Global Refugee Regime and UN System-wide Reforms

With the adoption of the Global Refugee Compact in 2018, attention has inevitably shifted toward its stated focus on responsibility sharing as well as the new tools required to make this happen.
In a new research paper, SARAH DEARDORFF MILLER considers how responsibility for ensuring refugee protection and access to solutions can be shared more reliably across the United Nations’ system, by examining entry points beyond traditional humanitarian actors (including peace and security actors in the United Nations), as well as the role states can play in supporting a broader response from the UN system.
The paper, titled ‘The Global Refugee Regime and UN System-wide Reforms’, published by the Center for International Governance Innovation and the World Refugee Council, draws upon a range of literature and concepts, including the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, offering a mapping and analysis of the proposed UN reforms within the humanitarian, development, financial, and peace and security sectors.
“There is no panacea for improving shortcomings in global responsibility sharing and cooperation on displacement within the UN system,” MILLER states. “The challenges relate to the scope, scale and predictability of responsibility sharing and are also highly contextual.”
This makes it a critical moment to consider the contours of responsibility sharing – what it really means and how it can be furthered, the author states. Likewise, the increased involvement of development actors, including the World Bank, demonstrates this momentum. “At the same time, populist, anti-refugee rhetoric is increasing, and strategic political thinking will be necessary to make progress if meaningful responsibility sharing and coordination within the UN system are to take place in the current context.”
The report considers how these reforms might be relevant to responsibility sharing in displacement situations and lays out some of the broader challenges to greater responsibility sharing.
The author provides recommendations for how to more fully engage these other actors – within the United Nations and beyond – to improve the prevention of, response to and resolution of displacement.