Internally Displaced Persons

Internally displaced persons (IDPs) are people forced to leave their homes who remain within their country's internationally recognized borders. Refugees are outside their country of nationality or habitual residence and satisfy the applicable international definition for refugee protection, principally because of a well-founded fear of persecution.

Different legal thresholds

The 1951 Refugee Convention, as modified by the 1967 Protocol, defines a refugee through cross-border presence and a well-founded fear of persecution on specified grounds. Internal displacement may result from armed conflict, generalized violence, human rights violations, or natural or human-made disasters; crossing an international border is the decisive geographical distinction.

Different protection frameworks

• Refugees receive a treaty-based international status in States party to the Convention, including protection against refoulement under Article 33 and other specified rights.
• IDPs do not acquire a separate international legal status merely through displacement; they remain protected by domestic law, international human rights law, and, during armed conflict, international humanitarian law.
• The 1998 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement consolidate relevant international standards but are not a binding treaty.

Responsibility for protection

For IDPs, national authorities retain the primary duty to provide protection and humanitarian assistance. Refugee protection operates in the host country and is supported internationally, particularly through the UNHCR framework; thus, it substitutes for protection unavailable from the country of origin.