Throughout this class we have been preparing ourselves to come up with topics to present and write research papers on. It was important that they are related to Origins and in particular order versus chaos.

I am very interested in certain refugee crises and international policy as a whole. Therefore I decided that it would be good to present and research on the UNHCR. The UNHCR is the UNited Nations High COmmissioner For this research paper and poster I looked at how the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has created more order and less chaos for refugees, and in particular refugee displacement. I wanted to see how the UNHCR’s origin has, over time, allowed for this to happen. I wanted to explore how their mandates and protocols with signatory states have allowed refugee displacement to become orderly.

However, this is a very broad and extensive question, therefore I focused on the mandates and parts of the UNHCR that I think have created the most significant change in refugees lives.

The UNHCR is a program mandated to protect and support refugees at the request of a government or the UN itself, and assists in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement in a different state. I want to explore how the origin of the UNHCR came about and how it has changed since that, in terms of needs, funding, size, and more – depending on what has in fact changed. I am also interested in looking at how the UNHCR has created order within itself and order in the world around it, in terms of refugee resettlement. However, I was most interested in understanding more of how the UNHCR works and less of how they have affected each refugee crisis, which is what I looked at.

I looked at a book that offered an overview of the politics and practice of refugee protection. Topics address different aspects of refugee policy split the chapters up. It talks about the different organizations that are involved with the UNHCR as well as discussing multiple other topics. Some of the topics that are covered are the ways in which the UN works with UN peacebuilding commission, an assessment of the UNHCR’s record of working for IDPs (internally displaced persons), discussion of the politics of protection and its implications for the work of the UNHCR, outline of the new challenges for the agency including environmental refugees, victims of natural disasters and survival migrants.