Under international law, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has a mandate to protect refugees. Every state party to the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees is also obliged to guarantee basic economic freedoms and freedom of movement to refugees within their borders. Non-refoulement--the right not to be returned to a country in which you fear persecution--is the cardinal refugee right. With accountability for refugee rights so diffused in today's international system between agency and government, however, significant protection failures have arisen. Camps in which refugees are “warehoused” are hardly the paragon of humanitarianism they are touted to be.

Who is accountable when the most basic legal safeguards are missing from refugee status determination procedures? Is a refugee entitled to counsel, an independent appeal, and the right to know evidence used against him? Why does the United States regularly fail to fill the refugee resettlement quota permitted by Congress? What remedies are available, and what is the right distribution of accountability among UN agencies, Western governments, and refugee-hosting governments in the developing world?

John R. Bolton, AEI; Thomas Albrecht, UNHCR; Kelly Ryan, U.S. Department of State; Merrill Smith, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants; Mauro De Lorenzo, AEI; and Guglielmo Verdirame, University of Cambridge will answer these and other questions on May 4. AEI’s Danielle Pletka will moderate.