Introduction
On 8 May 1962, attentive readers of the Lebanese newspaper the Daily Star could note a small news item on the opening of a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Beirut. While little context was provided, the reasons underpinning UNHCR’s decision to expand to Lebanon were conveyed only in vague terms: ‘The Beirut Office has been established owing to the need to give greater attention to projects being implemented on behalf of refugees within the High Commissioner’s mandate in the area.’Footnote 1 What, more precisely, were the considerations that led UNHCR to establish a branch office for the Middle East in Beirut? How was UNHCR’s presence organized and formalized, and what role did individual UNHCR staff members play? These questions form the focus of this article, which aims to offer novel insights into our understanding of UNHCR’s global expansion through a microhistorical study of the organization’s establishment in Lebanon.
The opening of the Beirut branch office occurred during a period of colossal change within the modern refugee regime. Generally understood as a set of institutional actors governed by international norms pertaining to a recognized definition of ‘the refugee’, this regime was in its modern form developed by the United Nations (UN) following the Second World War.Footnote 2 The UN General Assembly established UNHCR in 1950, granting it exclusive authority over legal and protection matters concerning refugees through its Statute and the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.Footnote 3 Although UNHCR’s mandate as per its Statute was universal, the 1951 Convention initially had temporal and geographical limitations, which were only removed with the passage of the 1967 Protocol.Footnote 4 By the early 1960s, UNHCR had emerged as ‘the key element’ in the post-war refugee regime.Footnote 5 More than anything, it had transformed into a pragmatic and creative organization, rapidly shifting its focus from assistance programmes for refugees in Europe to addressing ‘the new problems’ of refugees outside Europe. Notwithstanding the magnitude of these developments, UNHCR has been critiqued for having a poor understanding of its transformation and past operations, and for a tendency to portray its history as ‘a single and continuous narrative’.Footnote 6 A detailed understanding of UNHCR’s institutional expansion to Lebanon thus becomes crucial to our knowledge of the organization’s historical development more globally.
Certainly, only very few scholars have explored UNHCR’s expansion beyond Europe in detail. As Holian and Cohen have emphasized, the ‘uneven development of the international refugee regime’ has led to many areas outside Europe being left out of the narrative of how the regime has evolved.Footnote 7 The scholarship of Ruthström-Ruin, Loescher, and Gatrell nonetheless remains central to our understanding of the development of the refugee regime after the Second World War, particularly how it was influenced by Cold War politics.Footnote 8 More recently, an emerging strand of literature has also sought to enhance our knowledge of the complexities and transformations within UNHCR, attempting to write its history ‘from the margins’ in the context of decolonization.Footnote 9 For instance, Rahal and White have explored the pivotal role of the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62) in extending the modern international refugee regime beyond Europe.Footnote 10 Despite this crucial scholarship, in-depth studies of UNHCR’s operations in specific countries and regions remain scarce, with the Middle East in particular need of historical examination.Footnote 11 This perspective certainly applies to the UN more broadly, as O’Malley and Walker highlight, with its histories for too long predominantly focusing on the activities of individuals, organizations, and states of Europe and North America.Footnote 12
Existing research on UNHCR’s history often also adopts a state-centric approach, with an emphasis on world politics. This perspective typically results in the individual’s role being overlooked, as seen in many institutional and diplomatic histories where ‘the individual disappears and becomes irrelevant’.Footnote 13 To address this gap, scholars like Peterson have emphasized the importance of considering the ‘personal backgrounds and experiences of specific individuals’ to gain a more nuanced understanding of UNHCR’s early work.Footnote 14 In examining the development of the international refugee regime in Asia, Peterson sheds light on UNHCR as an ‘end of the colonial era’ institution, noting that many of its elite personnel were still guided by colonial assumptions about the world and its peoples.Footnote 15 Similarly, both Sherry and Viney-Wood have underscored the influence of individuals in UNHCR’s global expansion, with studies focusing on UNHCR in Türkiye from 1960 to the late 1980s and in post-independence Burma during 1953–54, respectively.Footnote 16
Building on these insights, this article takes as its starting point that a realpolitik perspective alone is insufficient for understanding decision-making processes within UNHCR. Narrowing the focus to specific events and individual contributions, it thus adopts a microhistorical approach.Footnote 17 Such a perspective allows for a focus on both the micro- and macro-dynamics that were at play in UNHCR’s expansion to Beirut—not only by unravelling ‘the patterns of global development’ but also by illustrating ‘the links between the local and the global’.Footnote 18 The microhistorical approach has the distinct capacity to also incorporate local, especially non-Western, agency into global history, allowing, then, for the spotlight to be shone on the roles played by individuals such as UNHCR Representative for the Middle East, Assad Khan Sadry.Footnote 19 Microhistorical case studies such as this one are thus more than ‘disconnected histories of institutional intervention’;Footnote 20 they are arguably key to our understanding of the character and complexity of UNHCR’s institutional expansion.
Overall, this article responds to calls to move beyond UNHCR’s teleological understanding of its origins towards an acknowledgement of the ‘messy and unpredictable way’ in which the institution expanded its operations.Footnote 21 Through it, I seek to prompt a reconsideration of UNHCR’s institutional expansion, challenging the assumption that this process unfolded in a systematic, reasoned and measured manner. Instead, I propose recognizing the impact of microprocesses and individual contributions as crucial to understanding the globalization of the refugee regime. To achieve this, I make three interconnected arguments at the crossroads of refugee history and global history.
