Introduction

Although Colombia officially ended its 52-year-old conflict with the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) guerrilla group when it signed the Havana Peace Agreement in 2016, armed hostilities continue to this day, both with FARC dissidents and other armed groups, making the overall conflict the longest in the history of the 20^th and early 21^st centuries. Since the 1948 assassination of populist political leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, the country has been plagued by hostilities that gradually pulled in government forces, the left-wing insurgency and right-wing paramilitary groups. In the 1990s, the conflict grew rapidly in both intensity and geographical scope and quickly engulfed the entire country. By the mid-90s, as a result of the state of generalized violence, the conflict began to affect neighboring countries. Unprecedented flows of refugees began fleeing the country, seeking protection in neighboring Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela, Peru and Brazil. These ongoing migratory flows were triggered by widespread violations of international humanitarian and human rights law by all parties involved in the conflict. The latest official figures provided by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) state that in late 2017, there were 224,106 Colombian registered refugees, asylum-seekers and undocumented displacees considered to be in ‘refugee-like’ situations throughout the Americas, the vast majority of them in Ecuador, Venezuela and Panama (UNHCR 2017a, 70). However, the former UNHCR Representative in Colombia notes that, in these three countries alone, the overall figure could be as high as 1 million individuals who were forced to flee and to seek international protection due to a well-founded fear of persecution (^{Gottwald 2004}, 517).

In reaction to these population movements across their borders, Colombia’s neighbors sought to depict the conflict as primarily internal and actively downplayed the escalating cross-border refugee flows. They engaged in deterrent measures to prevent illegal cross-border movement, such as border military operations, non-admission policies for refugees and systematic deportation of illegal migrants (^{Gottwald 2004}, 517). These practices can be seen as a fundamental infringement of the provisions of the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1969 American Convention on Human Rights and the 1984 Cartagena Declaration on Refugees.

This article hypothesizes that the complex dynamics of the interregional political and security interests of Colombia’s neighbors have led them to afford limited or nonexistent international protection status to Colombian refugees. The relevance of this study is accentuated by the fact that these countries have hitherto mostly failed to identify a lasting solution to the protracted situation of the Colombian refugees dispersed throughout their territories.

This analysis is divided into three sections. First, we discuss the political and security interests of Colombia’s five neighbor states as regards the spillover effects of the armed conflict. Second, we consider and evaluate the impact and evolution of the concept of labelling forced migrants, given that these labels cause them to be either granted or denied legal protection status. Third, we examine the evolution of UNHCR’s international role and responsibilities in the context of these refugee outflows through its successive international protection policy initiatives. The article concludes with some final remarks.

The spillover effects of the armed conflict: political and security interests of Colombia’s regional neighbors

The governments of Colombia’s neighboring countries have followed a distinct pattern, downplaying the scope of Colombian refugee inflows and showing reluctance to grant protection in line with their international obligations. Haddad argues that refugees are a product of states that fail to protect their own citizens within their jurisdictions, and that they are consequently perceived as an anomaly in the established state-citizen-territory paradigm of the international system of states. In other words, unrecognized refugees are seen as individuals floating between states without a formal legal bond to one of them. Such an anomaly is seen as a source of instability, and thus a security risk that threatens to destabilize the state system (Haddad 2008, 90). The main risk can be identified as a questioning of the legitimacy of a state-centric international society where individuals are understood to be legally under the responsibility of their respective states, as opposed to being independent elements, equal or even superior to states. This concern over the primordial role of states lies, from a communitarian security perspective, at the core of the international refugee regime itself-a regime designed to reallocate these floating individuals to a specific state. However, political and domestic security concerns over admitting masses of refugee flows, such as the Colombian displacees, have led Colombia's neighbor states to deny formal refugee status to them (91-92).⁽¹⁾ Granting refugee status to these displacees is perceived as a security threat to the institutions, welfare system and resources of the receiving societies, as well as a political liability for the policymakers who would grant such recognition (92). This chapter will seek to identify a pattern of political and security concerns that have led Colombia’s neighbor states to either grant limited international protection to Colombian refugees or downright deny them protection. We will start with the three countries that receive the largest number of these refugees, namely Panama, Venezuela and Ecuador, before considering the remaining two, Brazil and Peru.

