Masses in Flight: The Global Crisis of Internal Displacement

Roberta Cohen and Francis Deng, the co-authors of Masses in Flight: The Global Crisis of Internal Displacement, are well qualified to tackle the subject of this book. Deng, for six years the UN Secretary-General’s Representative on Internally Displaced Persons, is a former Sudanese diplomat who has undertaken a dozen trips to countries experiencing crises of internal displacement. His dramatic trip reports and recommendations deserve much credit for inspiring the UN system to act on internal displacement. The prolific research and effective advocacy of Cohen, guest scholar at the Brookings Institution and former US government and NGO official, have spurred an upsurge in international activity on internally displaced persons.

The basic messages of Masses in Flight are straightforward and compelling. First, a global crisis of internal displacement has occurred as victims of conflict, violence, human rights abuse, and disasters flee their homes without reaching an international border. Second, the number of internally displaced persons worldwide is swelling rapidly and, at perhaps 25 million, now exceeds the number of refugees. Third, these people are often among the most desperate victims of crisis, frequently invisible, short on basic human sustenance, and extraordinarily vulnerable to widespread abuse. Fourth, the internally displaced—mainly women and children—while ostensibly the responsibility of their own governments, are often bereft of domestic or international support. Fifth, the international community, with a modicum of focus and effort, could do a great deal better in preventing, ameliorating, and ending internal displacement.

Masses in Flight provides the reader with a documentary overview of the internal displacement crisis, from global data on numbers and causes to regional problems and initiatives. The book next focuses the reader on the key policy issues regarding internal displacement. Does existing international law provide sufficient protection for internally displaced persons, or are supplementary regimes required? How should the international community—UN agencies, regional organizations, and NGOs—organize to meet the needs of the displaced? What practical steps can be taken now by international organizations to help? What can be done to urge national authorities to recognize their duties, and to enhance their capacities? How can the strengths of the displaced themselves be mobilized?

Scholars of international organizations will find especially interesting the frank, some might say unsparing, examination of what the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and other intergovernmental organizations ought to be doing more effectively to assist internally displaced persons. And, despite an occasional lapse into generality—such as a call for “effective national institutions” to prevent displacement—policymakers and practitioners will find a number of practical recommendations for transforming concern into improved conditions on the ground. For example, Masses in Flight points out the paucity of basic data on the internally displaced and the need to invest resources to gain a clearer picture of the crisis. In addition, the authors make apparent the need for enhanced early warning systems to prevent mass displacement.

Perhaps most important, Cohen and Deng incisively and realistically take on the issue of protection for internally displaced persons. Too often, assistance to the displaced—from Colombia, to Angola, to Sri Lanka, to Tajikistan—has meant necessary but insufficient provision of water, food, and emergency health care, at the same time these individuals are being subjected to beatings, rape, and forced labor. Yet, international protection efforts under conditions of internal displacement will almost certainly raise issues of national sovereignty and strain relations with government authorities. When opposition groups operating in national territory control the fate of the displaced, protection efforts may provoke questions of legitimacy and standing for these groups. The displaced themselves may have decided that maintaining a low profile and shunning international organizations is the best strategy to avoid further abuse. In other words, these are not the ideal conditions for effective protection activities. Everyone who cares seriously about the extent and boundaries of international responsibility to the very desperate...