First, I complicate the relationships between UNHCR and host states, contending that Lebanese concerns were only peripheral to UNHCR’s decision to expand to Beirut. Through this analysis I demonstrate that the selection of Beirut was neither systematic and well-reasoned, nor entirely haphazard. Rather, it was influenced by a combination of three factors – Beirut’s strategic significance; Sadry’s personal inclinations; and Armenian diaspora advocacy. Collectively, these factors underpinned UNHCR’s decision to expand, and as such they offer important nuance to emerging scholarly discussions on the non-linear development of the international refugee regime.Footnote 22
Second, I contend that UNHCR representatives had considerable flexibility and freedom during this period in deciding the structure, functions, and direction of branch offices. By showing how staff at the Beirut branch office were far from passive implementers of policies set at UNHCR Headquarters in Geneva, this finding debunks any myth of UNHCR as a monolithic organization.Footnote 23 Specifically, I demonstrate how Sadry almost single-handedly set up the UNHCR office, which he then ran with considerable autonomy. Frequently finding himself at odds with executive staff at Headquarters, Sadry notably benefited from the unwavering support of his cousin, Deputy High Commissioner Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan.
Third, I enhance our understanding of both the formal and informal dimensions of the international refugee regime’s expansion. I contend that UNHCR’s inability to formalize its relationship through a bilateral host-state agreement with the Lebanese government should not be perceived as a failure. The article examines the attempts to negotiate an agreement, paying specific attention to two key relationships: between staff at UNHCR Headquarters and those at the Beirut office, and between UNHCR and key actors in the Lebanese government. I demonstrate that, despite pressure from UNHCR Headquarters to formalize an agreement, the political sensibility of Sadry and his deputy ensured that the essential elements of the draft agreement were implemented despite the absence of formal approval. Specifically, the agreement’s normative content mattered, with the Lebanese authorities remaining supportive of UNHCR at a diplomatic level and engaging productively with the organization at a practical one.
Although the formal opening of UNHCR’s Beirut office took place in 1962, I intentionally avoid rigid temporal parameters. The expansion of UNHCR to Lebanon lacks clear chronological limits and should be understood as an ongoing process rather than a single outcome. Consequently, the article discusses events both preceding and following the formal establishment of the office. This exploration draws primarily on sources from UNHCR’s archives in Geneva, which, despite originating from a single institution, reveal much more than a singular narrative. These records allow for a detailed examination of the multitude of actors and functions within UNHCR, highlighting the complex interplay between these internal entities and their interactions with external parties. Importantly, they illuminate how global and regional events and connections influenced the activities of UNHCR. Collectively, their breadth facilitates a comprehensive analysis of UNHCR’s early strategies and power in shaping refugee policy, as well as host-state expressions of sovereignty.Footnote 24
The article proceeds in three main parts. First, I provide a general overview of Lebanon’s relationship with the international refugee regime. I then turn to the complex, multilayered mosaic of factors that underpinned UNHCR’s decision to open a branch office in Beirut. Following this, and before concluding, I discuss how the Beirut office was organized and (in)formalized, drawing specific attention to the heterogeneity of stances within UNHCR.
Lebanon and the international refugee regime
The actions taken by the League of Nations following the First World War significantly influenced both the creation of the Lebanese state and the development of the international refugee regime. With the war’s end and the dissolution of the Ottoman empire, displacement emerged as a pressing international issue. The League of Nations responded by introducing standardized procedures and relief programmes to address these challenges.Footnote 25 In the Middle East, European colonial powers shaped the modern Arab world by establishing a precise territorial order with new international boundaries.Footnote 26 As White’s detailed research shows, the nominally independent states of the region were formed in dialogue with the nascent international refugee regime, and refugee flows became integral to this evolving territorial landscape.Footnote 27 The Arab Middle East emerged as both a source and host for some of the world’s largest displaced populations. Through the League’s trusteeship system, France was granted a mandate over Syria and Lebanon, while Britain held mandates for Iraq and Palestine. Robson’s seminal work demonstrates how Britain and France, in consolidating their colonial authority, executed policies of separation and ethnic removal targeting refugee communities such as Armenians, Jews, and Assyrians.Footnote 28
After Lebanon gained independence from France in 1943, it engaged internationally in establishing legal norms and institutions aimed at protecting refugees. Following the creation of the United Nations in 1945, Lebanese representatives participated in developing UNHCR’s predecessor, the International Refugee Organization (IRO).Footnote 29 Assuming many functions from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), founded two years earlier, the IRO primarily focused on resettling Central European refugees. Despite its involvement, Lebanon declined to join the IRO as a member state, expressing dissatisfaction with the organization’s work. By that time, the country had emerged as a staunch advocate for international recognition of the state of Palestine and opposed the IRO’s perceived illegitimate ‘policy of resettling refugees in Palestine’.Footnote 30 Nevertheless, Lebanese authorities permitted the organization to establish an office in Beirut, where it provided legal and political protection to a smaller number of European refugees.
