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oai:figshare.com:article/33362355 2026-09-30T12:05:03Z category_29725 portal_921 item_type_11 month_year_09_2026

The legal competence of the international community to create 'safe havens' in 'zones of turmoil' Forced Migration Online (24276783) Migration, asylum and refugee law FORCED MIGRATION ONLINE ARMED CONFLICT HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION INTERNATIONAL LAW INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS SAFETY OF REFUGEES UN The plight of forced migrants has been high on the international agenda in the 1990s due to the various conflicts that have erupted in many parts of the world in the post-Cold War period. In an effort to address the problems of forced migrants, the international community has resorted to a number of measures, including the creation of 'safe zones' or 'safe havens' or 'no-fly zones'. There is a host of problems relating to the creation of such zones; one of them is the legal competence of the international community to create such zones. Whatever the practicability of such measures or the intention of the major powers of the day on any given conflict, the purpose of this paper is to look at the bases in international law for the creation of such 'zones of peace' for forced migrants in the 'zones of turmoil' without the consent of the state(s) concerned. The conclusion derived from the discussion of the existing regime of international law, is that the international community has the legal competence, under narrowly defined conditions, to create such safety zones for the protection of forced migrants. The paper concludes by stating that in spite of its competence and the rhetoric to this effect in relation to the problems in Kurdistan and Bosnia Herzegovina, the international community failed to honour its words due to the lack of political will. 2026-09-30T12:05:03Z Text Online resource 10.25446/oxford.33362355.v1 https://figshare.com/articles/online_resource/The_legal_competence_of_the_international_community_to_create_safe_havens_in_zones_of_turmoil_/33362355 CC BY-NC-ND 4.0