From recognized refugees to illegal migrants: the impact of labelling

Having established that Colombia’s neighboring states are generally reluctant to grant forced migrants adequate protection in accordance with their international obligations, we now discuss the impact that labelling can have on the formation of identity within the context of asylum policies and protection practices. The nature and impact of labelling vary substantially depending on the context: legal, non-legal, bureaucratic, political, humanitarian or individual. Legal labels are especially important in countries with developed national protection frameworks where distinct labels afford varying degrees of protection. Labels sometimes have a positive effect: they can translate into a range of rights aimed at protecting asylum seekers during RSD procedures and pending removal, as well as recipients of temporary protection and recognized refugees. On the other hand, labels can also have a negative impact in that they are often manipulated by receiving states in order to limit residence and working rights and other benefits, thus minimizing their own responsibilities (^{Stevens 2013}, 19).

Whether labels are used to grant far-reaching legal protection or to deny most basic features of protection, some scholars argue that “because we deploy labels not only to describe the world but also to construct it in convenient images […] labelling [is] not just a highly instrumental process, but also a powerful explanatory tool to explore the complex and often disjunctive impacts of humanitarian intervention on the lives of refugees” (^{Zetter 2007}, 173). Indeed, forced migrants do not necessarily conform to the image or label imposed on them by the interests and procedures of NGOs, governments and intergovernmental agencies acting under the banner of humanitarianism (Zetter 1991, 41). There is a frequent mismatch between policy measures driven by specific agendas and the ways that individuals conceived as subjects of such policies are ultimately defined by artificial and incomplete images (^{Wood 1985}, 347-373). Moreover, in addition to its highly politicized effect on access to immediate rights and services as well as to durable solutions such as resettlement, labelling also plays a major role in the shifting identities of victims forced to flee persecution (^{Stevens 2013}, 17). Individuals' self-perception is closely linked to the labels that are imposed on them, causing a potential increase in suffering if their experienced hardship is not recognized.

Zetter’s early research emphasizes the conceptual and operational limitations of the concept of refugee labelling. He identifies a number of key issues, such as the stereotyping of identities for the sake of bureaucratic labelling needs, the symbolic power of distinct hierarchical protection labels and its socio-psychological effects on the labelled, the shifting nature of human identity dynamics, the lack of effective participation of the labelled in these bureaucratic processes, and the resulting extreme legal vulnerability of forced migrants owing to the labels imposed on them (Zetter 1991, 41). His more recent findings underscore that the impact of institutional and bureaucratic labelling on the lives of refugees remains strong in a globalized era of transnational social transformations. Given this context, labelling has become politicized due to its legitimization of a mainstream political discourse of resistance to refugees and migrants, while simultaneously being portrayed as an apolitical set of bureaucratic categories. In addition, the proliferation of labels designed to clarify and distinguish distinct forms of forced migration and alleged protection needs has paradoxically blurred the impact of such labelling efforts, in the context of increasingly complex social transformations that are generating more intricate forms of persecution (Zetter 2007, 172-173 and 188).

Analyses have been undertaken of the motivations of states over the last quarter century for increasingly populating the international refugee regime with a seemingly endless list of alternative national protection labels, such as humanitarian admission, B status, temporary protected status, special leave to remain, etc. As previously established, such a pattern can be clearly traced among Colombia’s neighbors. Hathaway argues that states have been misguided in two fundamental ways in creating these legal alternatives. Firstly, states are often under the impression that granting refugee status under the Geneva Convention will represent a legal constraint on their right to define their own immigration policies (Hathaway 2003, 1-2; 1997). In other words, they see granting such status as creating a predicament because of its alleged permanent nature and the impossibility of bringing it to an end. However, Grahl-Madsen points out that the nexus between refugee status and the concept of asylum was rejected both in the 1951 Convention and at the 1977 Territorial Asylum Conference (Grahl-Madsen 1980, 8-10). In addition, Article 1C (5-6) of the Convention explicitly stipulates that refugee status entails a duty to protect only as long as a well-founded fear of persecution remains:

