The Efficacy of International versus State Policies towards Displaced Persons and their Effects on Human Geography

The purpose of this thesis was to answer the research question of how do states and international agencies, respectively, differ in application of efforts towards implementation of refugee rights, status, and protection and/or resettlement and why these differences occur. The respective refugee crises that arose following the Bosnian war in the 1990s and the Syrian civil war happening in the present day were used as case studies to further examine and answer this question. These case studies were chosen due to their relatively large refugee populations and differing causes for said refugee populations. To properly measure efficacy of refugee policies on a state and international level, the dispute of state sovereignty versus the right to international intervention was focused on and assessed exhaustively throughout this paper. It was determined that sovereignty could only be deemed legitimate and free of international intervention if certain basic functions (keeping the peace, upholding human rights, etc.) were being upheld within a territory's borders. In the cases of both Bosnia and Syria, the lack of protection and rights provided for refugees warranted international intervention, yet that intervention was not always carried out in the most efficient manner. This paper sought to elaborate on why international intervention occurred when it did and whether it was more powerful than state sovereignty. In the end, international agencies would be most effective in implementing refugee policies if individual states complied with those set policies. Until then, the battle between international policies and the proper implementation of those policies by individual states will remain an intricate one.