Lebanon was also involved in drafting the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights.Footnote 31 During this extensive process, its representatives, Charles Malik and Karim Azkoul, conveyed progressive ideas about the right to asylum that transcended the provisions found in today’s Article 14. Their approach reflected Lebanon’s growing commitment to being viewed as the Arab world’s ‘land of asylum and dialogue’.Footnote 32 This stance can arguably be traced back to Lebanon’s National Pact of 1943, which, given Lebanon’s position as the region’s most religiously diverse country, aimed to manage conflicting ideologies but did so without establishing specific policies to address sectarian differences. As historian Albert Hourani noted in the late 1940s, Lebanon’s enduring ‘specific tradition’ of asylum and peaceful coexistence formed a national identity that could unify sectarian lines.Footnote 33 This tradition has been emphasized in many political processes, with Lebanon historically also providing refuge to minority groups such as the Armenians and Jewish communities from Iraq and Syria. Notably, in 1946 alone, approximately 6,000 Jews fled to Lebanon from Syria.Footnote 34
Lebanon was also among the primary Arab states to host Palestinian refugees following the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948.Footnote 35 Ever since, as noted by Irfan, the fates of Lebanon and the Palestinians have been interlinked.Footnote 36 In fact, Lebanon’s ‘exceptionalism’—where state structures are defined by a confessional system that denotes political power on the basis of sect—has been seen to be reinforced by the country’s particular significance within modern Palestinian history.Footnote 37 Lebanon’s political establishment, dominated by Maronite Christians, feared that if the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim Palestinians became fully integrated into Lebanese society, they would threaten the country’s delicately balanced consociational system.Footnote 38 There was even concern that the Palestinian population would become strong enough to threaten the authority of the Lebanese state altogether. This is also why the UN agency of perhaps greatest importance to Lebanon has long been the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Headquartered in Beirut from 1951 to 1978, UNRWA was established in 1949 as a subsidiary organ of the UN General Assembly to deliver services and relief to Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and Gaza.Footnote 39 Irfan notes how UNRWA’s work in Lebanon in particular became increasingly important and even indicative of Lebanon’s distinctive exceptionalism, with the organization being compelled to take on additional responsibilities and functions that would usually be the domain of the state.Footnote 40 The refusal of the Lebanese state to provide any sort of social safety net for Palestinian refugees meant that the majority depend heavily on UNRWA for schooling, health care, shelter, and sanitation. Therefore, the organization’s work also became, as Irfan notes, ‘emblematic of the refugees’ exceptional disadvantage’.Footnote 41
Despite UNRWA’s essential role, then, conceptualizations of the international refugee regime often overlook the organization’s position within that framework.Footnote 42 Robson, for instance, describes a ‘near-total’ and ‘active’ political and practical separation between the nowadays (at least theoretically) universal regime institutionally represented by UNHCR and the specialized regime for displaced Palestinians represented by UNRWA.Footnote 43 This division is particularly regrettable given UNRWA’s concurrent operations alongside UNHCR in the region and, as will be explored further, the significant administrative role UNRWA played during UNHCR’s expansion across the Middle East.
When the operations of the IRO ceased in 1952, it was succeeded by UNHCR after a lengthy and complex process. Lebanon was undoubtedly enthusiastic about establishing this new refugee organization and actively participated in drafting the UNHCR Statute.Footnote 44 However, within an environment of political hostility exacerbated by the Cold War, UNHCR initially emerged as a small, non-operational agency with limited financial resources and a narrow mandate. At its inception, UNHCR primarily functioned as a legal agency, able to provide international protection to, first, refugees covered by various earlier treaties and arrangements, and, second, mirroring the 1951 Convention’s definition of a refugee, refugees resulting from events (in Europe) occurring before 1 January 1951, who are outside their country of origin and unable or unwilling to avail themselves of its protection, ‘owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted’ or ‘for reasons other than personal convenience’.Footnote 45 But, notably, a third category of refugees within UNHCR’s competency also existed as per its Statute:
Any other person who is outside the country of his nationality, or if he has no nationality, the country of his former habitual residence, because he has or had well-founded fear of persecution by reason of his race, religion, nationality or political opinion and is unable or, because of such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of the government of the country of his nationality, or, if he has no nationality, to return to the country of his former habitual residence.Footnote 46
This means that UNHCR’s mandate was from the very beginning universal, containing neither temporal nor geographical limitations. The temporal and geographical limitation embedded within the 1951 Convention, however, sparked perpetual debate within the UN, with Lebanese representatives consistently advocating for a wider definition of refugees. It was not until 1967 that the Protocol was introduced, effectively removing the Eurocentric bias of the 1951 Convention’s refugee definition and establishing a broader one.
Lebanon’s most significant contribution to the drafting of UNHCR’s Statute was nonetheless in relation to the exclusion from UNHCR’s mandate of Palestinian refugees receiving protection and assistance from UNRWA. Alongside delegates from Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Lebanese representatives argued that Palestinian refugees should retain their special status and insisted that ‘the mandate of the High Commissioner’s Office shall not extend to categories of refugees at present placed under the competence of other organs or agencies of the United Nations’.Footnote 47 This position is codified today in paragraph 7(c) of the UNHCR Statute. Furthermore, when Lebanese representatives participated in drafting the 1951 Convention, Arab states similarly aimed to preserve the special status of Palestinian refugees.Footnote 48 This objective was realized with the adoption of Article 1D.Footnote 49 However, even though the Convention excluded Palestinian refugees present in UNRWA’s areas of operation, Lebanon did not accede to the Convention or the Protocol, with its resistance long being linked to the ‘Palestinian problem’.Footnote 50
Following the closure of the IRO office in March 1951, a Refugee Service Committee (RSC) was established in Lebanon to support approximately 100 European refugees who still needed legal and political protection.Footnote 51 Globally, such committees, often composed of representatives of voluntary agencies, were created in the early 1950s to address material assistance to refugees.Footnote 52 In Beirut, the RSC became a pivotal link between the Lebanese government, the IRO, and UNHCR. Georges N. Skaff, a young lawyer educated at Saint Joseph University in Beirut, was appointed as the Committee’s secretary general and UNHCR liaison officer.Footnote 53 The Committee was tasked with ascertaining the numbers and conditions of non-European refugees potentially under UNHCR’s mandate and with playing an active role in interventions on behalf of the organization.Footnote 54 While this marked an initial crucial foothold for UNHCR in Lebanon, budget cuts imposed by the UN General Assembly led to the dissolution of the Beirut RSC as early as December 1952.Footnote 55
At that time, decolonization was progressing, prompting UNHCR to generally expand its focus beyond Europe and to become more pragmatic in its work. In 1954, UNHCR inaugurated a branch office for the Middle East in Cairo, primarily to address the needs of refugees and stateless individuals from Armenia and Russia.Footnote 56 This office was not only the first UNHCR presence on the African continent, but also the first to cover Middle Eastern countries, Lebanon included. Alongside offices in Bangkok, Bogota, and Washington, DC/New York, Cairo was one of only four UNHCR offices outside Europe at the time.Footnote 57 Under High Commissioners August R. Lindt (1956–60) and Felix Schnyder (1960–65), UNHCR also began adopting more experimental working methods.Footnote 58 By the early 1960s, for example, it had acquired the authority to assist both mandate refugees and those to whom the High Commissioner extended their good offices.Footnote 59 This new flexibility allowed UNHCR to engage more effectively, particularly where formal international protection was limited or political complexities required a nuanced approach beyond established legal frameworks. As the next section will explore in relation to Lebanon, UNHCR now possessed unparalleled legitimacy to expand its activities and broaden its geographical scope.
