ABSTRACT
Guy Goodwin-Gill and Doug McAdam similarly argue that while there were arguments for the inclusion of internal refugees within the Convention— including by the Greek, Indian, and Pakistani governments, which had each approached the General Assembly for help with their own internal refugees situations. The idea that refugees were outside their own countries and lacked the protection of a government dates back to the first legal definition of a refugee. By 1949, it was clear to international refugee organization officials that they would not be able to resettle all of the refugees remaining in camps in Germany. Internal refugees, “such as those in Germany, Greece, India, Pakistan and in China,” it felt, did not need international protection but would “nevertheless raise serious problems of material assistance” if they were included, and hence would require a significant expansion of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees into assistance operations as well as providing legal protections.
