The Influence of Cold War Politics in Defining a Modern Refugee
Installment 10 of: ‘The Making of the Modern Internment Regime.’
Ramon Boix, a Spanish Republican, was exiled to France as a result of the Spanish Civil War. Given a travel pass from France, Boix had the opportunity to travel internationally, thanks to the terms of the 1951 Refugee Convention (See Figure 1). His travel document is actually an important political artifact, in that it was a device made available to many thousands of people in the aftermath of World War II. As such, the document represents the emergence of a modern refugee paradigm.
The end of World War II marked the displacement of millions of people (See Figure 2). Meanwhile, post-war conditions and political change only exacerbated the numbers of the displaced. The influx of refugees in such a short time, put immense strains on host nations. (Chiefly in Western Europe). Consequently, new intergovernmental organizations were created to offer relief to war victims.
“[one] of the greatest population movements of history taking place before our eyes” -State Department Report, 1945
1943- The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
Established by Western powers in 1943, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) provided temporary emergency relief assistance for millions of displaced persons who fell into Allied hands.
One of the UNRRA’s principal functions was to promote and oversee ‘repatriation,’ or the return to one’s country of origin. Relief and rehabilitation were to be short-term only. Meanwhile, repatriation, the UNRRA’s primary goal, instead consisted of acts of reverse forced migration. This is because many Eastern European refugees did not wish to be sent to lands that fell under the influence or control of the USSR during the war. Despite their wishes, the Yalta conference, in February 1945, paved the way for large-scale ‘repatriations’ to the Soviet Union and it satellites.
“All Soviet citizens liberated by the forces operating under United States command … will, without delay after their liberation, be separated from enemy prisoners of war and will be maintained separately from them in camps … until they have been handed over to the Soviet...” -Article 1 of Agreement Relating to Prisoners of War
Many of the 2.5 million people who originated from lands that became, or that were seized by, the USSR refused repatriation to the USSR; instead, they considered themselves to be stateless (Loescher 2001, 36). Those who refused to return home generated a new political divide between the East and the West, introducing new questions regarding the status and rights of refugees (Loescher 2001, 36).
“Ex-prisoners of war and civilians of each of the contracting parties may, until their repatriation, be employed in the management, maintenance and administration of the camps or billets in which they are situated…” -Article 6 of Agreement Relating to Prisoners of War
As repatriations came to a halt by the end of 1946, questions increased about how to handle the millions of people who refused to be returned to the east; this was a problem the UNRRA was not equipped to handle without potentially triggering an international diplomatic crisis between Western states and the Soviet Union.
1946- The International Refugee Organization
As Cold War tensions increased, the United States began to champion the interests of Soviet refugees. This interest resulted in a broader definition of a refugee under the statutes of a new agency called the International Refugee Organization (IRO). Concerned that the UNRRA only served to consolidate Russian political control, the United States created the International Refugee Organization. Its function was not necessarily to repatriate, but to resettle refugees uprooted by World War II and its aftermath. For the first time, refugee status would be determined by the situation of the individual rather than that of the group to which they belonged.
“Political opponents had a right to aid and protection….the State was the servant of the individual, whatever his political conviction might be….the community could not withhold its support from human beings simply because they held and expressed opinions differing from those of the authorities in power” -Article 2 of the IRO Constitution
Meanwhile, the Soviet Union regarded the decision as an act of hostility that denied Eastern Europe economic aid. The IRO was seen as a tool of the West and was criticized by the Soviet Union for preventing repatriation:
‘the refugee camps of the West had become centers of anti-communist propaganda; that the refugees were being used as forced laborers and as mercenaries; and the West intended to enrich itself by resettling the so-called refugees to the countries of the world making the highest bid for their labor’ -Statement made by the Soviet Union on the IRO.
Problems continued for the IRO, as resettlement of displaced persons became difficult. European states argued that their economies could no longer handle the growing numbers of refugees. Concerns also grew that the IRO would serve to institutionalize the refugee problem indefinitely.
