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Abstract: While the world’s attention often gravitates to the latest emergency situation, we are acutely aware that
most of the world’s internally displaced persons (IDPs) live in protracted displacement. Displacement
drags on, sometimes for years or decades, because of continuing conflict, because peace processes are
stalled, or because political settlements fail to provide the necessary security and support for the displaced to find solutions.
The 2nd Expert Seminar on Protracted Internal Displacement was held in Geneva from 19-20 January 2011 on the theme of “IDPs in protracted displacement: Is local integration a solution?” Around 100 participants discussed challenges and possibilities of local integration in diverse protracted displacement situations over the course of the two days.
This publication includes the six case studies commissioned for the seminar as well as an introductory essay which
explores the common themes emerging from the studies on protracted displacement and local integration. By focusing on the possibilities and challenges of local integration in protracted displacement, we hope that these
six case studies lead to better understanding—and to concrete actions—which will bring an end to internal displacement
which has gone on for far too long in these six countries and in many others.
Abstract: The big-picture issues at the crossroads of peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding were taken up by the Security Council in September 2010, under the presidency of Turkey. Leading up to that discussion, Turkey held numerous bilateral consultations, and, with the support of IPI, organized an expert meeting on these issues in New York in May 2010 and an informal retreat in Istanbul for members of the Council in June 2010.
This publication is intended to document some of that process, and includes the Statement by the President of the Security Council, the outcome summary of the June retreat, and the set of papers that were presented there. Three of these papers draw lessons from the UN’s experiences in different areas of the world (Afghanistan, the Balkans, and the Great Lakes region of Africa), and one paper analyzes cross-cutting themes.
Table of Contents:
Introduction, Francesco Mancini
Meeting Note
Security Council Istanbul Retreat: At The Crossroads of Peacemaking, Peacekeeping, and Peacebuilding
Adam C. Smith and Vanessa Wyeth, Rapporteurs
Discussion Papers
Peacemaking In Afghanistan: A Role For The United Nations?
Gerard Russell
The Security Council And Peacekeeping In The Balkans, 1992-2010
Richard Gowan and Daniel Korski
The Great Lakes of Africa (Burundi, The Drc, And The LRA-Affected Areas)
François Grignon
Composite Paper on Cross-Cutting Themes
International Peace Institute
Annex
Statement by the President of the Security Council
Abstract: Most of the world’s 27.5 million internally displaced people
(IDPs) live in protracted displacement. These are
situations where the process for finding durable solutions
is stalled, and/or where IDPs are marginalised
as a consequence of violations or a lack of protection
of their human rights, including economic, social and
cultural rights.1 Solutions are absent or have failed and
IDPs remain disadvantaged and unable to fully enjoy
their rights.
The seminar brought together about 100 participants
from around the world, from a range of backgrounds
and organisations. They included representatives of
governments and civil society organisations in countries
with protracted internal displacement, international
humanitarian and development organisations (including
UN agencies) donors, research organisations, academics
and other experts. The Chatham House Rule was in
effect during the meeting to allow participants to speak
more freely.
The seminar focused on the experiences of six countries
with protracted internal displacement – Burundi,
Colombia, Georgia, Serbia, southern Sudan and Uganda.
For each country field research was commissioned and
the resulting case studies were distributed before the
seminar. Other background materials circulated to participants
included an overview of local integration of
IDPs in protracted displacement and reference materials
relating to durable solutions.
Abstract: Crisis Watch summarises briefly developments during the previous month in some 70 situations of current or potential conflict, listed alphabetically by region, providing references and links to more detailed information sources (all references mentioned are hyperlinked in the electronic version of this bulletin); assesses whether the overall situation in each case has, during the previous month, significantly deteriorated, significantly improved, or on balance remained more or less unchanged; alerts readers to situations where, in the coming month, there is a particular risk of new or significantly escalated conflict, or a particular conflict resolution opportunity (noting that in some instances there may in fact be both); and summarises Crisis Group’s reports and briefing papers that have been published in the last month.
