Revisiting the concept of protection in international refugee law: implications of the protracted refugee situation on the Thai-Myanmar Border

This chapter revisits the concept of ‘protection’, which lies at the heart of international refugee law but is a concept that is becoming a matter of obscurity within the realities of protracted refugee situations (PRSs), in which over two-thirds of refugee population are trapped today. The chapter first reviews the meaning of protection as shaped in international refugee law, which will then be juxtaposed with realities of the PRS on the Thai-Myanmar border. The third section critically examines the idea of third-country resettlement, as implemented for those registered in the Thai-Myanmar border camps, questioning the adequacy of a state-centred approach that has predominantly been adopted in ‘solving’ refugee crises in the past. The final section discusses the perspectives of the displaced population themselves as the ground for advancing a human-centred approach to PRSs, through their experience on the Thai-Myanmar border.