The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement reflect and are consistent with international human rights law and international humanitarian law and to a large extent thus codify and make explicit guarantees protecting internally displaced persons that are inherent in these bodies of law.

The first edition of the Annotations was intended to facilitate access to these legal sources, and were favorably received. In Article 6 (2) of the 2006 Protocol on the Protection and Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons the Member States of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (Great Lakes IDP Protocol) even "accept to use the Annotations of the Guiding Principles as an authoritative source for interpreting the application of the Guiding Principles" which they undertake to incorporate into their domestic legal orders.

The 10th anniversary of the Guiding Principles in 2008 provided a fitting occasion to publish a second edition of the Annotations. It follows very closely the structure and content of the first edition but reflects the significant legal developments that have taken place since the publication of the Annotations in 2000.