ABSTRACT
This chapter opens with a discussion of the meaning of ‘refugee’. It then describes in turn, the emergence of refugee diplomacy, frameworks of refugee diplomacy, refugees as objects of domestic and international politics, challenges of ‘burden-sharing’ and moving forward, and some implications of refugee diplomacy for diplomacy more broadly. Refugees have been a major focus of recent diplomatic activity. Whether in bilateral engagements between states, at regional forums, or in the course of the annual meeting in Geneva of the Executive Committee of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the issues of how refugees are to be treated, how refugee flows are to be managed, and increasingly, how refugee movements are to be prevented or deterred, have figured prominently on international agendas. A distinctive factor that complicates almost all refugee diplomacy is that refugee movements are frequently matters of controversy in the domestic politics of states.
