Abstract: The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was created over 50 years ago to be a human rights and advocacy organization. But governments also created the agency to promote regional and international stability and to serve the interest of states. Consequently, the UNHCR has always trod a perilous path between its mandate to protect refugees and asylum seekers and the demands placed upon it by states to be a relevant actor in international relations. A key focus is to examine the extent to which the evolution of the UNHCR has been framed by the crucial events of international politics and international security during the past half century and how, in turn, the actions of the first eight High Commissioners have helped shape the course of world history. A central objective is to analyse the development of national and international refugee policies and actions, placing these within the broader contexts of the changing global political and security environments in the Cold War and post–Cold War eras. One of the core findings is that UNHCR has over-stretched itself in recent decades and has strayed from its central human rights protection role.

Keywords: asylum seekers, High Commissioners, human rights, international relations, international security, refugee policy, refugees, stability, UNHCR