This Convention shall cease to apply to any person falling under the terms of section A if:

(5) He can no longer, because the circumstances in connexion with which he has been recognized as a refugee have ceased to exist, continue to refuse to avail himself of the protection of the country of his nationality. Provided that this paragraph shall not apply to a refugee falling under section A (1) of this article who is able to invoke compelling reasons arising out of previous persecution for refusing to avail himself of the protection of the country of nationality;

(6) Being a person who has no nationality he is, because the circumstances in connexion with which he has been recognized as a refugee have ceased to exist, able to return to the country of his former habitual residence. Provided that this paragraph shall not apply to a refugee falling under section A (1) of this article who is able to invoke compelling reasons arising out of previous persecution for refusing to return to the country of his former habitual residence.⁽⁷⁾

This means that formal recognition of refugee status does not translate into automatic recognition of indefinite asylum; states remain the final judges of whether to grant or withdraw such a legal protection label.

Secondly, the academic literature underscores that refugee status is a declaratory and not a constitutive act, which means that an individual is considered a refugee with entitlement to protection under the Convention as soon as he or she meets the relevant criteria. Hathaway goes so far as to say that, as a strict matter of international refugee law, there should not be any distinct standards of legal protection when a receiving state uses some other label to refer to a Convention refugee. In other words, even if forced migrants are not formally recognized with the refugee label, they ought to be protected by the system of incremental rights established under the Convention. This system consists of categories of Convention rights granted to refugees at different stages: when they enter a state party’s territory, when they are recognized as lawfully present within the territory, when they are recognized as lawfully staying there, and finally upon satisfaction of a durable residency requirement.⁽⁸⁾ Colombian refugees granted a temporary protection label in some neighboring countries are entitled to claim the rights contingent on lawfully staying there. This entitlement is not determined by a formal adjudication of their refugee status or granting of permanent residence, but rather by an individual’s de facto circumstances (Hathaway 2003, 2-5). In addition, according to Article 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, “A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty”.⁽⁹⁾ A state cannot rely on its decision to regularly or exceptionally delay or avoid verification of refugee status, including by granting alternative labels, in order to bypass refugee rights protected under international public law. In essence, the state practice of alternative labelling can be dismissed by arguing that “if the goal of the various alternative protection labels and their accompanying temporary protection systems is to avoid the need to recognize most Convention rights, they are legally untenable. And if their goal is instead to avoid the need to grant asylum, they are legally unnecessary.” (Hathaway 2003, 2-5).

Furthermore, the academic literature highlights another contentious element in labelling practices: tensions between the inclusive interpretation of the refugee label promoted by NGOs and humanitarian agencies and the exclusive interpretation defended by states. Practice has shown, in both signatory and non-signatory parties to the Geneva Convention that inclusive access to rights or services is highly contingent on the label assigned to foreigners by states. In the absence of an efficient national human rights framework, these foreigners may find themselves threatened by exploitation, neglect and exclusion. In the case of Colombian refugees, as explained earlier, the patchwork of diverging and often limited legal protection statuses granted by bordering countries has allowed governments in these countries to limit their role in meeting the humanitarian needs of the displacees. This has forced international and national NGOs as well as UNHCR to step into the vacuum. The agency of these actors has been of the utmost importance and highlights the absence of durable and effective state-sponsored legal protection, as well as a coordinated, structured and committed national and regional approach to the protection issues facing the Columbian displacees (^{Stevens 2013}, 20). As such, this study will now turn to an analysis of the evolution of UNHCR’s role and responsibilities through the establishment of international protection initiatives that are directly relevant to the issue of Colombian displacees in neighboring states.