From Cairo to Beirut
The early 1960s was a period of general UNHCR expansion. Between 1955 and 1965, the organization increased the number of branch offices globally from twelve to thirty-two, with offices outside Europe ballooning from four to twenty.Footnote 60 High Commissioner Felix Schnyder and his deputy, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan (1962–65, and later High Commissioner 1966–77), both held deeply expansionist views. Despite limited funds and resources, Schnyder, according to Loescher, was ‘liberal in expanding the presence of the UNHCR everywhere’,Footnote 61 while Aga Khan was described as ‘an expansionist High Commissioner with expansionist advisers’.Footnote 62 However, attributing the opening of UNHCR’s Beirut office solely to a general policy of institutional expansion is insufficient. Not only does it imply that the extension of UNHCR’s mandate occurred in a systematic, reasoned, and measured way, but it also overlooks the influence of microprocesses and individuals in UNHCR’s decision-making. Therefore, to fully understand the considerations behind the opening of the Beirut office, we must examine a complex, multilayered mosaic of factors.
UNHCR’s archival material lacks evidence of any substantial reasoning in its decision to expand to Beirut. While we know that many informal discussions among staff members did not always make it into the bureaucratic record,Footnote 63 the lack of discussion around the expansion could also suggest that it was not, in fact, carefully considered as part of a strategic global effort. What is perhaps more striking is that there is no indication in the records that the office was opened in response to a specific request by the Lebanese government. This contrasts sharply with UNHCR’s involvement in Morocco and Tunisia during the Algerian War of Independence, where governments had actively sought UNHCR’s assistance to deal with refugee arrivals.Footnote 64 In Beirut, however, the formal correspondence that preceded the office’s opening was minimal, reflecting an initiative driven primarily by UNHCR itself: on 3 January 1962, the High Commissioner wrote to the Lebanese foreign minister proposing the opening of an office, and on 23 February 1962, the foreign minister replied with governmental approval.Footnote 65
For UNHCR, however, the decision to open the Beirut office was arguably not haphazard. As the following sections will demonstrate, it was a decision prompted by factors related to the convenience, preference, and agendas of actors other than the Lebanese government. First, Beirut’s strategic location and sociopolitical environment made it an ideal site for an organization with expansionist ambitions. Second, Beirut was favoured by Sadry, who had been stationed at the Cairo office since 1960. Third, the influential advocacy of Armenian diaspora organizations significantly compelled and enabled UNHCR to intensify its engagement in Lebanon specifically.
The convenience of Beirut
Circumstances in the late 1950s and early 1960s did not necessarily indicate an imminent UNHCR expansion beyond Cairo. The organization’s activities in the Middle East were still modest, with the region for years holding the organization’s smallest budget.Footnote 66 The number of refugees under UNHCR’s mandate was also relatively low: out of 1,300,000 refugees worldwide in 1962, only about 3,500 were presumed to be under its mandate in Jordan, Lebanon, the United Arab Republic, and Syria.Footnote 67 Politically, however, the period was momentous, characterized by regional processes of decolonization and complicated by shifting imperial powers amid an emerging global Cold War order.Footnote 68 The Arab Cold War revealed a deep ideological rift between socialist revolutionary republics such as Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt and Western-leaning conservative monarchies such as Iran.Footnote 69 In early 1958, Egypt and Syria united to form the United Arab Republic (UAR), which promoted pan-Arabism, anti-Imperialism, and anti-Zionism.Footnote 70 That same year, Lebanon experienced its first civil war, during which left-leaning paramilitary groups sympathetic to Nasser engaged in armed conflict against the Western-orientated President Camille Chamoun (1952–58). To shore up Lebanon’s pro-Western regime, US President Eisenhower even ordered an American military intervention, leading thousands of US Marines and troops to storm the beaches of Lebanon in what was the United State’s first massive military operation in the Middle East.Footnote 71
By 1962, however, Beirut’s strategic location and stable environment had made it an ideal and convenient site for establishing a regional office. Deputy High Commissioner Aga Khan often highlighted Lebanon’s exceptional status in the broader region, remarking to local media in 1963 that ‘Lebanon is the Centre of the Middle East, geographically and in many other ways.’Footnote 72 In the decade following the 1958 civil war, Lebanon enjoyed relative prosperity and security.Footnote 73 The era is retrospectively dubbed Beirut’s ‘golden years’, as the city became a cosmopolitan, European-orientated site of tourism and leisure in the Arab Middle East.Footnote 74 Reformist President Fouad Chehab (1958–64), considered a ‘consensus option’ both locally and among regional and international powers (notably, Egypt and the United States), sought to build a state based on modern institutions and social justice. Unlike his predecessor, Chehab adopted a foreign policy of strict neutrality, which contributed to Lebanon’s stability.Footnote 75
