Abstract
This article presents data on peace agreement commitments towards forced migrants on the African continent (excluding MENA) from 1990 to 2018, resulting from the analysis of 177 peace agreements responding to the search queries ‘Africa (excl. MENA)’ and ‘refugees and displaced persons’ on the Peace Agreement Database (PA-X). This article presents preliminary results from four thematic categories: (1) return, reconstruction, rehabilitation, reintegration, and resettlement (5R), (2) provision commitments, (3) rights and law, and (4) land and property. Initial probing and statistical testing of the data revealed several trends. Notably, most 5R commitments were made towards the return of forced migrants. From twelve provision variables, physical protection was the most common provision commitment, followed by relief support. Where commitments to laws and rights related to forced migration remained relatively low, these results suggest that peace agreements in this region seldom take a rights-based approach to displacement. Commitments to land and property compensation and restitution were also marginal, confirming that these issues remain occluded within the realms of conflict termination and the transition towards peace. A brief discussion of these results is followed by an outlook of future research pathways.
Citation
Parent, Nicolas. In Press, 2021. Commitments to forced migrants in African peace agreements, 1990–2018. The International Journal of Human Rights.
Availability
The article is available here. The data that support the findings of this study are openly available through Harvard Dataverse.
Nik Parent 