Amid mounting tensions between North and South Sudan over the disputed border area of Abyei, clashes broke out between the two sides at the beginning of the month. Northern Sudanese forces invaded Abyei on 20 May and asserted control in breach of existing peace agreements. Tens of thousands are reported to have fled south. The attacks threaten renewed conflict and weaken confidence between North and South as critical post-referendum arrangements remain unresolved.
Tensions also increased over military control and the presence of armed forces in the transitional areas of Blue Nile and South Kordofan, and CrisisWatch identifies a conflict risk alert for North Sudan for the coming month.
Violence escalated further in Yemen, where military forces loyal to President Saleh battled on several fronts, renewing fears that the continued political stalemate could erupt into civil war.
President Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria continued to use troops and tanks to violently suppress the ongoing revolt, with hundreds of protesters feared killed, thousands detained, and widespread reports of torture.
In Pakistan, the U.S. killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad at the beginning of the month again raised questions about the military's possible involvement with jihadist groups.
Local elections in Albania on 8 May proved even more troubled than anticipated as the race for the Tirana mayor's seat ended deep within the margin of error.
In Guatemala, the Mexican Los Zetas cartel killed and decapitated 27 farm workers in the northern Petén department.
In Serbia, war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb military leader accused of commanding the Srebrenica massacre and the siege of Sarajevo during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, was arrested after 16 years on the run. He was extradited to The Hague, where he will stand trial for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
Abstract: The popular uprisings that swept the Arab world in early 2011 have been compared by some commentators to the fall of the Berlin Wall. In an exhilarating push for democratic change, long-term rulers have been ousted and others challenged seriously for the first time. But despite what has been achieved, many voices from the region have urged caution: even in those countries which have seen the greatest changes, the internal security apparatus and other structures of repression have remained largely intact and the struggle for real constitutional reform continues. The ability of a state to undergo political change without violence is widely considered a hallmark of a mature democracy (although the record shows that democracies, even very old ones, are hardly immune from violent conflict). Which combination of circumstances, then, makes the onset of mass killing more likely and which conditions lower the risk of a state, even an autocratic one, descending to bloody violence? It is to help answer such questions that Minority Rights Group International has developed the Peoples under Threat index. Since 2005 Peoples under Threat has pioneered the use of statistical analysis to identify situations around the world where communities are most at risk of mass killing. On numerous occasions since the index was first developed, countries that have risen sharply up the table have later proved to be the scene of mass human rights violations.
Abstract: This policy brief offers eight targeted policy recommendations for combating the convergence of terrorism, crime, and politics. Rather than simply warning about the potential for interaction and synergy among terrorist, criminal, and political actors, this policy brief aims to explore possibilities for exploiting their divergences. In particular, it emphasizes the need to grapple with the economic, political, and combat power that some terrorist groups enjoy through their involvement in crime and conflict.
Abstract: In 2008, UNHCR launched a special initiative on protracted refugee situations, aiming to
reinvigorate the search for solutions in countries where refugees had been living in exile for
many years. The High Commissioner selected five such situations for immediate and special
attention, of which one was that in Serbia and Croatia.
By the end of the Balkan wars of 1991-1995, some 300,000 thousand people had been displaced from Croatia. In the aftermath of the conflict, however, conditions were not
particularly conducive for the Serb refugees (originally from Croatia, but now living in
Serbia) to go back to their homes. By early 2010, around 175,000 of the original refugees had opted for naturalization in Serbia.
Some 93,000 individuals had been registered as returnees from Serbia in Croatia, and
between 1996 and 2006, 13,600 refugees from Croatia were resettled to third countries from
Serbia. In Serbia, there are around 61,000 people originating from Croatia and still holding
refugee cards. Of these refugees, just over 1,000 are still living in collective centres. These
numbers, when added together, are higher than the original caseload of refugees, in part
because a significant number of people are thought to be registered both as returnees in
Croatia and as refugees in Serbia.
Abstract: The West Balkan region consists of Albania and the former states of Yugoslavia (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia/ FYROM, Montenegro, Serbia, and Kosovo). Since the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995 and the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, the countries of the Western Balkans have faced a new challenge of promoting human security. Human security was first defined by former Special Advisor to the United Nations Development Program Administrator, Dr. Mahbub ul Haq, as encompassing seven basic needs: economic security, food security, health security, environmental security, personal security, community security, and political security. Under the rubric of human security, this paper assesses the challenges of displacement, discrimination, poverty, health standards, and environmental protection.
