Abstract

Today we are experiencing the greatest internal displacement crisis the world has ever known. For the millions of IDPs in protracted situations, displacement has become a defining feature of their lives and any foreseeable prospect of return to their homes seemingly elusive.

Despite numerous high-level proclamations of an IDP ‘right to return’, this paper will argue that current frameworks inadequately protect IDP return. The 1998 UN Guiding Principles, although designed to address the failings of existing international law, itself fails to unequivocally assert such a right. This omission has profoundly detrimental consequences for achieving durable solutions, as well as for ensuring wider political stability and prospects for development in affected regions. To realise return for all IDPs necessitates that we once again critically engage with fundamental legal and conceptual challenges, all of which, as this paper will show, test the very foundations that underpin international understanding of internal displacement.