MINELRES: RFE/RL: NGOs work to improve law on displaced persons

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RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL (Un)Civil Societies
Vol. 4, No. 22, 3 September 2003

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HEADLINES:
	* NGOS WORK TO IMPROVE LAW ON DISPLACED PERSONS
	* BACK TO SCHOOL, AND BACK TO THE SAME PROBLEMS
	* WAVE OF ATTACKS ON UZBEK HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS
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IN FOCUS

NGOS WORK TO IMPROVE LAW ON DISPLACED PERSONS. 

Every few weeks, local media carry news reports of desperate people who
have fled wars and live in dilapidated housing as they picket
indifferent government offices. In response to the chronic problem, a
partnership of international organizations, governments, and local NGOs
has been working steadily since 2000 to examine laws and practices that
affect internally displaced persons or IDPs. "IDPs" is the technical
term for people forced to move inside the borders of a country due to
such upheavals as armed conflict and environmental or natural disasters,
as distinct from the catchall term "refugee," which properly refers only
to those who have crossed international borders. By remaining in their
home states, IDPs fall through the cracks of both domestic and
international law and tend to be ignored. A new generation of activists
have gained the attention of international specialists and the
cooperation of governments to tackle the gap between local legislation
and universal standards in an effort to ameliorate the plight of the
displaced by gaining legal recognition for their rights so they can
fight for them.
	More than 800,000 people are internally displaced (as distinct from
refugees) in Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, the victims of mainly
civil wars. Although exact figures can be difficult to obtain because
people are dispersed, about 280,000 are displaced in Georgia mainly from
the civil war with separatists in Abkhazia, and at least 560,000 in
Azerbaijan from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and as many as 25,000 in
Armenia. 
	Recently, the advocates for better laws to help the displaced released
a comprehensive and detailed report, "The Guiding Principles on Internal
Displacement and the Law of the South Caucasus: Georgia, Armenia,
Azerbaijan," edited by Roberta Cohen, Walter Kalin, and Erina Mooney, a
371-page study prepared jointly by the Brookings Institution-SAIS
Project on Internal Displacement, the Office of Democratic Institutes
and Human Rights of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE), and the Georgian Young Lawyers Association, and the
American Society of International Law. The handbook contains all the
relevant laws of the Caucasus, contrasted with international laws, and
contains a detailed analysis and summaries of conferences with lawyers
and other experts.
	Unlike the work of many international specialists who zoom in to a
troubled area for a brief time and later return to distant capitals to
write their reports, this joint effort in the Caucasus was "a real civil
society effort" in the words of participants who talked with "RFE/RL
(Un)Civil Societies" about their experiences. Local lawyers in Armenia,
Georgia, and Azerbaijan provided the impetus for taking discussion
beyond the seminar rooms to attempt to affect policy, and got the help
they needed from international experts.
	The effort to organize nongovernmental groups was spearheaded by the
Georgian Young Lawyers Association, a group of enthusiastic attorneys
working to change their country's laws in a variety of areas related to
human rights and democracy. Registered in 1994 after five years of
activity, the association has grown from 80 founders to 675 members,
deliberately keeping the age for eligible members below 40 to ensure
fresh faces and active participation. In addition to the Georgian
lawyers, the Institute of State and Law of the Georgian Academy of
Sciences, the Legal Clinic of the Faculty of Law at Yerevan State
University, the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law in Yerevan,
and the Center of Legal and Economic Education in Baku were involved in
the legal-reform efforts and the writing of the "Guiding Principles"
report edited by the team at Brookings. 
	Despite their differences and the very real presence of the region's
"frozen conflicts," all three governments in the Caucasus sat down at
the table repeatedly with project organizers to cooperate at least on
this issue of the displaced. And while governments are often at
loggerheads with local NGOs, in this effort they were actually proud to
show off their local lawyers' knowledge and accomplishment to
international experts, participants say. 
	Advocates for the displaced face the still-entrenched legacy of the
Soviet "propiska" or residence-permit system, as well as tumultuous
current events created by seemingly insurmountable difficulties.
Particularly at election time, the issue of the displaced and their
return as well as their right to vote force themselves increasingly into
the public eye. A group of 17 women displaced from Abkhazia took at
least one hostage and poured gasoline on themselves, threatening to
commit self-immolation, UPI reported 20 August. The desperate action
took place after talks between the government and the women broke down.
They are among the thousands who fled Abkhazia when separatists declared
independence in 1992, still seeking justice.
	Now that more than a decade has gone by since thousands of people fled
wars in the wake of the Soviet crack-up, activists are trying to focus
on the day-to-day problems of individual displaced persons in obtaining
housing, education, and medical care and asking politicians not to wait
until the political peace is finally established. The first step in
gaining attention and action is changing and adding laws.
	In their work, the advocates for the displaced were inspired by the
"Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement," a compendium of existing
international standards as well as principles that have evolved for the
treatment of IDPs consistent with international law. The "Guiding
Principles" were drafted by Frances Deng, the UN secretary-general's
special representative on the internally displaced, at the request of
