The 2020 Tigray war triggered large-scale internal displacement, with the Eastern Zone experiencing one of the most severe IDP crises. Ethiopia is party to key international and regional instruments that are crucial for the protection of IDPs, although the extent to which these norms are translated into effective protection remains contested. This article examines the legal and prevailing practices in protecting conflict-induced IDPs in the Eastern Zone of Tigray. It adopts a qualitative socio-legal approach, combining doctrinal analysis of international, regional, and domestic legal frameworks with an empirical case study in the Eastern zone of Tigray. The findings reveal that the absence of an IDP-specific international convention, though there is a broad international law protection; Ethiopia’s restrictive reservations to the Kampala Convention; the lack of explicit constitutional protection for conflict-induced IDPs; and the disconnect between the law and the lived realities of IDPs result in weak protection, limited restitution, and compensation for IDPs.
Alemayo et al. (2026) studied this question.