1951 Refugee Convention
In an attempt to find a permanent solution to the refugee crisis, the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations requested that the Secretary-General undertake a study of the existing situation regarding the protection of refugees. This was done in the hopes of making a recommendation about how the UN could best protect refugees (Glynn 2011,135). As a response to the UN’s study, an Ad Hoc Committee drafted a template for a refugee convention in consultation with the UN Human Rights Division and the IRO (Glynn 2011,135).
Delegates met in 1950 to review the provisional draft of the documented presented by the UN. However, the United States and most European governments disagreed over the very definition of a ‘refugee.’ The UK, largely protected from the influxes of refugees by geographic factors, felt that refugees should be the responsibility of host states (Goodwin-Gill 1994, 314). This differed from the perspective of the United States, which opposed so broad a mandate.
In the end, the US support for a narrow definition prevailed. The US exerted considerable pressure on other delegations to narrow the mandate of the convention.
“The IRO’s desire to create a convention that would cover all categories of refugees coming under the mandate of the new UN High Commissioner for Refugees appeared obsolete” -Paul Weiss, 1951
The Convention passed in July 1951 with severely restricted definition of a refugee. Both temporal and geographical restrictions were imposed. The convention would only apply to World War II refugees in Europe.
‘[protection for] persons whose persecution or fear of persecution is due to events in Europe after the outbreak of the Second World War and before July 1, 1950.’ -1951 Refugee Convention
Civilians fleeing any international or civil conflict outside of Europe, and after July, 1950, were not covered by the convention.
1967- Refugee Protocol
The Convention’s definition of a refugee created confusion regarding the role of the recently formed United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In addition to aiding those defined as refugees by the convention, the UNHCR’s statute, signed months before the 1951 Convention, claimed that the organization would also take responsibility for:
‘[a]ny other person who…has or had well-founded fear of persecution by reason of his race, religion, nationality or political opinion’-UNHCR
Unlike the 1951 convention, the UNHCR statute did not include any geographic or temporal restrictions on action. This discrepancy had to be addressed, as the nature and role of the UNHCR changed dramatically beginning in the 1960s.
The Cold-War period marked by a series of internal and interstate conflicts, produced massive refugee movement in Central America, Southeast and Central Asia, and Africa. The Algerian War, coupled with rising numbers of refugees in the formerly colonized world, all increased pressure on the UN. These factors eventually led to the establishment of the 1967 Protocol that removed both the geographic and time constrictions established by the 1951 Convention. The removal of those restrictions increased the ability of the UNHCR to designate people as refugee and to assist them. Meanwhile, the 1967 Protocol worked to erase the restrictive terms of the original convention and to universalize a refugee protocol. (Zimmermann, 2011).
Conclusion: The Legacies of History
For the past half-century, the UNHCR has remained central to the formation of a modern refugee paradigm, and has focused its attention on protection and humanitarian aid for refugees in host countries.
The forced migrations resulting from World War II generated pressure to define a “refugee” to begin with. The initial definitions established during this era continue to play a crucial role in immigration and refugee policies of many UN member states. Subsequent displacements necessarily broadened the definition of the refugee and the protection to which they were entitled. Current debates about migrants are, in many ways, a continuation of the definitional struggles from the Cold War era.
Block Quote Sources:
Avalon Project — Agreement Relating to Prisoners of War and Civilians Liberated by Forces Operating Under Soviet Command and Forces Operating Under United States of America Command; February 11, 1945, avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/sov007.asp.
J.P. Clark Carey, ‘Displaced Populations in Europe in 1944 with Partial Reference to Germany’, Department of State Bulletin 12/300 (25 March 1945)
Proudfoot, European Refugees: 401
United Nations, Constitution of the International Refugee Organization, 15 December 1946, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 18, p. 3, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b37810.html
United Nations High Comissioner for Refugees, Statute of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, July 1996, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/4d944e589.pdf
Weis, Paul. “The International Protection of Refugees.” American Journal of International Law 48, no. 2 (1954): 193–221.
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