UNRWA, UNHCR, and the Politicization of Refugee Protections: Re-Evaluating a Humanitarian International Refugee Regime in the 21st Century*

In a new security world of growing international population displacement, refugee protections are an essential source of peace and global stability. This article evaluates the capacity of a bifurcated international refugee regime constructed in a neo-liberal order of the last mid-century, to respond to the humanitarian demands of the 21st century. Focusing on the UNHCR and UNRWA, this study compares two key international organizations mandated by the United Nations to protect dispossessed people and weighs them against humanitarian and demographic outcomes. The neo-institutional analyses of legal frameworks, policy instruments, and norms point to intrinsic institutional flaws hindering progress for international refugee protection. From the historical institutional perspective adopted here, the persistence of a faulty segmented refugee regime can be understood as a product of institutional path dependence. In the specific case of displaced Palestinians, the result of a stand-alone group-centric refugee organization has been a deepening politicization of refugee protection, a diminution of humanitarian aid, and perpetuation of civilian sufferings. The conclusions offer potential solutions and policy recommendations to redress the refugee settlement gap more effectively.