The effects of the wars of the 1990s still linger in the Western Balkans, especially in the areas of statelessness, displaced persons, and returnees.
Abstract: The aim of this population-based study was to assess the long-lasting effects of ethnic conflict on
health and well-being (with a focus on injury and persistent pain) at family and community level.
We have also investigated possible risk factors for victimisation during the conflict and factors
contributing to healing. We conducted a district-level cross-sectional cluster survey of 1,115 households with a population of 6,845. Interviews were carried out in Mitrovice district in Northern Kosovo from September to October 2008, using standardised questionnaire to collect lifetime violence exposure, lifestyle factors and health information on individual and household. Ethnic Albanians made up 95% of the sample population. Crude mortality and under-five mortality rate was not high in 2008. Over 90% of families had been exposed to at least two categories of violence and human rights violations, and 493 individuals from 341 families reported torture experiences. During the two weeks before the survey, 20% of individuals had suffered physical or mental pain. There were differences in pain complaints according to gender and age, and whether people had been injured within 12 months, had lifetime exposure to violence-related injury, or had been tortured. Patterns of social and political participation in a family could affect the proportion of family members complaining of pain. The proportion of family members with pain complaints was related to a decline in the household income (coef=9.31, 95% CI=6.16-12.46, P<0.001) and the fact of borrowing money (coef=6.11, 95% CI=2.91-9.30, P<0.001) because of an injured person in the household. Families that were affiliated with the Kosovo Liberation Army, or had participated in a protest before or during the war, were likely to be targeted by Serbian paramilitary and law enforcement agencies. Mitrovice district is currently characterised by a low level of violence, but the effects of ethnic conflict on health and well-being have not gone. The level of lifetime exposure to violence, the proportion of family members reporting pain and lifetime violence-related injury, and family's financial burden were found to be inter-correlated. The sample confined to one ethnic group in one district limits the generalizability of the findings.
Serb Refugees: Forgotten by Croatia? European Council on Refugees and Exiles // Center for Peace, Legal Advice and Psychosocial Assistance // Group 484
Abstract: The refugee situation of the early 1990’s in the former Socialist Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia (SFRY) was one of the most serious post-World War II crises in Europe.
Nearly 15 years following the conflict, the plight of some 97,000 refugees forced to flee
their homes in present-day Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina remains unresolved. For
the approximately 70,000 ethnic Serb refugees from Croatia, the chief impediment to
securing durable solutions is Croatia’s unwillingness to recognize their acquired rights as
former tenancy rights holders. In this report, we focus on the most pressing unresolved issues of the refugee problem in
the region -- the deprivation of acquired rights granted by previously established legal
principles of tenancy rights and the status of specially protected lessees of socially owned
flats.
Abstract: The mandate, established in 2004 by the Commission on Human Rights and extended in 2007 by the Human Rights Council in resolution 6/32, has provided a good basis for the Representative to build on the excellent work of his predecessor, Francis Deng. The nature of his mandate has allowed the Representative to benefit from privileged access, broad support and partnerships with United Nations institutions, member States, civil society and other stakeholders. It has been critical that the Representative has succeeded in linking the mandate to a broader international context inclusive of peace processes, humanitarian assistance and development, natural disasters and climate change. After discussing the achievements and activities of the mandate during the tenure of the present Representative of the Secretary-General on the human rights of internally displaced persons, the report identifies progress made as well as major challenges remaining, which relate to the human rights of internally displaced persons.
Abstract: The early release of convicted war criminal Biljana Plavsic and the start of the trial of her former boss and predecessor, Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic – both events which happened within two days of each other – was an ill-designed move. It further illustrates the international community’s lack of comprehension of ethnic tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Because of the fateful timing of the two events, the wider public seems to believe that Plavsic was released in order to avoid Bosnian Serb outcry ahead of the start of Karadzic’s war crimes trial. It also appears that the international community was attempting to do the reverse for Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats, the victims of the politics of the two, by offering Karadzic up for trial to avoid outrage over the release of Plavsic.
