the politics in the process of deciding when the internal displacement is over. To this aim, the paper provides an overview of the two main international sotilaw instruments regulating the status of IDPs and a short analysis of the principal humanitarian, human rights and refugee law norms from which these soti -law instruments were derived or which have otherwise directed the identifi cation of therein contained standards. The investigation shows not only that the two main international soti -law instruments tend to be inadequate as means to regulate the process of determining when a person should no longer be considered in need of assistance and protection as an IDP, but that the international law norms restated in these instruments as such cannot off er clear guidance on the matter. The inquiry also shows, in the context of protracted displacement, that where the impasse in the negotiation and/or implementation of a peace agreement reduces the traditional triad of durable solutions to only two of them – integration in the place of displacement and resettlement to the third place - the entire edifi ce of the rights-based criteria collapses. Such situations, the authors argue, demonstrate that the rights-based criteria on the duration of displacement can only serve as a framework for the essentially political deliberations on the matter.

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