This environment attracted many UN institutions to Beirut. By 1964, the city hosted nine UN offices, including UNHCR.Footnote 76 Among these, UNRWA and the UN Economic and Social Affairs Office were headquartered in Beirut, while the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization had its regional headquarters there.Footnote 77 For UNHCR, the presence of a well-established UNRWA office in Beirut was particularly beneficial. UNRWA was then, as now, a highly operational agency, consistently outpacing UNHCR in staff size. In 1968, for example, UNRWA employed 12,000 staff members compared to UNHCR’s 290 globally.Footnote 78 UNRWA had networks, competencies, and experiences that benefited UNHCR; during the brief RSC-era, for example, UNRWA had served as UNHCR’s liaison for various organizational matters, including salary payments and office space.Footnote 79 This close administrative relationship persisted beyond that period, as evidenced when UNHCR was to dispatch an eligibility officer to Beirut in 1960. Correspondence from UNHCR’s Director of Operations Thomas Jamieson (formerly of UNRWA Beirut) at UNHCR Headquarters to UNRWA Director John H. Davis in Beirut highlights this tight-knit collaboration:
Clearly, it would be desirable that he should work in the closest contact with your Office, and with a view to ensuring maximum co-operation I should like to ask whether you would be able to provide him with office and related facilities and assist him in the hiring of the necessary secretarial assistance. It would also be a great help if your Organization could assist the officer, if and when we appoint him, in arranging travel within the Lebanon, though of course the expense would fall upon us.Footnote 80
These productive UNHCR–UNRWA relations continued long after the establishment of the Beirut office.Footnote 81 In Lebanon, then, UNHCR and UNRWA were certainly not ‘unrelated, unconnected organizations located in different political universes’,Footnote 82 and their close collaboration rather underscores the essential administrative role played by UNRWA during UNHCR’s regional expansion.
Assad Khan Sadry
The personal preferences and competencies of Prince Aga Khan and Sadry also played a significant role in UNHCR’s decision to expand to Beirut. Both men possessed deeply internationalist perspectives and were well acquainted with the Middle East, leveraging high-level contacts with policymakers and ruling elites through their family connections.Footnote 83 In interviews, Aga Khan often stressed his special ties to Lebanon; during a visit to Beirut in 1963, it was reported that he told a press corps, ‘although he comes to Beirut usually on missions, he feels that he has roots in Lebanon where he has many friends and business contacts’.Footnote 84 Though raised in Europe, he belonged to a family of great significance to the Muslim world, endowing him, as his former secretary and biographer Diana Miserez has argued, with an ‘unusually distinguished East–West background’.Footnote 85 Likewise, Sadry, an Iranian national, born and raised in colonial-era Karbala, Iraq, was not only fluent in Arabic but also exhibited, according to British diplomat Stephen Egerton, a favourable disposition towards the British.Footnote 86 Moreover, Sadry maintained close ties with Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran, having worked for the Shah’s twin sister in the 1950s.Footnote 87
Starting his career in the Iranian Foreign Service, Sadry left Iran in the mid-1950s to join UNHCR Headquarters in Geneva, where he was responsible for refugee issues relating to the Near and Middle East.Footnote 88 This position gave him invaluable experience, including in negotiating the establishment of new offices. In the Turkish context, Sherry has explored the process by which UNHCR’s office in that country was opened, showing how it can be traced to an ‘informal conversation and agreement’ in 1957 between Sadry and the Turkish delegate to the United Nations.Footnote 89 Sadry, Sherry noted, demonstrated exceptional diplomatic skill; while the Turkish delegate was initially hesitant, Sadry persuaded him of the ‘usefulness’ of having an accredited UNHCR Representative. He then engaged in high-level meetings in Ankara, addressing the matter ‘unofficially through personal channels’.Footnote 90 Sherry observed that Sadry’s efforts to impress upon Turkish authorities the benefits of a UNHCR office ‘were maybe too successful’.Footnote 91 Initially envisioning Türkiye sharing a Representative with Egypt, Greece or Italy, Sadry encountered Turkish insistence on having its own Representative. This is but one example of Sadry’s distinctive diplomatic skills.
