People not to Forget
World events frequently cause flows of people that are unanticipated. Both between nations and within nations, people are displaced for political, religious, and environmental reasons. Refugee Status Determination (RSD) has been the purview of both the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and governments around the world. University of Law professor Michael Kagan has suggested that the UNHCR now lacks the capacity to adequately identify potential refugees. Further, he suggests that individual governments also lack this capacity. He directs an on-line forum presenting position papers and shorter discussions of refugee issues at the University of Michigan. In a recent posting, he called for the UNHCR to seriously address its capacity to engage in RSD asking: …