The evolution of UNHCR’s role and responsibilities in light of Colombia’s refugee outflows

Since its creation in the aftermath of World War II, UNHCR has faced significant and recurring challenges owing to changing global political circumstances and the evolving dynamics of forced displacement worldwide (^{Elie 2008}, 277). María Teresa Ponte Iglesias points out that the nature of refugeehood has itself undergone dramatic changes since the drafting of the 1951 Convention and UNHCR’s mandate. She argues that the immense majority of contemporary refugees are not suffering persecution directly related to the five grounds identified in the Convention, but are instead fleeing the indiscriminate effects of armed conflict and other situations of violence, which may lead to the destruction of their homes, crops, food reserves and means of subsistence, as was the case in Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Chechnya. Therefore, there is a growing mismatch between current refugee flows and the official refugee definition enshrined in the Convention (Ponte Iglesias 2000, 128). Hence, in order to uphold the international refugee regime and ensure its own institutional survival, the Refugee Agency has had to expand the scope of its original mandate and has been forced into a process of constant institutional adaptation (Elie 2008, 277). Geoff Gilbert states that whereas initially, UNHCR was solely responsible for protection under its Statute and for ensuring that member states did not refoule persons falling within the strict definition found in the 1951 Convention, its role has now expanded to cover victims of war, victims of human rights violations, persons who have not managed to cross an international frontier and even stabilization activities in potential source countries (Gilbert 1998, 355).

As the Refugee Agency struggles to come up with durable solutions for displacees in ‘refugee-like’ situations, such as the Colombians who find themselves in protracted situations throughout neighboring countries, the legitimacy of its gradually expanding mandate has been called into question. Scholars have criticized its tendency to assume an ever-increasing role in protecting new categories of displaced persons and have spoken out against the idea that it should become the UN’s protection organization. They have suggested that the Agency should instead concentrate on its core refugee-specific mandate while playing a facilitating and catalytic role for other actors, such as fellow UN agencies, states or NGOs involved in broader issue-areas of mixed migration, security, development and peacebuilding (^{Loescher, Betts and Milner 2008}, 119-125).

Moreover, it has been argued that throughout its history, the Agency has been dependent on donor states for vital funding, which has often complicated its capacity to persuade states to meet their legal and humanitarian obligations towards refugees (^{Elie 2008}, 277). Loescher, Betts & Milner argue that “UNHCR has been situated between the constraints and challenges of states’ power and interests and its own normative agenda of promoting refugee protection and access to solutions”. They advise UNHCR to rethink its relationship with states beyond the donor conundrum by relying on its own moral authority to become more politically engaged and by linking national interests with actions that enhance the protection of both Convention and non-recognized refugees (Loescher, Betts and Milner 2008, 4-5 and 126-127). This chapter will be devoted to assessing the positive outcomes for Colombian refugees of the recent initiatives launched by the Refugee Agency to modernize the global refugee regime and to redefine its own role and responsibilities. It will also highlight some criticisms and shortcomings of this approach.

From 2000 onwards, UNHCR set in motion several international protection policy initiatives, such as the Global Consultations on International Protection (2000-2002), the Agenda for Protection (2001-2010), the Convention Plus Initiatives (2002-2005) and the High Commissioner’s Dialogues on Protection Challenges (2007-2014). These initiatives were all aimed at triggering in-depth reflection among states, NGOs, intergovernmental organizations, the academic community and stakeholders on how best to revitalize the international refugee regime and enable states to improve their response mechanisms when facing protection challenges. The Global Consultations were launched in December 2000 on the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of the 1951 Convention, which in turn led to the 2002 adoption by the Executive Committee (EXCOM) of the Agenda for Protection (UNHCR 2002, 1). Since then, this program has effectively shaped UNHCR’s protection efforts, as well as those of states and partners (UNHCR 2002; 2010a, 2-5). The Agenda's impacts on the protection challenges faced by Colombian refugees can be outlined as follows: It recommended that refugee protection be enhanced by accession to, and effective implementation of, regional refugee instruments, such as the Cartagena Declaration in the case of Colombian refugees. It improved UNHCR’s registration systems and guidance through the publication of the UNHCR Handbook on Registration (2003) and the Operational Standards for Registration and Documentation (2009), in conjunction with comprehensive registration exercises in the field, including the introduction of biometric features. It directed EXCOM to draft a Conclusion containing general principles on which complementary forms of protection should be based and indicating which individuals might benefit from them. It created the 2007 10 Point Plan on Refugee Protection and Mixed Migration, a tool aiming to assist all stakeholders in incorporating refugee protection considerations into broader migration policies and field practices. It promoted local integration as a durable solution, leading the Refugee Agency to work jointly with states to establish a framework sensitive to the specificities of refugee needs, international and national legal standards, and the socioeconomic realities of hosting countries (UNHCR 2002; 2010a).