the UN Commission on Human Rights and the General Assembly over a
two-year period and presented in 1998. 
	While not a binding treaty, the principles reflect international law
and incorporate many elements of existing treaties. By making the
protection and care of IDPs the responsibility of governments and
appealing to governments' sense of the need to control their own
populations, the advocates are hoping they adhere to the principles
developed, including the concepts that such persons are involuntary
migrants, that they have the right to protection while displaced, and
the right to humanitarian assistance. 
	A key factor in making possible this collaboration effort between
government and civil society is that the rulers of the Caucasus see the
displaced as their own people, unlike the situation of the Tamils in Sri
Lanka, the Kurds in Turkey, or the Chechens in Russia, where officialdom
sees the displaced as alien. As Frances Deng, who is also co-director of
the Brookings project, testified in the U.S. Congressional Commission on
Security and Cooperation in Europe in June, the governments in the
Caucasus do express solidarity with their displaced populations. "But
unfortunately, there is a situation whereby the political agendas, in
particular the ongoing conflicts and the emphasis given on the goal of
return, tends to make the IDPs hostages to the situation," said Deng. 
	As international donors move from emergency relief to development
assistance as the second decade of displacement gets well under way,
they believe there is some leverage to be had with governments desperate
for aid. With elections coming up this fall, there is pressure once
again to address the IDP problem. In Georgia, since the 1992-93 civil
war when separatists with Russian backing defeated the Georgian
military, some 280,000 IDPs remain, one-third of them in Tbilisi.
Elizabeth Eagan, a specialist on Caucasus affairs writing for
eurasianet.org, said in a 1 September article that President Eduard
Shevardnadze's efforts for IDPs have been "lackluster" and that the
government appears interested in keeping the displaced where they are to
use their eventual return as leverage in Abkhazia. Government officials
do not inform the displaced of their rights.
	Some officials objected that creating a separate law on IDPs would in
fact lead to privileging of the displaced and discrimination against
others. Like other international experts in the field, Roberta Cohen,
the co-director of the Brooking project, advocated separate laws for
IDPs. "We felt it would help improve equality," she said. Ultimately,
governments took their advice. "You've identified our forgotten people,"
one leader admitted to the NGOs.
	Fixing the laws sets the stage for a solution, but implementing them is
much harder. In Azerbaijan, IDPs are still living in "rickety shacks,
railway carriages, and tiny mud huts," "The Moscow Times" reported on 24
June, calling the situation "a convenient propaganda tool" for the
Azerbaijani government. In the view of "The Moscow Times" and other
observers of the region, if permanent resettlement "would mean admitting
that Azerbaijan lost the war" the displaced and refugees will never go
home. The government has started building some new shelters, it is far
from adequate to serve the large population of displaced.
	In Armenia, some people are still displaced from the 1988 earthquake.
Assistance for old and new displaced has been slow in coming. As
elsewhere in the region, people forced from their homes are still living
in empty hospital and hotel rooms, old dilapidated Soviet rest homes,
and even shipping containers. The situation in Armenia has received less
attention, and the problem of the internally displaced as distinct from
refugees was a new one for the government. Accordingly, international
refugee agencies have already spent nearly two years attempting to map
and quantify the numbers of displaced and their living conditions in an
effort to gain attention of officials who control resources at home and
abroad.
	In Georgia, IDPs continue to fear that if they vote in the place where
they find themselves, they will lose their benefits and option to
return. Governments did change the laws, but now vigorous efforts to
ensure implementation and public education are required, say local NGO
activists. The new Election Code adopted in August 2001 does provide
suffrage to IDPs, and experience in a past by-election yields a
precedent for implementation of the law, but now the real test of
Georgia's verbal and legal commitments will come in November
parliamentary elections.
	While the law may be in their favor, as the leader of the IDP Women's
Association told the Brookings project participants, IDPs in Georgia
strongly fear that they will lose their right to return if they take
part in elections, whether by voting or running as candidates in the
election. As the Georgian Young Lawyers Association's Giorgi Chkeidze
pointed out, regulations governing actual registration procedures for
IDPs are not governed by the law governing all registration, but exist
as a special case. Nevertheless, the law is clear, and IDPs will not
lose their benefits or their right to return to their original place of
residence if they register and vote. It is another matter to persuade
vulnerable people that they can claim this right, and compel
recalcitrant officials not to hinder it. "Dissemination of information
about the right to vote without penalty and loss of benefits will arm
the IDPs to participate in the elections," said Erin Mooney, deputy
director of the Brookings project. (See "Recommended News Links" below
for more information.)

-------------------------

RECOMMENDED NEWS LINKS 
-------------------------

CAUCASUS. The Brookings Project on Internal Displacement has recently
released a study of efforts by a group of international and local human
rights activists to change laws affecting the internally displaced,
"Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and the Law on the South
Caucasus." The report is in English and is currently being translated
into Russian. Copies are available upon request to
gsanchez@brookings.edu.
http://www.brookings.edu/fp/projects/idp/idp.htm

(Compiled by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick)
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