In 1960, Sadry relocated to Cairo, where he was appointed UNHCR Representative to the Middle East. His experiences at both Headquarters and ‘in the field’ ensured he was well versed in the organization’s underlying rationales and limitations, as well as the assumptions and attitudes of its staff in Geneva. These insights likely led him to propose an unusual arrangement: dividing the branch office for the Middle East into two, maintaining the office established in Cairo in 1954, and introducing a new one in Beirut.Footnote 92 This extraordinary plan appears to have been Sadry’s initiative; as UNHCR’s Director of Administration commented years later, the interrelationship between the two offices was ‘represented more by the interest in which you [Sadry] take in both Offices than by any other single factor’.Footnote 93 From the outset, Sadry would supervise both offices, although he would ‘spend most of his time’ in Beirut.Footnote 94 This arrangement continued until 1966, when Sadry was recalled to Geneva to assume the role of special assistant to Aga Khan, who by then had become High Commissioner.Footnote 95
Why was Sadry so determined to extend the branch office for the Middle East to Beirut? The general appeal and advantages of Beirut, as previously described, certainly played a role. However, the political context of the Arab Cold War was likely also influential. Aga Khan supported the office division, believing it would ensure political and diplomatic continuity, particularly given ‘certain delicate problems’ in the UAR that were better addressed by Sadry than by the Egyptian Deputy Representative in Cairo.Footnote 96 Sadry also likely felt more at ease among Beirut’s elites than those in Cairo, given his close ties to the Shah and his background in the Iranian Foreign Service. At the time, relations between Iran and Egypt were hostile; Nasser viewed the Shah’s pro-Western stance as a challenge to his anti-imperial policies, while the Shah saw Nasser as a potential vehicle for Soviet expansion in the Middle East.Footnote 97 Tensions escalated to the point where, in summer 1960, Egypt and Iran expelled each other’s ambassadors.Footnote 98 Conversely, Lebanese–Iranian relations were excellent, providing Sadry with a comfortable political and social environment.Footnote 99
Diaspora advocacy
Beyond the general convenience of Beirut and Sadry’s personal preferences, the long-standing advocacy of Armenian diaspora organizations significantly compelled and enabled UNHCR to deepen its involvement in Lebanon. Previous scholarship has highlighted the pivotal role of advocacy groups in shaping UNHCR’s operations. In Türkiye, UNHCR’s expansion was, according to Sherry, largely driven by the efforts of transnational non-governmental organizations.Footnote 100 In Lebanon, both the Portugal-based Gulbenkian Foundation and the US-based Armenian National Committee to Aid Homeless Armenians (ANCHA) lobbied for increased engagement with Armenian communities, albeit with differing approaches and objectives.Footnote 101
Since the 1950s, the Gulbenkian Foundation had focused on improving housing conditions for Armenians living in impoverished areas outside Beirut. As part of this initiative, the Foundation frequently requested UNHCR’s assistance with its housing projects. Initially, UNHCR was reluctant to include the roughly 10,000 stateless Armenians in Lebanon within its mandate, as indicated by a 1957 memorandum stating that ‘the original administrative instructions for the establishment of our Cairo Branch Office specifically excluded this group, both in Syria and the Lebanon’.Footnote 102 However, by the late 1950s, the Foundation actively pressured UNHCR to reconsider its position, challenging UNHCR’s assessment that these Armenians enjoyed a ‘greater measure of protection than most stateless persons’, and that their local integration was ‘mainly a question of time’.Footnote 103
This advocacy led UNHCR to discreetly conduct a study in 1959 to ascertain the number of Armenians potentially under its mandate and the measures it could take.Footnote 104 Conducted by Gilbert Jaeger at UNHCR Headquarters, the survey revealed that a substantial number of refugees within UNHCR’s mandate were present in Lebanon without the benefit of its protection.Footnote 105 Jaeger emphasized to Paul Weis, head of UNHCR’s Legal Department from 1951 to 1967, that ‘[t]his protection could only be ensured if there was a UNHCR representation on site and if, in addition, Lebanese legislation offered the essential legal guarantees’.Footnote 106 Jaeger regarded the support from the Cairo office as insufficient, noting, ‘It is not my intention to diminish … the activity in Lebanon of the UNHCR delegation in Cairo. But it goes without saying that the delegation can only act within the narrow limits of sporadic visits’.Footnote 107 To address this issue, Jaeger advocated a greater, more permanent presence in Lebanon.
Around the same time, ANCHA lobbied UNHCR to include within its mandate a different group of Armenians—those transiting through Beirut from Bulgaria and Romania on their way to the United States.Footnote 108 This scheme was orchestrated from the United States but systematically executed in Beirut by members of the Armenian community and local ANCHA representatives. Though tolerated by the Lebanese government as long as it maintained discretion, this resettlement scheme was deeply intertwined with the bipolar geopolitical tension between the Soviet Union and the United States. At the time, US refugee policy prioritized individuals fleeing communism amid concerns about growing Soviet influence.Footnote 109 The United States, initially unenthusiastic about UNHCR’s creation, had established competing refugee assistance organizations like the United States Escapee Program (USEP) and the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM), which initially facilitated onward travel from Beirut to the United States with minimal involvement from UNHCR.Footnote 110
However, the proclamation of 1959–60 as World Refugee Year marked a pivotal shift in US refugee policies.Footnote 111 By then, the moral force of the global refugee regime had gained traction in the United States, leading to the passing of the Fair Share Refugee Act, which allowed the United States to participate globally in resettling certain refugees.Footnote 112 Crucially, Armenians transiting through Beirut now needed to be found eligible for refugee status within UNHCR’s mandate. Yet, Lebanon was not among the five European countries selected for resettlement processing centres, leaving around 1,000 Armenians from Romania and Bulgaria stranded in Beirut and excluded from the Fair Share Refugee Act’s provisions.Footnote 113 In response, ANCHA initiated a significant lobbying effort aimed primarily at UNHCR.Footnote 114 Following extensive deliberations regarding the eligibility of these Armenians, UNHCR Headquarters recommended to the US State Department the extension of the Fair Share Refugee Act to Lebanon.Footnote 115 Once the Act was extended to Lebanon at the end of 1960, UNHCR considerably increased its operations in Beirut, processing approximately 1,000 Armenian refugees for resettlement annually.Footnote 116
UNHCR’s branch office in Beirut
Following UNHCR’s decision to expand to Beirut, its presence in Lebanon needed to be both organized and formalized. As the following sections will demonstrate, these matters were far from straightforward. First, UNHCR operated at multiple levels and was never a monolithic entity. This resulted in a heterogeneity of stances within the organization and a lack of consensus on both the administrative setup of the Beirut office and the formalization of relations with the Lebanese government. I argue that, within these circumstances, Sadry exercised considerable flexibility and autonomy in determining the structure, functions, and direction of the branch office.
