A Universal Mandate to Protect: The Challenges of Refugee Protection (Features‪)‬

The global presence of refugees is one of the hallmarks of the modern era. On every continent people are being forced from their homes, communities, and countries of origin because of persecution or violence. During the 1990s in the aftermath of the Cold War, huge numbers of refugees fled brutal internal conflicts in Africa, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and South and Southeast Asia. Recently, state failure and collapse in Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Zimbabwe, internal conflicts in Darfur and Colombia, the global "War on Terror" and the resulting occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan have displaced millions more people. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]