Agency and frustration: overcoming obstacles at the UNHCR

Abstract: International Protection is a core concept in International Refugee Law which aims at protecting the fundamental rights of a specific category of persons outside their countries of origin, who lack the national protection of their own countries. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is the international organisation mandated with ‘providing international protection, under the auspices of the United Nations, to refugees who fall within the scope of the present Statute and of seeking permanent solutions for the problem of refugees’ (UN, 1950, para. 1). This chapter explores how that mandate is carried out in practice. It begins by outlining the development of the international conventions which provide the framework for ‘international protection’, by which refugees are afforded civil, political, economic and social rights normally provided by nation- states.

Author(s): Brian Callan

Date Published: 2025

Depositing User: Karolina Zasada

Keywords: International Protection, Refugee Law, Forced Migration

Page(s): 46-62

Place of publication: Bristol, UK

Publication title: Critical Research and Creative Practice with Migrant and Refugee Communities

Published URL: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/critical-research-and-creative-practice-with-migrant-and-refugee-communities

Publisher: Policy Press

Subject(s): Migration

Type of publication: Book chapter