The Refugee-Security Dilemma in Europe
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25071/1920-7336.21945Keywords:
refugee protection, refugees, minorities, security, conflict, international relations, Western Europe, OSCE, UNHCRAbstract
Focusing on two of the institutions involved in the range of European activities on conflict prevention and displacement in the wake of the Yugoslav crisis, this article seeks to address the complex interplay of refugee protection and security enhancing strategies. The conclusion to an analysis of the mandates and expectations placed upon the OSCE's High Commissioner on National Minorities and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is that the latter is at risk of abrogating its responsibilities towards refugees and potentially misinterpreting the motives of other (actual conflict prevention) organs in the international security arena and their impact (or not) on displacement. The article places this institutional and conceptual dilemma of refugee protection and security in the context of International Relations theories, and stands squarely against the view that refugees are themselves a threat to west European security.Metrics
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Copyright (c) 1997 Joanne van Selm-Thorburn
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Refuge authors retain the copyright over their work, and license it to the general public under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial License International (CC BY-NC 4.0). This license allows for non-commercial use, reproduction and adaption of the material in any medium or format, with proper attribution. For general information on Creative Commons licences, visit the Creative Commons site. For the CC BY-NC 4.0 license, review the human readable summary.