| In 1993, at the request of the then Commission on Human Rights, prior Representative of the Secretary-General on internally displaced persons, Francis M. Deng, prepared his first study of international standards relevant to internally displaced persons (E/CN.4/1993/35 Annex). In a more comprehensive two-volume study presented in 1996 (E/CN.4/1996/52/Add.2) and 1998 (E/CN.4/1998/53/Add.1), Representative Deng concluded that existing law provided broad protection for the rights of internally displaced persons, but that there were also certain gray areas and gaps in coverage.
With the encouragement of the Commission on Human Rights (E/CN.4/RES/1996/52, para. 9) and the General Assembly (A/RES/52/130), Representative Deng led a group of independent experts in the development of a document setting out the law relevant to the internally displaced and addressing the gray areas and gaps identified in the earlier studies.
A series of meetings was organized to consider the form and content of the document. These meetings brought together a wide range of experts from regional and international organizations, humanitarian and human rights NGOs, women’s and children’s advocacy groups, legal associations, and research institutions. It was at a conference of fifty international experts in Vienna in 1998, hosted by the government of Austria, that the Guiding Principles were finalized.
The Guiding Principles were presented by the Representative of the Secretary-General on internally displaced persons to the UN Commission on Human Rights at its fifty-fourth session in 1998 (E/CN.4/1998/53/Add.2) as an addendum to his annual report (E/CN.4/1998/53). |
