Canadian Consortium on Human Security

Phil Orchard in a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia (UBC), working under the supervision of Brian Job, Director of the Liu Institute for Global Issues. He holds an MA in Political Science from Memorial University of Newfoundland, and a BA from UBC. He has also previously served as the Assistant to the Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Internally Displaced Persons.

Phil’s doctoral dissertation explores the origins and continued evolution of international cooperation towards refugees. He traces the origins of refugee cooperation to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. He argues that the nascent European state system was constructed in such a way that exit was often one of the few mechanisms of survival for those who were religious and politically persecuted. States accommodated these refugees for both humanitarian and interest-based reasons. As refugee numbers increased in the period after World War I, states transferred what had previously been an individual state-based response to the international level. This shift, however, was ineffective until the introduction of an international legal convention - the 1951 Refugee Convention - and until the definition of refugees was framed universally, away from its European origins. Orchard suggests that the long term construction of this normative foundation continues to deeply influence state policy, but that states in the developed world increasingly seek to pass off their responsibilities to an international architecture that is poorly supported and to states in the developing world that are increasingly unwilling to bear the full burden. Without an alteration of this dynamic the current regime is likely to unravel.

As part of this project, in 2005-6 Phil was awarded a CCHS Doctoral Dissertation Award to support archival research at the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and the League of Nations archives, in Geneva, the American and British National Archives and a number of private papers archives in Europe and North America.

Human security continues to be a major focus of his work and informs his study not only of forced displacement, but also of broader questions of international cooperation and international relations theory. His forthcoming project explores the reasons why fragile states have an increased propensity to deliberately cause displacement among elements of their own populations, and how the international response needs to be better tailored to deal with these situations. He is also examining the role of domestic institutions as blockers of international norms, and is currently preparing a paper examining the role played by the United States Congress and the Presidency in forming refugee policy in the interwar and post-Second World War periods. Phil also focuses his teaching within a human security perspective. Most recently he developed and taught a course on the global dynamics of forced displacement at UBC. He also is a researcher and contributor to the Human Security Report.

In 2004, he was awarded a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship. In 2006, he received a Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Graduate Research Award.

Recent Papers and Presentations:  

Orchard, Phil. (2007) “The Urban Displaced: Refugees and IDPs in Cities.” In Humansecurity-cities.org Human Security in an Urban Century: Local Challenges, Global Perspectives.

“Refugees and the Evolution of International Cooperation” Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Canadian Political Science Association, Saskatoon, SK, June 2007.

“International Efforts to Provide Protection and Security to Refugees within the League of Nations and United Nations” Paper presented at the Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford University, International Conference on Refugees and International Law: The Challenge of Protection, Oxford, United Kingdom, 15-16 December, 2006. [Paper available at: http://refugeelaw.qeh.ox.ac.uk/papers]

“The Flip Side of the Coin: Human Security of the Displaced in Cities and Camps.” Paper presented at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade- Canadian Consortium on Human Security Human Security in Urban Spaces Conference, Vancouver BC, 8 June 2006.

“A Right to Leave: The Development of the Refugee Institution in International Society” Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the International Studies Association, San Diego 21 March 2006

“A Right to Leave: Refugees, the State and International Society” Paper presented at the 30th Anniversary Conference of the British International Studies Association, St. Andrews, UK, 19-21 December 2005.

Photo: Brian Steidle