The International Refugee Regime(s): The End of the Cold War Matters

The purpose of this note is to present a schematic narrative and analysis of the development of the international response to refugees by states during the Cold War. The analysis focuses on the period from the statute creating the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Convention on the Status of Refugees, both in 1951, through the end of the Cold War. The note supplements the analysis contained in an earlier theoretical article published in this journal in 1996 entitled “How Nation-States Create and Respond to Refugee Flows” (Keely, 1996). The views differ sharply from conventional wisdom but provide a better understanding of and an explanation for some contemporary difficulties regarding refugee and asylum policy, especially in the industrial countries, but also more generally globally.