50 Years of EXCOM: 1959-2009

To mark the 50-year tenure of UNHCR's Executive Committee (EXCOM), the UNHCR Global Report for 2009 includes a brief history and timeline that highlights the major refugee events of the past decades and the important role that EXCOM has played over the years. To learn more about EXCOM, its mandate, members, rules of procedure and much more, visit the relevant section of the UNHCR web site. You can also access full-text documents disseminated during annual meetings as of the 41st session in 1990.

Not much has been written about EXCOM generally. In 1990 the now-defunct Centre for Documentation on Refugees (CDR) compiled EXCOM in Abstracts: A Bibliographic Description of Documentation Issued in the Context of UNHCR's Governing Bodies and Major International Refugee Conferences 1951-1990, which summarizes the official documentation submitted to the advisory bodies of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 1951 to 1990, that is, EXCOM and the two entities which preceded it: the High Commissioner's Advisory Committee and the United Nations Refugee Fund (UNREF) Executive Committee. The editor's introduction provides a useful overview of these three bodies, while a separate article by Anders Johnsson reviews the origins of the current Executive Committee and its mandate.

Elsewhere, some additional background information on and analysis of the role of EXCOM can be found in:

Jackson, Ivor, "Some International Protection Issues Arising During the 1970s and 1980s with Particular Reference to the Role of the UNHCR Executive Committee," Refugee Survey Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 1 (2008) [abstract]

Mason, Elisa, "Resolving Refugee Problems: An Introduction to the Executive Committee of the United Nations High Commissioner's Programme and Its Documentation," Journal of Government Information, vol. 27, no. 1 (January 2000) [abstract]

Sztucki, Jerzy, "The Conclusions on the International Protection of Refugees Adopted by the Executive Committee of the UNHCR Programme," International Journal of Refugee Law, vol. 1, no. 3 (1989) [abstract]

Warner, Daniel, "Forty Years of the Executive Committee: From the Old to the New," International Journal of Refugee Law, vol. 2, no. 2 (April 1990) [abstract]

[Picture credit: "UNHCR: 2009 Executive Committee Meeting," UN-NGLS]

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