The scale of recent humanitarian crises has drawn renewed attention to the protection needs of victims of persecution and conflict. Among the challenges that have come to the fore are the provision of international protection to those seeking asylum from internal conflict, the often compelling protection needs of the internally displaced, the need to ensure the security and rights of the inhabitants of refugee camps and the need to restore effective national protection for those who have returned to fragile situations in their home countries. The importance of UNHCR's protection role has thus remained primordial in all phases of its activities, be it in responding to emergencies or in pursuing and consolidating solutions.
In the contemporary situation, large numbers of people in need of international protection have been forced to flee their countries because of situations of conflict. In view of political initiatives undertaken by the international community to resolve such situations, certain asylum countries have resorted with increasing frequency to providing temporary protection rather than making formal determinations of refugee status under the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. UNHCR, together with States, has been exploring this concept, notably in relation to those who have fled the former Yugoslavia, in an effort to ensure that international protection continues to be granted to all who need it.
One premise upon which temporary protection is based is the expectation of resolving, within a reasonable period, the underlying cause of the outflow. UNHCR has insisted that temporary protection must not be unduly protracted before more permanent status is granted to the victims in situations where the grounds for flight have not been resolved. In addition, UNHCR has emphasized that the beneficiaries of temporary protection are, in many cases, refugees within the meaning of the 1951 Convention.
As the Rwanda crisis has recently demonstrated, mass flight from situations of inter-communal conflict can lead to the politicization of refugee camps and to attendant abuses of human rights. UNHCR has endeavoured to ensure that the security and human rights of refugees, including their right freely to decide to return home, are protected in such situations. In response to security problems in Rwandan refugee camps in Zaire and following close consultations with the Secretary-General, measures were taken by UNHCR to improve law and order and prevent intimidation and violence against refugees and candidates for voluntary repatriation through the deployment of Zairian forces, monitored by an international security liaison group.
The protection responsibilities of UNHCR also include protecting the human rights of returnees and other displaced persons of concern to the Office. UNHCR has thus continued to play a role in monitoring the situation of returnees and ensuring that national protection is restored. Recent experience in Central America has been particularly encouraging in this respect. The international colloquium held in Costa Rica in December 1994 to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Cartagena Declaration adopted the San José Declaration on Refugees and Displaced Persons, which addresses the key issue of harmonizing legal criteria and procedures to consolidate the durable solutions of voluntary repatriation and local integration.
In pursuing its preventive and solution-oriented activities, UNHCR has welcomed United Nations efforts to establish a more effective operational capacity in the field of human rights, be it through intensified human rights field operations or through the establishment of international tribunals to prosecute the perpetrators of grave violations of human rights and humanitarian law. UNHCR has sought to strengthen collaboration with human rights treaty bodies and other human rights mechanisms, and has sought to establish active collaboration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, especially at the level of field operations. Ongoing contacts with human rights working groups, rapporteurs, experts and monitors are also an integral part of the approach of UNHCR to link human rights concerns with the protection of refugees.
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