Internationally Forgotten Persons

   Internally displaced persons (IDPs) or as I call them internationally forgotten persons are the ones who could not or did not pass a border-different than refugees-during a forced displacement. 'Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement' which is the only international document about the IDPs defines them as ''persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized state border.''

   What we can inference from this definition is that the borders are the key points to decide who can be IDPs and who can be a refugee. This separation is actually very important since if you are a refugee you can get either help from the state you get asylum or from international organizations. This should not be perceived as something negative. This is, in fact, a very significant progress for the refugees began with the establishment of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 1950 and the agreement of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in 1951. What is unfortunate is that the international will created such a security system for the refugees, stayed as audience in the case of IDPs.

   There is no specific international organization for IDPs neither a binding regulation. They are left to the mercy of their own regimes, however, in most of the cases those regimes are the biggest reason of displacement. The biggest obstacle in front of international help for IDPs is the sovereignty rights of the states. These formations created by Westphalia give governments massive rights in their own territories while prohibiting external agents from getting involved into domestic practices. States are the sole decision-making bodies for the future of the IDPs.
   We can count other reasons for why it is difficult to solve the problem of IDPs such as the interests of global or regional powers or, domestic dynamics of those states, however, these would not work more than to give us reasons not to help those people. Every barrier around the problem of internal displacement is man-made and it is in our hands to collapse them by creating new solutions. This is what I will be trying to do in this blog. I will try to find solutions for the protection of IDPs.