Second, while Lebanese considerations did not underpin UNHCR’s decision to open the Beirut office, Lebanese authorities were neither passive nor indifferent to UNHCR’s presence. They consistently rejected UNHCR’s efforts to negotiate a formal host-state agreement. While the inability of UNHCR to formalize its relations with the Lebanese government via an agreement may appear as a failure, the normative content of the draft agreement mattered in practice, as I will demonstrate. The political sensibility of Sadry and, from 1965 onwards, his deputy Leslie Goodyear, ensured that the critical elements of the draft agreement were implemented despite the absence of formal approval. Consequently, despite its reluctance to formalize relations, the Lebanese government remained supportive of UNHCR at a diplomatic level and engaged productively with it at a practical one.
Organizing UNHCR’s presence
While there was general consensus within UNHCR to expand to Beirut, considerable disagreement persisted regarding the office’s appropriate size. How large did the Beirut office need to be to effectively oversee the organization’s activities throughout the Middle East? During this period, those in charge of UNHCR branch offices generally had significant autonomy. Gilbert Jaeger, for instance, recounted in an interview how, as the Representative in Brussels in 1962, he entirely rebuilt the ‘much neglected’ office ‘from [his] point of view’.Footnote 117 Certainly, Sadry had nearly single-handedly established the Beirut office and managed it largely according to his discretion. However, Sadry’s freedom to manoeuvre was inhibited by UNHCR’s budget, including decisions from Headquarters regarding the Beirut office staff levels and composition.
Faced with financial constraints, the administration at UNHCR Headquarters aimed to avoid increasing the budget and staffing table for the Cairo and Beirut offices, now collectively constituting the branch office of the Middle East.Footnote 118 Once in Beirut, Sadry had aims of a larger entity, and his ambitions led to multiple disagreements, especially with UNHCR’s Director of Administration, Frank Green. Immediately after opening the Beirut office, Sadry sought to hire both a foreign secretary and a P2 professional officer. This ‘flow of requests for staff for Beirut’ left Green ‘puzzled’, as he had initially expected the office to include only Sadry, a local secretary and a messenger/driver.Footnote 119
Sadry argued that the office’s efficiency would improve if he employed a P2 professional officer ‘knowing the people and language and having influential contacts and connections’.Footnote 120 He also believed that the predominantly Western, Anglo-Saxon staff at UNHCR Headquarters failed to fully understand certain cultural aspects of UNHCR’s operations in the region. The office’s legitimacy, he argued, would increase and his role as Representative would be taken more seriously with the addition of a junior staff member. As he explained in a letter to Green:
It is virtually impossible, in a Middle Eastern country, for a chief of Mission to have discussions at the Ministerial level and then have to follow up correspondence within the Ministry at the clerical level in order to expedite execution of a decision.Footnote 121
Despite Green’s opposition, the P2 post appeared on the staffing table of the Beirut office in the autumn of 1962.Footnote 122 However, with the staff in Beirut ‘growing much faster and more expansively than was originally contemplated’,Footnote 123 Sadry faced ongoing pressure to trim administrative costs throughout 1963.Footnote 124 His responses to Green conveyed a tone rarely seen in his other correspondence:
I am not in a position to consider the separation of any more staff from the Middle East B.O. neither during this year nor at the beginning of 1964. I am afraid that I cannot any longer accept this unilateral and systematic reduction in staff without co-ordination with me. After all I am supposed to be the responsible person in the field. I hope you realize that there is a caseload with a programme and responsibilities attached to it and consequently there is an important job yet to be completed. If H.Q. is anxious to terminate the work as quickly as possible the least it can do is to provide the means. I do not think that the Middle East Branch Office is such a costly concern that H.Q. should keep pressing it for economies which can hardly be worth the effort made to obtain them.
… Please do not add more problems to those we have already in this very tribulent [sic] part of the world. I should be very grateful if you would help us as much as you can in proper accomplishment of our tasks.Footnote 125
On multiple occasions, Sadry managed to circumvent restrictions imposed by UNHCR’s Director of Administration, likely due to Aga Khan’s backing.Footnote 126 And by 1964, the hub of UNHCR’s Middle East efforts had shifted from Cairo to Beirut, with four staff members based in Beirut and three in Cairo.Footnote 127
Developments in 1964, however, left the Beirut office working at low gear. Paul Salem, the professional officer whom Sadry fought so hard to hire, unexpectedly left his position without a successor.Footnote 128 Additionally, Sadry took on a new challenging role. In January 1964, he was transferred to the UN Technical Assistance and Special Fund in Lebanon (UNTAB), becoming its acting Resident Representative, a position he held until his departure from Beirut.Footnote 129 The new role required Sadry to represent the UN family as a whole and placed him outside UNHCR’s payroll.Footnote 130 Both UNTAB and UNHCR made demands on his time, with UNTAB pressing Sadry to sever ties with UNHCR, while UNHCR continued to view him as their ‘man for the whole of the Middle East’.Footnote 131 Indeed, Aga Khan believed Sadry was uniquely suited to address UNHCR’s needs in the region.Footnote 132
Eventually UNTAB recognized Sadry’s special relationship with UNHCR, and UNHCR realized that his new role could enhance the organization’s standing in Lebanon. As Aga Khan expressed in March 1964, ‘since Mr. Sadry now commands much greater prestige because of TAB’s important programmes in the area … we will be even better represented’.Footnote 133 While Sadry’s dual role may have strengthened UNHCR’s diplomatic presence in Lebanon, his responsibilities with UNTAB, focused solely on Lebanon, posed a ‘busy and important task which restricted his movements in the area’.Footnote 134 This certainly affected his ability to fulfil broader regional duties for UNHCR. In addition, the vacancy left after Salem’s departure remained unresolved until Goodyear joined as Deputy Representative in October 1965.Footnote 135 A British national with extensive UNHCR experience in Athens since 1952, Goodyear was also familiar with Lebanon from his frequent eligibility missions to Beirut between 1960 and 1965. When Sadry relocated to Geneva in May 1966, Goodyear assumed the position of Representative in Beirut, where he served until 1974.Footnote 136
Formalizing UNHCR’s presence
Lebanese authorities were neither passive nor indifferent to UNHCR’s presence. Shortly after the opening of UNHCR’s Beirut office, the Lebanese government approached UNHCR to insist that an agreement concerning the office’s activities be drawn up.Footnote 137 This prompted a flurry of movements at UNHCR Headquarters, particularly within the Legal Division, at the time led by one of UNHCR’s most prominent figures – Paul Weis. Although the subsequent draft agreement was never concluded, the negotiations around it illustrate the complex relationship between UNHCR and the Lebanese government, as well as the distinctive predicament of UNHCR’s Beirut office. Caught between Geneva’s insistence on a formal agreement and the Lebanese government’s refusal to accept it, as I will discuss below, staff at the Beirut office arguably emerged as more than passive implementers of policies decided at Headquarters. While Weis’s legalistic approach often conflicted with Sadry’s pragmatic and diplomatic style, Sadry—and, increasingly, Goodyear—did not merely follow orders from Geneva. They made their own decisions, aligning more with the Lebanese authorities’ views than with those of UNHCR Headquarters.
