Réseau universitaire international de Genève
Geneva International Academic Network

Homepage > Research > Projects > Long Description

UNHCR and the Global Cold War, 1971-1984

Annual Call for Projects 2006

Summary

Created in 1950 to solve the problem of European refugees in the wake of World War II, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has subsequently grown to become a global operation that currently addresses the needs of over 19 million people. Beginning in the 1970’s, UNHCR experienced a sudden expansion in its role in the developing world, where large-scale humanitarian crises set in motion an evolution of norms and standard setting with regard to refugee law and exposed the organisation to new challenges. In particular, the organisation was charged with the management of sudden mass refugee influxes, the construction of extensive refugee camps, the procurement and distribution of food and basic relief supplies on a scale previously unimagined, and the carrying out of its humanitarian mandate in a highly politicised climate shaped by East – West tension.

This collaborative, multidisciplinary project supported by the Geneva International Academic Network (GIAN) will examine the records of UNHCR field and headquarters operations during this crucial period and will result in the creation of an online archival database and the publication of original, policy relevant findings. With three closely related components – archival processing to open up previously closed records, original research/analysis, and dissemination – this project will promote cooperation between the academic community and UNHCR in order to contribute to understanding the successes and failures of the international response to the humanitarian crises of the late 20th century and to the important trends that emerged during this period.

The records addressed by this project and awaiting declassification and archival processing consist of 222 linear meters of paper documents covering the period 1971-1984. The processing of these documents will preserve their physical state and enable scholars and policymakers to access this crucial resource on late 20th century refugee crises.

The research and analysis component of the project will focus on the nature and scope of the role of UNHCR from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, a period when a series of Cold War-related internal and interstate conflicts produced massive refugee flows in Central America, Southeast and Central Asia, and Africa. Placed at the center of a global humanitarian crisis, UNHCR was increasingly challenged to maintain a strict non-political character in dealing with refugees fleeing communist-inspired regimes in Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Nicaragua, while being funded and staffed almost entirely from the Western states, and lacking in support from the Soviet bloc countries. In Honduras and Pakistan, UNHCR was faced with the presence of armed groups in the refugee camps. In Honduras, host to both Salvadoran and Nicaraguan refugees, the situation was especially difficult as the Nicaraguan contras enjoyed the support of both the Honduran and US governments while refugees from El Salvador were fleeing a US-backed military regime. In short, from Indo-China to Central America, UNHCR during this period was charged with addressing the humanitarian needs of populations involved in major protracted refugee situations marked by East-West rivalry.

The project’s research will thus add considerable texture and nuance to the understanding of the Cold War era while placing UNHCR within the larger context of Cold War history. It will shed light on the broader question of the extent to which international organisations matter in global politics. In particular, the project’s findings will highlight the fundamental, trans-disciplinary questions and phenomena that emerged during this period for the first time.

These include:

• The militarisation of refugee camps (Pakistan, Thai-Cambodian border, Central America, Southern Africa);
• The linkage between human rights violations and massive refugee flows (Equatorial Guinea, Burundi, Uganda, Chile, Zimbabwe, Burma, Nicaragua, South Africa, El Salvador, Cuba, Haiti);
  
• Major Protracted Refugee Situations, many of continuing concern to UNHCR (Burundi, Chad, Somalia, Sudan, Western Sahara, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka);
• UNHCR involvement in situations of internal armed conflict (Central America, Afghanistan, Angola, Congo, Horn of Africa, Sudan);
• Renewed emphasis on repatriation and rehabilitation (Bangladesh, Equatorial Guinea, Central America, Zaire/Congo);
• The role of UNHCR as coordinator of large-scale UN assistance operations (Bangladesh, Sudan and Cyprus);
• Increased focus on gender based persecution and on the special needs of refugee women.
  

These developments, initially highlighted by civil unrest, violence and war on the African continent, were present in one form or another in many of the humanitarian crises to which UNHCR responded during this period, from Central and Latin America to the Middle East and South East Asia. As a result, these decades witnessed an evolution of norms and standard setting with regard to refugee law, and in particular an expansion of the earlier legal framework for UNHCR activities. The records of this series document these fundamental changes and their underlying causes and provide rich material for future scholarship.

The project’s findings will be disseminated in a number of ways. The creation of a web-based archive catalogue will provide a dynamic central resource for strengthening the institutional memory of UNHCR as well as serving as a knowledgebase for further research. The researchers – based at the GIIS and the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) – will present the early findings at an international conference to be held in Geneva in the fall of 2007. The conference will be followed by the publication of an edited book consisting of case studies, articles and documents, as well as individual research projects and policy recommendations based on this unique group of hitherto inaccessible records. 

The grant provided by the GIAN for this project totals SFr 220,000

> See shorter summary

Project Team

Related Links

> UNHCR Archives

> GIIS, UNHCR Project

Related News

• The GIAN Approves Eleven Research Projects – 19.09.06
  The Geneva International Academic Network (RUIG-GIAN) has approved, in the framework of its sixth annual tendering...
  > more
  
  

Related Conferences

The UNHCR and the Global Cold War, 1971-1984 - Public Conference, HEI, ch. de la Voie-Creuse 16, 19 October 2007, 9:00 am to 7:00 pm
The project "UNHCR and the Global Cold War" supported by the Geneva International Academic Network (GIAN) has examined...
> more

Research Output

The UNHCR and the Cold War: A Documented Reflection on the UNHCR's Activities in the Bipolar Context (available in English only) > more

UNHCR and the Global Cold War: Article Published in the "Transatlantic Studies Association Newsletter" (available in English only) > more

Copyright © RUIG-GIAN 2005