Accountability for human rights violations in the context of forced displacement

Geoff Gilbert

Chapter 28 in Research Handbook on Accountability for Human Rights Violations, 2025, pp 497-515 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: There were 122.6 million people within the mandate of UNHCR as of mid-year 2024; it will now be more. The large number of forcibly displaced persons, and their lived reality in the context of that displacement, raise four practical questions for international law: who should be held accountable for failures and inadequacies in their protection; to whom are those actors accountable; for what are they accountable; and what mechanisms will hold them accountable? This chapter seeks to answer those questions, and in doing so it highlights how protection in situations of forced displacement is multifaceted, cutting across many sub-disciplines of international law − international refugee law, international human rights law, the international law of armed conflict, and international criminal law − but always ultimately upholding the human rights of forcibly displaced persons. While the human rights treaty bodies have played an important part in developing the accountability of states with respect to forcibly displaced persons and sometimes other states, especially as some of those bodies developed their own extraterritorial jurisdiction, there is a wealth of other non-human rights or non-judicialized mechanisms that impact in the area of acute crises. Accountability might result from, for instance, international criminal law prosecutions, or through diplomatic pressure from UNHCR or via Special Procedure Mandate Holders. Such ‘soft’ accountability may not be so transparent or structured, but it is equally important in achieving protection and upholding human rights in times of acute crisis. As will be apparent throughout, the conclusion will provide that forced displacement as a scenario for accountability is complex and multi-faceted with many different actors.

Keywords: Forced displacement; Refugees; Multiple state accountability; International organizations; ‘Soft’ accountability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035306923
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