restrictions on accessing asylum compared to other refugees (Morrison 2014). Ninety percent of those who remain in Syria are reliant on humanitarian assistance (Morrison 2014).

- (f) An unknown number of registered Palestinian refugees have acquired the nationality of countries outside the Middle East.

# **Asylum-seekers**

The 1951 Convention does not establish an individual right to asylum, and the right to receive or to be granted asylum is left to the discretion of the host country, which has the primary responsibility for protecting refugees including determining whether or not people meet the definition of refugees in the 1951 Convention.<sup>25</sup> This requires that countries designate a central authority with the relevant knowledge and expertise to assess applications, ensure procedural safeguards and permit appeals and reviews. Consequently, statistics on asylum-seekers reflect differences between countries in the administrative rules governing the asylum process, in particular the criteria for individuals to be granted access the asylum procedure. The category of asylum-seekers excludes anyone immediately granted refugee status on a prima-facie basis, including Syrian refugees granted Temporary Protection visas in Turkey.

Not all asylum-seekers included in the global statistics would necessarily be persons of particular focus for development actors. Of the 3.2 million asylum-seekers at the end of 2015, 1.4 million are in high income (OECD and non-OECD) countries that do not qualify for development assistance or concessional financing from development organizations.

# **IDPs**

There is no international legal framework for the protection, assistance or solutions for IDPs and these remain first and foremost state responsibilities. Many national laws and regulations on internal displacement do not include a definition of IDPs, however those that do most often reflect the definition in the United Nation’s Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (UN Guiding Principles) (Wyndham 2006).<sup>26</sup> The UN Guiding Principles define IDPs as “persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or humanmade disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border.” The 2006 Great Lakes Protocol on the Protection and Assistance of IDPs (Great Lakes Protocol) and the 2009 African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons In Africa (Kampala Convention) explicitly extend the definition of IDPs to include those displaced by development projects.<sup>27</sup> The UN Guiding Principles and the IASC Framework on Durable Solutions for IDPs identify three ways in which internal displacement can end: (a) voluntary and sustainable reintegration at the place of origin (return); (b) sustainable local integration in areas where IDPs take refuge (local integration); and (c) voluntary and sustainable integration in another part of the country (settlement elsewhere in the country) (IASC 2010).

This stocktaking exercise focuses on data on conflict-induced internal displacement. While the UN Guiding Principles includes displacement due to natural or human-made disasters, and regional instruments such as the Great Lakes Protocol and the Kampala Convention include displacement due to development projects, this stocktaking report focuses on conflict-induced internal displacement only. Statistics on IDPs protected or assisted by UNHCR only include IDPs (and people in IDP-like situations) who have been

> 25 In 1967, the UN General Assembly adopted a Declaration on Territorial Asylum which reasserts the right of everyone “to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution” (Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) while avoiding reference to the right to be granted asylum. Rather, the Declaration highlights the responsibility of the country of asylum to evaluate an individual’s claim for asylum.

> 26 The UN Guiding Principles are not binding but establish principles that are consistent with international human rights and humanitarian law and analogous refugee law.

> 27 The UN Guiding Principles do acknowledge large-scale development projects as a cause of displacement, however this is not reflected explicitly in the definition of IDPs.