Abstract

This article explores the series of international protection policy initiatives by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 2000 to 2013: Global Consultations, Agenda for Protection, Convention Plus, and the High Commissioner’s Dialogues. It shows how each initiative evolved and developed into another. It analyses the initiatives: how they began; what they have in common; and whether they met refugees’ needs. The analysis demonstrates that these form a single evolving initiative, establishing then following the Agenda for Protection and continuing with the High Commissioner’s Dialogues. These initiatives centred around annual June/July meetings which involved senior international protection staff of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and governmental representatives on the Standing Committee of the Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme. The Dialogues on international protection, with the possibility of future actions from them, are a continuing legacy. International protection policy initiatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees demonstrate that it has the capacity and the means to respond to the pressures of a volatile external environment and the wide-ranging needs of refugees while, at the same time, influencing the direction and shape of States’ responses to the plight of the world’s refugees and other persons of concern to the Refugee Agency.

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