While her release may indeed have been in accordance with international law, many argue that it was not in accordance with justice, and the two do not necessarily meet.
Plavsic succeeded Karadzic as president of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska in 1996, after he was forced out of office by the international community. Plavsic turned herself in to the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in early 2001 after she was indicted for genocide and other war crimes when serving as Karadzic’s wartime deputy.
Abstract: When the Security Council established the ICTY and ICTR to prosecute mass
atrocities, its motivation was clearly stated in the preambles to Resolutions 827 and 955:
it was—and I quote—“determined to put an end to such crimes and to take effective
measures to bring to justice the persons who are responsible for them.” The Council was
“convinced that in the particular circumstances [of the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda
respectively] the prosecution of persons responsible for serious violations of international
humanitarian law would enable this aim to be achieved and would contribute to the
process of national reconciliation and the restoration and maintenance of peace.” The
Council set out its belief that establishing such international tribunals would “contribute
to ensuring that such violations are halted and effectively redressed.” From the outset,
these goals were fundamental to the mandates of the international judicial institutions that
emerged.
While neither ICTY nor ICTR were intended to be permanent institutions, neither of the
courts’ mandates specified an end date for their work. As discussions progress in
meetings such as this one about how the tribunals should complete the tasks the Council
has assigned them, it is important to reflect on the underlying conceptual framework that
drove those original commitments and to ensure that new decisions preserve the positive
legacies that have been built over the past 15 years. It is worth noting that this will
require input from the constituencies that have been the subject of the tribunals’ work.
Abstract: Human rights defenders are under attack in Serbia and the authorities are failing to protect them, Amnesty International said on Monday.
Over the past year women human rights activists have faced repeated attacks in the Serbian media including being threatened with lynching.
Such attacks are made by parliamentarians, members of ultra-right organizations and members of the security services indicted for war crimes. Other defenders have had their property destroyed, their offices attacked or been beaten by members of neo-Nazi groups.
"Physical attacks and threats to the lives and property of human rights activists are seldom promptly and impartially investigated by the authorities and few perpetrators are brought to justice," said Sian Jones, Amnesty International’s Balkans expert.
"The lack of political will on the part of the authorities to fulfil their obligations to guarantee human rights defenders their right to freedom of expression and assembly creates a climate of impunity which stifles civil society."
In the briefing Serbia: Human rights defenders at risk Amnesty International reviews the latest attacks against human rights activists, including those against leading women human rights activists.
These defenders include Nataša Kandić, director of the Humanitarian Law Centre, Sonja Biserko of the Serbian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, and Biljana Kovačević-Vučo of the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights (YUCOM), as well as the women’s NGO Women in Black.
They have been portrayed in the media as anti-Serb for favouring the independence of Kosovo, and for demanding accountability for war crimes committed in the 1990s in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo.
Abstract: Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on 17 February 2008 and has so far been recognized by 62 states, including the US and 22 of the 27 EU member states.
A third of approximately 130,000 Serbs left in Kosovo since the arrival of international forces in 1999 live in the north. However, that region borders Serbia, and a portion of it is populated only by Serbs. The government of Kosovo has never managed to fully control that territory.
In northern Kosovo municipalities, in which the Serbs boycott every Kosovo election and vote only in elections organized by Serbia, the majority are largely representatives of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), led by former Serbian prime minister Vojislav Kostunica and the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), still led by indicted war criminal Vojislav Seselj.
In Serbia, those parties are the opposition to the government headed by Serbian President Boris Tadic’s Democratic Party (DS). They fiercely criticizes Tadic’s government for its Kosovo policy, berating it for inviting the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), which in the opposition’s opinion, plays a part in establishing the institutions of independent Kosovo.
