So far in this course, we've assessed information and explored questions relating to refugees, the particular challenges of their situation, and global responses to it. But it is important that we recognize the broader context of forced migration within which refugee problems play out. Indeed, refugees are not the only people who find themselves without a true home, or who've been forced to leave their home due to major political, social, or humanitarian crisis. In this session, we must end the course by briefly looking into the situation of two other groups who share similar characteristics to refugees. They are of course not the only groups to do so. Think for instance of homeless people living on the streets in your own society. But intriguingly, the UN Refugee Agency has a role to play for both of the groups that we will discuss in this session. The first group is comprised of people who are stateless. In other words, they do not have an active nationality. They are not citizens of any country. Such stateless persons use the legal jargon are like refugees in that they lack the effective link of protection with a state. However, they are different in that they may not have a fear of persecution. Like with refugees though, an international legal framework has been created by the United Nations to address statelessness. See the reading this week on What is Statelessness for a general insight into stateless persons today. People can become stateless in a number of ways. Some people are born stateless, others lose their nationality or have it stripped as a result of circumstances later in life. Some stateless persons can also be born refugees or become refugees. On this point, have a look at the reading for this session by Amal de Chickera on longstanding issues of statelessness and identity in the Rohingya refugee crisis in Asia. The second group that we will discuss in this session are called Internally Displaced Persons, usually abbreviated to IDPs. Like refugees, IDPs are people who've been forced or obliged to flee or leave their homes or places of habitual residence. However, unlike refugees, they have not crossed an internationally recognized state border. Moreover, whereas refugees are displaced due to persecution and violence, IDPs may be displaced due to a much wider range of push factors, including violations of human rights or natural or man-made disasters. These differences are made clear by the description of IDPs provided by United Nations protection tool called the guiding principles on internal displacement. This document offers guidance not only to UN agencies such as UNHCR, but also to governments, NGOs, armed groups, and other relevant actors. It can be found on your reading list for this session. Yet, unlike the protection given to refugees by the UN Refugee Convention, no specific UN legal agreements or treaty in technical terms exists on IDP protection, although IDP treaties have been adopted by African states. The UN guiding principles then are a policy tool rather than a legal agreement under international law. In your discussion forums, you might like to discuss why this is the case. Even so, since their creation in 1998, the UN guiding principles on internal displacement have helped to promote the protection of IDPs in conflict and disaster situations around the world. For an overview of the IDP topic and the guiding principles, as well as information about progress to date and challenges for the future, please see the readings for this session by Khalid Koser and by Cecilia Jimenez-Damary. The latter written in her capacity as the UN Human Rights Council's special rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons. However, I'd like to encourage you to start your reading for this topic by reviewing the materials on figures for IDPs and main trends in internal displacement. Two points will immediately be obvious. Firstly, that the most acute situations of internal displacement are also those producing high numbers of refugees. Secondly, that the overall global total number of IDPs is much higher than the total global figures for refugees. This remains true even if you take out the figures for disaster affected IDPs and look only at those for IDPs displaced by conflict. Why do you think this may be? What implications does this have in practical terms for the way that we structure global, regional, or local protection and assistance responses to IDP situations? Moreover, looking to the future, does it also have implications for the way in which we should be thinking about refugee situations? Those are questions that you might like to consider in your discussion forums. As we are now in the final session of this course, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for participating in this short program. I hope the sessions have been both enjoyable and useful and that you feel you better understand the refugee phenomenon in the 21st century. Please do keep thinking critically about these issues to explore the many publications, podcasts, and other resources available open access on the Refugee Law Initiative website. If you'd like to deepen your knowledge of this area, then you also might like to have a look at the MA program on Refugee Protection and Forced Migration Studies that we offer by distance learning. Thank you.
