Analysis: African IDP convention fills a void in humanitarian law

The African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa is a comprehensive document that will, if ratified, fill a void in international humanitarian law, say experts.

Whereas the rights of people who flee across national boundaries are protected under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and a similar instrument introduced 18 years later by the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union), there has been no international legislation catering specifically for people displaced within their own country (IDPs).

IDPs vastly outnumber refugees in Africa. In just 10 of the 18 countries in east and central Africa, there are more than 10 million IDPs, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), with Sudan (four million), the Democratic Republic of Congo (2.12 million) and Somalia (1.55 million) heading the list.

In the same region, there are refugees in 16 countries, totalling just less than two million, according to OCHA.

This latest instrument, also known as the Kampala Convention because it was signed in the Ugandan capital, “obliges governments to recognize that IDPs have specific vulnerabilities and must be supported”, said Walter Kälin, Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons.

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