Abstract: NATO has throughout its history been the subject of prognostications of crisis and dissolution. Indeed, the alliance has been written off so many times that crisis as normality has come to typify its development. In the twenty-year history of NATO's post-Cold War development, Operation Allied Force stands midway between the existential moment that was the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the current travails being experienced in Afghanistan. A comparison of NATO's experience in the Balkans and in the Afghan theatre suggests that the view of a NATO perched permanently at the edge of collapse is problematic and misleading. This is not to defend alliance actions as such but rather to suggest that the narrative of crisis and collapse makes for poor analysis and underestimates NATO's proclivity for adaptation and endurance. Ten years after it launched its large-scale intervention against Serbia, NATO
remains mired in a seemingly unwinnable conflict in Afghanistan. These two
missions are, in many ways, very different; but the marshalling of the International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF), just like Operation Allied Force (OAF)
before it, has given rise to the view that a failure for NATO would mean the end
of the alliance. In fact, since the end of the Cold War (an event itself proclaimed
as its death knell) NATO has navigated several existential crises, over Bosnia, 9/11,
Iraq and now Afghanistan. For much of the last ten years it has also had to ride
out the long, slow-burn consequences of the Bush administration’s indifference to
alliance solidarity.
Abstract: The Security Council today extended the terms of the judges serving on the United Nations war crimes tribunals set up to deal with the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, so they can complete remaining cases by the deadline set for the courts’ work.
The Council, in two separate resolutions that were adopted unanimously, urged both tribunals “to take all possible measures to complete their work expeditiously,” and expressed its determination to support their efforts in this regard.
The so-called “completion strategy” of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which is based in The Hague, requires it to finish trials of first instance by 2009, and then start downsizing in 2010.
Among the decisions taken today, the Council extended the term of office of eight permanent judges at the ICTY and 10 ad litem, or temporary, judges until 31 December 2010, or until the completion of the cases to which they are assigned.
In addition, the Council decided, on the request of the President of the ICTY, that the Secretary-General may appoint additional temporary judges to complete existing trials or conduct additional trials.
Abstract: Ten years after the end of the war in Kosovo impunity for enforced disappearances and
abductions remains one of the most serious violations of human rights arising from the armed
conflict and its aftermath. Enforced disappearances constitute a crime and, in certain
circumstances defined in international law, a crime against humanity or a war crime.
During the war in Kosovo, more than 3,000 ethnic Albanians were the victims of enforced
disappearances by Serbian police, paramilitary and military forces. An estimated 800 Serbs,
Roma and members of other minority groups were abducted, reportedly by members of the
Kosova Liberation Army (KLA), during and after the war.
Amnesty International distinguishes enforced disappearances -- in which state agents are
directly or indirectly involved -- from abductions carried out by non-state actors, such as
armed opposition groups. In this report, published on the tenth anniversary of the end of the war in Kosovo, Amnesty
International raises concerns about the failure of the authorities in Kosovo and Serbia to
abide by their obligations, as set out in international law applicable in both Serbia and
Kosovo, to investigate and prosecute enforced disappearances and abductions, and to bring
the perpetrators on both sides to justice. The report makes recommendations aimed at
ending the impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators and calls on the authorities in both Serbia
and Kosovo to bring justice to the relatives of the missing.
Abstract: Fifteen years ago, the UN Security Council responded
to devastating violence in the Balkans by taking novel
action: it created a war crimes court as an enforcement
measure under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. At the time,
many saw the Council’s action as a cynical gesture, aimed at
placating public demand for more assertive action to halt the
carnage then in full rage in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Few, if any,
believed that the Council’s ad hoc innovation would become
precedent for future action.
Yet despite its inauspicious beginning, the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) launched
a new era in international law and institutions. What had long
seemed implausible—a revival of Nuremberg-type tribunals—
soon became a normal though hardly routine response to
mass atrocities. A year and a half after it created the ICTY,
the Security Council created a similar court to provide some
measure of justice for those who survived the 1994 genocide in
Rwanda.
Abstract: It has been 10 years since the U.S.-led war on Yugoslavia. For many leading Democrats, including some in top positions in the Obama administration, it was a "good" war, in contrast to the Bush administration's "bad" war on Iraq. And though the suffering and instability unleashed by the 1999 NATO military campaign wasn't as horrific as the U.S. invasion of Iraq four years later, the war was nevertheless unnecessary and illegal, and its political consequences are far from settled.
Unless there's a willingness to critically re-examine the war, the threat of another war in the name of liberal internationalism looms large.