During the initial years of the Agenda, it became increasingly clear to UNHCR that the search for lasting solutions, especially in the case of protracted refugee situations, such as Colombian refugees in neighboring countries, had to include all relevant stakeholders on a much more permanent and substantial basis. The idea of such a forum of states and other stakeholders led to the creation of the Convention Plus initiatives. By 2005, this forum had gradually evolved into a global discussion of refugee protection, which led to the creation in 2007 of the High Commissioner’s Dialogues on Protection Challenges (^{Clark and Simeon 2014}, 15). The content of the Dialogues was inspired by the Agenda's goals, and upon completion of the latter in 2010, they became the main informal discussion forum on new or emerging global protection issues. They continue to represent an opportunity for annual discussions on specific protection issues. Some of these discussions are of direct relevance to the situation of Colombians refugees: examples include Refugee Protection, Durable Solutions and International Migration (2007), Protracted Refugee Situations (2008), Urban Refugees (2009) and Protection Gaps and Responses (2010) (UNHCR 2019b).

Unlike the Agenda, the Dialogues are not structured to elicit formal or agreed outcomes, with the notable exception of the 2010 Nansen Principles on climate change and displacement. Hence, their importance with regards to the protection challenges faced by Colombian refugees does not lie in drafting and signing specific agreements but rather in the evolution of the role and responsibilities of UNHCR, an evolution that led to its establishing a global forum to identify protection concerns of states and other stakeholders and seek solutions that benefit them as well as Colombian displacees. For instance, the 2010 Dialogue fostered discussion of the gaps in the existing international protection framework for forcibly displaced people, specifically in terms of international cooperation, burden sharing and comprehensive regional approaches as well as implementation and normative gaps (UNHCR 2010b). It also led to the above-mentioned 2011 intergovernmental ministerial-level meeting facilitated by UNHCR, where a number of states concerned with Colombian refugee inflows, such as Venezuela, made pledges to alleviate the suffering of these displaced communities. As such, one could argue that the evolution of UNHCR’s role and responsibilities through its establishment of successive international protection policy initiatives has enabled it, along with states and other stakeholders, to identify gaps in and suggest remedies for the protection framework of Colombian refugees in neighboring countries.

On the other hand, as mentioned above, a number of scholars have criticized the changes in UNHCR’s role and responsibilities since the end of the Cold War, when it gradually began to expand its field of work beyond its original mandate. For example, Gilbert points to UNHCR’s responsibilities under international law and states that the concept of responsibility has two facets: responsibility for what and responsibility to whom. He found that, with the expansion of its mandate, the Refugee Agency is not sufficiently accountable to populations of concern, host states where it conducts operations, NGO partners or fellow UN agencies. An additional difficulty is that multi-agency activity in many situations faced by UNHCR makes it intrinsically complex to attribute responsibility to any one actor. A potential solution to this issue would be to establish proper assessments of practices, which would improve performance by eliminating unofficial, ill-prepared analyses based on hearsay or the political agenda of influential donors (Gilbert 1998, 349 and 388).

