A View from Inside the Kitchen of the Kampala Convention: The Modernisation of the International Legal Regime for the Protection of Internally Displaced Persons

Abstract

In offering a view from the kitchen in this article, the author notes the appraisal of the 10th anniversary of the Kampala Convention and argues that this Convention has modernised a somewhat soft static international legal framework relating to internally displaced persons based on the 1998 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and the related 2006 Protocols of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region. A key modernising characteristic of the Kampala Convention involves its creation of a binding legal framework that goes beyond state responsibility, in establishing obligations for the African Union, international organisations, civil society, and other non-state actors (such as armed opposition groups). A host of other modernising characteristics of the Kampala Convention are suggested in this article, such as the broadening of obligations to tackle the effects of disasters and climate change, or development, on displacement. While much work remains in translating the provisions of the Kampala Convention into practice domestically, it is suggested that creating such broader obligations in line with the Kampala Convention on an international legal scale would substantively modernise the international legal regime for the protection of internally displaced persons.