International conference: Ten years of the Guiding Principles on Internal
Displacement
Source: IDMC
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Viviane
Dalles
Ten years ago the United Nations
issued the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement. The anniversary will be marked at a high-level conference in Oslo this week, entitled "Ten Years of Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement
â€" Achievements and Future Challenges".
Protection of internally displaced persons (IDPs) is on the agenda when over 120 representatives from governments, the United Nations and
civil society come together in Oslo on 16 and 17 October.
Keynote speakers are the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres; Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian
Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, John Holmes; and the Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, Walter Kälin. Government
representatives from for example Uganda, Georgia and Mozambique will share their experiences from work with IDPs in their countries.
The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement were
presented to the UN Human Rights Commission in 1998, to underscore the rights of this group who are not protected under the Refugee Convention. In the ensuing decade a growing number of governments
have developed laws and policies on internal displacement based on the Guiding Principles.
Still, internal displacement is on the rise; today 26 million people are displaced within the
borders of their country due to armed conflict and human rights abuses. That constitutes two thirds of the world’s displaced. Daily, their rights are violated and great efforts remain
before laws and policies have a real impact on the situation.
The conference is hosted by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Norwegian Refugee Council and the Representative of
the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons/Brookings Institution.
Press contact: Siri Elverland, Press Adviser, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)
Mobile: +47 93 21 82 19. E-post: siri.elverland@nrc.no
Kausar, an internally displaced girl whose family fled a military offensive against the Taliban in the Swat Valley region a few months earlier, carries bricks near her family's tent at the ...