Abstract: Starting with a groundbreaking precedent during the Nuremberg Trials of 1945, the human rights movement has relied on documentary evidence as a central component in protecting and promoting human rights worldwide. Documentary materials -- whether governmental records and papers, court transcripts, newspaper articles and pamphlets, personal diaries and letters, or audio, video and oral testimony -- enhance our understanding of the past in our effort to build a more just future.
Documentation lies at the heart of transitional justice efforts. Legal measures based on documentary evidence support victims of human rights abuse and promote their right to truth, justice and reparations. Documentary evidence can help build cases to prosecute perpetrators. It serves as concrete proof of state responsibility for mass atrocities, building an accurate historical record of events, assigning responsibility and deterring future human rights violations. Documentation can also provide the basis for reconciliation, recovery and the creation of a more open and just society.
The Documentation Affinity Group (DAG) was established in 2005 by the ICTJ and five partner organizations as a peer-to-peer network with a primary focus on human rights documentation. Documenting Truth collects the best practices derived from the work of six organizations in Cambodia, Guatemala, Burma, Iraq, Serbia and the United States. Its goal is to provide useful lessons for groups documenting abuses around the world, working towards the protection and promotion of truth, and establishing just and democratic societies.
Abstract: Major General Jonathon P. Riley speaks as a divisional commander's view, informed by two years' service in Iraq with the British and U.S. armies, as well as in Sierra Leone and the Balkans. These operations have all been complex, involving kinetic warfighting, counter-insurgency, information operations, humanitarian support, civil-military cooperation (CIMIC), and security-sector reform running concurrently in the same battle space.
Abstract: The Security Council today called on the United Nations war crimes tribunals dealing with the 1994 Rwanda genocide and the Balkans conflicts of the 1990s to conduct their trials as quickly and efficiently as possible, and pledged to support their efforts to complete their work.
The 15-member body noted with concern “that the deadline for completion of trial activities at first instance has not been met and that the Tribunals have indicated that their work is not likely to end in 2010,” in a statement read out by Ambassador Neven Juric of Croatia, which holds the Council Presidency for the month of December.
Abstract: Le Conseil de sécurité a demandé vendredi aux États, en particulier ceux où des fugitifs sont soupçonnés de vivre en toute liberté, d'« intensifier encore leur coopération » avec le Tribunal pénal international pour l'ex-Yougoslavie (TPIY) et le Tribunal pénal international pour le Rwanda (TPIR).
Dans une déclaration lue par le président du Conseil pour le mois de décembre, Neven Jurica (Croatie), le Conseil leur demande également de fournir aux deux Tribunaux « toute l'aide nécessaire, en tant que de besoin », en particulier aux fins de l'arrestation et de la remise à ceux-ci de « tous les accusés encore en fuite ».
Le Conseil se dit « préoccupé de constater que la date limite fixée pour l'achèvement des procès de première instance n'est pas respectée » et que les Tribunaux ont indiqué qu'ils avaient peu de chances d'achever leurs travaux en 2010. Il souligne que « les procès doivent se dérouler avec la plus grande rapidité et la plus grande efficacité possibles ».
Abstract: A Survey and Analysis of Border Management and Border Apprehension Data from 20 States.
With a Special Survey on the Use of Counterfeit Documents.
Based on the contributions of the border services of 20 Central and Eastern European states, the 2006 Yearbook again provides its valuable overview and analysis of irregular migration trends in the region. Over the past ten years the annual Yearbook on Illegal Migration, Human Smuggling and Trafficking in Central and Eastern Europe has come to be regarded as an authoritative source of information on recent border trends and in particular on the phenomena of illegal migration, human smuggling and trafficking. The annual Yearbook covers the most recent trends in illegal migration and human smuggling in the region, including long-term trends in border apprehensions, shifts in source, transit and destination countries, demographic characteristics of irregular migrants, the relationship between legal and illegal border crossings, new developments in the methods of border crossings and document abuse and on removals of irregular migrants. In addition, this year’s edition for the first time features a Special Survey on the use of counterfeit documents for illegal migration purposes. This Survey is based on the contributions received from document specialists or Special Units dealing with document security in the countries under review and provides the first comprehensive overview and analysis of patterns and trends in the use of counterfeit documents for illegal migration purposes in Central and Eastern Europe.