Another strong criticism of UNHCR’s role and responsibilities can be found in Chimni’s ‘Third World’ approach to international law. He criticizes the largely overlooked knowledge production and dissemination functions of the Refugee Agency, which legitimized Western policies such as neglecting refugees from developing nations or using them as pawns in Cold War geopolitics, before eventually contributing to containing South-North refugee flows after the collapse of the Soviet Union. By 1989 a ‘new approach’ to international refugee law had replaced the established positivist doctrine and created a ‘myth of difference’: the idea that great dissimilarities characterized refugee flows from the Communist Bloc and developing nations. This ‘new approach’ advocated for rejecting refugee law as an avenue for economic exile, relying on voluntary repatriation, and recognizing the responsibility of the state of physical origin. Chimni argues that UNHCR played a large role in legitimizing the new approach and the ensuing Western containment rhetoric through its knowledge production and dissemination systems (Chimni 1998, 350-366). In this way, the Refugee Agency, going beyond its mandated protection role, actively promotes norms and expectations of international behavior in the field of refugee law, as well as framing issues for collective debate and proposing specific policy responses (^{Finnemore 1993}, 594). It also identifies key points for negotiation in order to fill gaps in the normative framework and adjust to changes in the external environment. More specifically, Chimni views UNHCR’s in-house publications, such as Refugee and The State of the World's Refugees, as having contributed to legitimizing the political agenda of influential donors in establishing the ‘new approach’ to the interpretation of international refugee law and subsequent Western containment policies. Concretely, concepts such as in-country protection, preventive protection, the right to remain, temporary protection, closer cooperation with the Security Council, safe havens and safety zones have sought to operationalize the geopolitical interests of the dominant coalition of Northern member-states (Chimni 1998, 366-367). This criticism offers valuable insight that enables us to better understand the shortcomings of the changes to the role and responsibilities of the Refugee Agency and the biases involved in redefining the goals of the global refugee regime.

To summarize, this chapter has sought to analyze the initiatives undertaken by UNHCR from 2000 onwards in order to adapt its mandate and revitalize the international refugee regime in light of shifting worldwide geopolitical dynamics and refugee flows and in light of the changing nature of refugeehood itself. We have highlighted the positive impact that such developments have had on the protection situation of Colombian refugees in neighboring countries. Conversely, we have examined some of the criticisms that academics from both the West and the developing world have levelled against the Refugee Agency’s expanding mandate, evolving role and responsibilities, lack of accountability and biases that have influenced the international refugee regime. Additional critical commentaries on the evolution of UNHCR can be found in the academic literature, but further analysis would be beyond the scope of this article. We ultimately conclude that while the above-mentioned criticisms are legitimate, they do not undermine the positive impact of UNHCR’s recent international protection initiatives on the ongoing protection challenges faced by Colombian refugees in neighboring countries.

Conclusions

In light of the enduring major refugee flows crossing Colombia’s international borders into neighboring states (especially Panama, Venezuela and Ecuador), this article has sought to demonstrate that the complex dynamics underlying the interregional political and security interests of Colombia’s neighbors have led them to afford limited or no international protection status to the forced migrants.

The first major finding of this study concerns the consequences of specific political and domestic security interests of the governments of Panama, Venezuela and Ecuador in dealing with Colombian refugee outflows. We have highlighted a common pattern among these countries of downplaying the scope of the issue and granting limited or no international protection, in violation of their international obligations. These governments perceive granting refugee status to Colombian displacees as a security threat to their institutions, welfare system and resources, as well as a political liability for the policymakers who would grant such recognition.

In the case of Panama, the unwillingness of the government to grant permanent protection to Colombian displacees, in clear violation of the norms set out in international refugee law, can be linked to several factors, such as concern for the stability of the small nation and its resources in the context of unprecedented refugee flows from a much larger neighbor, and the complicated historical relationship between the two countries, which dates back to the independence of Panama from Colombia in 1903. Large-scale recognition would mean not only acknowledging but highlighting the humanitarian and human rights violations occurring in Colombia, which would damage the improving relationship between the two governments.

In Venezuela, the failures of the RSD procedures and the lack of political will to recognize the dimensions of the Colombian humanitarian crisis can be explained by the fluctuating diplomatic relationship between the two countries. There were ideological tensions between President Chávez and President Uribe, but bilateral collaboration improved under President Santos. Nicolás Maduro followed the same path by sustaining a close working relationship with his counterpart in Bogotá. This increasingly close partnership meant that if Venezuela granted international protection to Colombian displacees, it could jeopardize the relationship between the countries. The situation further evolved with the 2010 outbreak of the Venezuelan Crisis, which gradually caused the nascent asylum system to break down, along with the entire civil administration. The fluctuating diplomatic relationship between the two neighbors (which reached an all-time low on January 23, 2019, when current Colombian president Iván Duque recognized Juan Guaidó as the legitimate president of Venezuela over Nicolás Maduro), combined with the consequences of the ongoing Venezuelan crisis, sheds light on the political dynamics at play in recognizing a large influx of refugees.

