This month marks 75 years since the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was founded. The agency was born from the ashes of World War II with a mandate “of seeking permanent solutions for the problem of refugees,” focused at first on the massive, war-related displacement in Europe. It would be several months until the United Nations adopted the 1951 Refugee Convention, which would become the centerpiece of the modern legal approach to protecting displaced people. In the decades since its founding, UNHCR has seen its role expand considerably, as displacement increased and the global community rallied to expand protection. What started as primarily a Europe-focused organization became a global one. As former colonies gained their independence, the Soviet Union dissolved, and the drivers of migration became more complex, UNHCR was often there to shelter displaced people, assist their return home when the time came, and in some cases help their resettlement to a new home far away. In the process, UNHCR became one of the largest UN agencies, with a multibillion-dollar annual budget. The agency was twice awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1954 and 1981, and is one of only two recipients to have received the award multiple times (the International Committee of the Red Cross has won three times). Of course, it has also come under criticism, from restrictionists and refugee advocates alike, who have alternatingly claimed the group has facilitated irregular migration and been complicit in human-rights abuses, among other charges. Meanwhile, the number of people forced out of their homes has grown considerably, from about 2 million in 1951 to 21 million in 2000 and 143 million this year (although a significant share of this growth may simply reflect the increased ability to count people; the recent figures include both international and internal displacement). Still, for the first time in years, the number of displaced people globally shrank in 2025, largely due to returns to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, Sudan, and Afghanistan. At the moment, UNHCR finds itself in a difficult position. Due to international aid cuts, the agency is on pace to end 2025 with just three-quarters of last year’s budget, dropping it to the funding level of a decade ago. As a result, nearly 5,000 staffers had lost their jobs as of October. At the same time, some world leaders have proposed reconsidering the international human-rights framework upon which UNHCR and other agencies operate. The United States may be leading a charge to revisit the 1951 Refugee Convention and several EU Member States have called for rewriting or reinterpreting some European Convention on Human Rights prohibitions on returns or on limiting asylum. When awarding UNHCR its first Peace Prize back in 1954, the Nobel Committee chairman framed the high odds the organization was up against: “Until the camps are cleared, until the sick and old have been cared for, until the young people and the children have been educated and trained for a profession or trade, the refugee problem is not solved.” Regardless of the present political and financial challenges UNHCR is confronting, those words remain as relevant as ever. All the best, Julian Hattem
Editor, Migration Information Source
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