High Hopes for New High Commissioner for Refugees

Refugee Rights News
Volume 2, Issue 2
July 2005

On May 26, 2005, Former Prime Minister of Portugal Antonio Manuel de Oliveira Guterres was elected as the 10th United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Mr. Guterres, who replaces Mr. Ruud Lubbers, assumed his duties on June 15, 2005 with a five-year mandate.

Mr. Guterres comes to the position with extensive international experience. He served as Portuguese Prime Minister from 1996 to 2002. During his extensive political career, he served as President of the European Council in 2000, as a member of the Portuguese Parliament and of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Since 1999, Mr. Guterres has been President of the Socialist International, a worldwide coalition of socialist, social democratic and labor parties.

Prior to taking up his post as UN refugee chief, Guterres’ experience with refugee issues included teaching mathematics to refugees in evening classes and helping to establish the Portuguese Refugee Council in 1991.

Guterres has also had experience in pushing for international intervention in crisis areas. Working with world community to provide necessary international intervention during East Timor’s fight for independence from Indonesia, was, according to Guterres, the finest hour of his time as Portuguese Prime Minister.

Guterres seems also to have embraced the importance of seeing first hand the situation of those on behalf of who he advocates, traveling to refugee camps in Uganda just days after assuming his post.

However, despite his extensive political experience, Mr. Guterres does not face an easy task. He will need to guide UNHCR through some very difficult times. The attitudes of many states towards refugees have changed over the past few years, particularly in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001. Despite decreasing numbers of refugee and asylum seekers, many states, especially in the West, have passed restrictive laws and measures which make it harder for refugees to reach their borders.

While fighting to preserve space for asylum in these increasingly hostile environments, the UNHCR needs also to pay more attention on the increasingly prominent issue of internal displacement. Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) now outnumber refugees, and their situation is made all the more desperate because they are not afforded the protection of an international convention such as the 1951 Convention. A UNHCR evaluation found that the organization was inconsistent in its engagement with crises of internal displacement and that there was a clear need to clarify it role in this area. The new High Commissioner will be challenged to adopt a clear policy on this issue without overstretching the resources of an already constrained organization.

Although he has been at his post for less than two months Mr. Guterres has already had several opportunities to speak out about his ideas on the key priorities for the organization and the qualities he feels that he could bring to the organization. During the selection process of the High Commissioner, the International Council for Voluntary Agencies (ICVA), a Geneva-based NGO focused on humanitarian policy, gave all the candidates an opportunity to express their views in the organization’s newsletter, Talk Back. Mr. Guterres’ answers provide an indication of his views and qualifications. In addition, Guterres has already had the opportunity to address his staff and make his first field visit. While it is too early to gage his leadership, these opinions may provide a glimpse of the direction UNHCR will take under his leadership.

An important role for the new Commissioner will be to guide the UNHCR towards new roles in the 21 st century. Guterres has already noted the need to uphold the mandate of UNHCR to protect refugees even as political climates change. He has argued that only effective protection can help curb new negative attitudes from both governments and ordinary citizens in host countries. UNHCR can achieve effective protection by remaining neutral, keeping its mandate precise, building positive partnerships with states and expanding cooperation with NGOs. Guterres noted that collaboration with NGOs is essential, not only in field operations assisting refugees and distributing aid, but also in advocating for the protection of refugee rights.

NGOs and other observers will probably not expect any major rifts in UNHCR’s policies with Guterres at the helm. In his first address to UNHCR’s staff, Guterres assured them that he was “not going to shoot in all directions or to launch any cocktail bomb of new projects,” but would focus instead on “consolidating and improving what has also been developed.” He has also described himself as a “reform minded man,” noting that he would not “make any revolution, but … accelerate the implementation of what is being done.”

Read more:

ICVA, Talk Back, Volume 72a, April 14, 2005.