In the case of Ecuador, the deterioration of its protection regime, as exemplified by the end of the Registro Ampliado period, is indicative of its political and domestic security concerns. Among other things, one may highlight debates among policy-makers about the legal implications of a strict application of the Cartagena definition, concerns expressed by the Ecuadorian security forces over ever-increasing refugee flows, pacts between political parties before the 2013 general elections, and changing dynamics in regional politics, such as the close partnership between former president Rafael Correa and former president Juan Manuel Santos.

The second main finding relates to the impact of labelling practices on forced migrants. We found that the latter do not necessarily conform to the image or label imposed on them by the interests and procedures of NGOs, governments and intergovernmental agencies acting under the banner of humanitarianism. As such, there is a frequent mismatch between policy measures driven by specific agendas and the ways that individuals conceived as subjects of such policies are ultimately defined by artificial and incomplete images. This study also underscored that in addition to its highly politicized effect on access to immediate rights and services as well as to durable solutions such as resettlement, labelling plays a major role in the shifting identities of victims forced to flee persecution. Individuals' self-perception is closely linked to the labels that are imposed on them, causing a potential increase in suffering if their experienced hardship is not recognized. Moreover, given the current large-scale global migratory flows, labelling has become politicized due to its legitimization of a mainstream political discourse of resistance to refugees and migrants, while simultaneously being portrayed as an apolitical set of bureaucratic categories.

In terms of the reasons for the proliferation of alternative national protection labels, we found that states such as Colombia’s neighbors often see granting refugee status under the Geneva Convention as a legal constraint on their right to define their own immigration policies. However, the nexus between refugee status and the concept of asylum was rejected both in the 1951 Convention and at the 1977 Territorial Asylum Conference. In addition, Article 1C (5-6) of the Convention explicitly stipulates that refugee status entails a duty to protect only as long as a well-founded fear of persecution remains, allowing states to remain the final judges of whether to grant or withdraw such a legal protection label. Moreover, since refugee status is a declaratory and not a constitutive act, there should not be any distinct standards of legal protection when a receiving state uses some other label to refer to a Convention refugee. Even if forced migrants are not formally recognized with the refugee label, they ought to be protected by the system of incremental rights established under the Convention. We thus found that the governments of countries receiving Colombian refugee outflows cannot rely on their decision to regularly or exceptionally delay or avoid verification of refugee status, including by granting alternative labels, in order to bypass refugee rights protected under international public law.

The third key finding deals with the evolution of UNHCR’s role and responsibilities through the establishment of successive international protection initiatives that are directly relevant to the issue of Colombian displacees in neighboring states. We found that in order to uphold the international refugee regime and ensure its own institutional survival, the Refugee Agency has had to expand the scope of its original mandate and has been forced into a process of constant institutional adaptation. This study found positive outcomes for Colombian refugees from UNHCR’s evolving role and responsibilities. We found that the Agency’s successive international protection initiatives led it to establish a global forum so that it, along with states and other stakeholders, could identify gaps in and suggest remedies for the protection framework of Colombian refugees.

However, UNHCR's tendency to assume an ever-increasing role in protecting new categories of displaced persons and its potential transformation into the UN’s protection organization have been strongly criticized. Some have argued that given the expansion of its mandate, the Agency is not sufficiently accountable to populations of concern, host states where it conducts operations, NGO partners or fellow UN agencies. Others have pointed out that through its knowledge production and dissemination functions, UNHCR has played a large role in legitimizing the ‘new approach’ to the interpretation of international refugee law and subsequent Western containment policies. We found that such critical commentaries offer valuable insight that enables us to better understand the shortcomings of the changes to the role and responsibilities of the Refugee Agency and the biases involved in redefining the goals of the global refugee regime. However, we found that such criticism, while legitimate, does not undermine the positive impact of UNHCR’s international protection initiatives on the search for durable solutions to the ongoing protection challenges faced by Colombian refugees in neighboring countries.