International Institutions and Individualized Decision-Making: An Example of UNHCR’s Refugee Status Determination

Abstract

In autumn 2005 a group of Sudanese asylum seekers and refugees discontented with the unbearable conditions in the United Nations High Commissioner for Refuges (UNHCR) office in Cairo started a sit-in protest near the office. The protesters were, besides venting their anger at the suspension of Refugee Status Determination procedures for Sudanese refugees due to the ceasefire between the Sudanese government and Sudan’s People Liberation Army, also making their frustrations heard regarding UNHCR’s lengthy procedures, its failure to provide them with proper assistance, the high numbers of rejected applications, improper interviews and their general treatment by UNHCR’s personnel as well as their difficult social and health conditions which had been aggravated by the lack of proper assistance. They were demanding that this situation be remedied and calling for transparent and fair procedures. Shortly thereafter they were joined by many more protesters so that in the following three months a group of between 1,800 and 2,500 people stayed around UNHCR’s premises. However, meetings and negotiations with UNCHR eventually failed. The crisis ended in a tragedy. On December 30, 2005 the Egyptian security forces proceeded ith the forcible removal of the protesters from the venue in an action in which 28 refugees were killed, more than half of which were children and women, with several protesters missing after the events. The Cairo incident illustrates what the cited report on the events has rightly called “a tragedy of failures and false expectations” regarding international humanitarian and human rights institutions.

The author would like to thank participants in the research project, especially Professor Armin von Bogdandy, Professor Rüdiger Wolfrum, Dr. Jochen von Bernstorff, Dr. Philipp Dann, Matthias Goldmann and Ingo Venzke and the participants of the International Workshop, especially Professor Giacinto della Cananea and Professor Christian Tietje for valuable comments and suggestions on the drafts, colleague Marc Jacob for reading the draft and Eva Richter for formatting.