But for Borders: The Protection Gap for Internally Displaced Persons

Authors

• Anita Sinha, American University Washington College of LawFollow

Abstract

Internal displacement, the phenomenon of people who are dislocated from their homes but remain within the border of their countries of origin, was once a forced migratory occurrence interchangeable with cross-border migration. This changed after the Second World War with the promulgation of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which was premised on an insistence on drawing a legal line in the sand based on which side of a border displacement transpires upon. Internally displaced persons (IDPs)-both in recent history and in the projected future-far outnumber people displaced across borders. Both rhetorical maneuverings and traditional international legal theories have prevented a robust exploration of normative frameworks that would ensure enhanced protections against the causes of and for those experiencing internal displacement. This Article places IDPs within the context of the politically charged project of labeling migration in order to determine which populations are deserving of protection within the frameworks of international governance. It provides a comprehensive account of existing international, regional, and domestic displacement instruments, and highlights how international climate change and other migration agreements fail to adequately address the phenomenon of internal displacement. This Article offers a vision of forced movement that treats human mobility not as static but as occurring on a continuum traversing physical nation-state borders. In doing so, it offers a re-framing of people forced to leave their homes so that international legal mechanisms can provide protection to vulnerable communities, regardless of on which side of a border they face displacement.

Repository Citation

Anita Sinha, But for Borders: The Protection Gap for Internally Displaced Persons, 57 N.Y.U. J. Int'l L. & Pol. 377 (2025).
Available at: https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/facsch_lawrev/2363