For Weis and his staff at the Legal Division, the drafting of the Lebanese host-state agreement represented a novel opportunity. UNHCR had previously concluded just three similar agreements, only one of which (with Egypt in 1954) was with a state that, like Lebanon, had not acceded to the 1951 Convention.Footnote 138 However, it was not Lebanon’s first experience negotiating a host-state agreement with a UN refugee agency. In 1954, there had been an exchange of notes—registered ex officio—between the Lebanese government and UNRWA, wherein the government declared, among other things, ‘full recognition … to the legal status of UNRWA and the privileges and immunities and facilities which the Agency and its officials should enjoy’.Footnote 139 Despite this agreement, UNRWA continued to encounter difficulties regarding recognition of its status in Lebanon. As Schiff has observed, the Lebanese government, as other states in the region hosting UNRWA, did not fully accept the idea that UNRWA should operate independently of its control.Footnote 140 More than anything else, Schiff explains, host states had ‘only recently gained political independence by deposing prior governments and colonial powers’ and were thus ‘chary of extending privileged status to a new group of western interlopers’.Footnote 141 In both 1959 and 1967, UNRWA requested further agreements to clarify the nature and extent of its responsibilities and authority.Footnote 142 Although such agreements were repeatedly discussed with the Lebanese government, none were ever concluded, leaving issues of formal legal status unresolved.
It is unclear how aware Weis was of UNRWA’s difficulties when, in January 1963, he sent an ambitious draft agreement to Sadry, who as Representative was tasked with conducting the actual negotiations in Beirut. Weis wrote to Sadry that this version included all the points on which UNHCR ‘must insist’.Footnote 143 The three-page, nine-article agreement in French outlined the functions of the Beirut office along the lines of the UNHCR Statute and included a clause granting the Representative full privileges and immunities.Footnote 144 However, the draft agreement’s most notable elements were Articles 6, 7, and 8, designed to address Lebanon’s non-accession to the 1951 Convention. Carefully tailored to Lebanese circumstances, these articles were described by Weis as ‘in addition to our normal requirements but … would be most useful if the Lebanon would agree to them but is still not prepared to accede to the 1951 Convention’.Footnote 145 These exceptional additions mirrored key provisions of the Convention, covering identity documents, work permits, travel documents, and the principle of non-refoulement.
In the effort to formalize relations based on the draft agreement, Sadry made numerous approaches to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, UNHCR’s governmental counterpart in these negotiations. However, throughout the 1960s, the minister changed an astonishing thirteen times. As Goodyear explained in a 1966 memorandum to Aga Khan, ‘4 changes in the official responsible for U.N. affairs, punctuated by long gaps when no official existed, meant that each time the new person was reaching the point of taking some positive action, there was a change’.Footnote 146 The most high-level discussions occurred after Sadry left Beirut, in March 1967, when Aga Khan visited and met with Lebanon’s foreign minister, Georges Hakim.Footnote 147 Well versed in the international instruments of refuge and asylum, Hakim had represented Lebanon in drafting the 1967 Declaration on Territorial Asylum in 1959–60.Footnote 148 To appease the High Commissioner, Hakim tasked Mounir Ghandour, then ambassador in charge of UN affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with studying the matter.Footnote 149 However, the Arab–Israeli war broke out in the summer of 1967, and while Lebanon was not directly involved, it was deeply affected, not least due to the disruption of many political processes. Shortly thereafter, Lebanon became embroiled in its own civil war (1975–90).
The persistent rejection of a formal agreement by key actors in the Lebanese government underscored the essential need for a favourable sociopolitical environment to negotiate such an agreement. For Sadry and Goodyear, timing was paramount. Given UNHCR’s close administrative ties with UNRWA, they were certainly also aware of the similar challenges faced by UNRWA. In 1966, Goodyear argued in a letter to Weis that it was ‘unnecessary to press for signature of the draft agreement, at least until a favourable opportunity presents itself ’.Footnote 150 Ghandour’s response the following year echoed similar concerns: ‘it would be unwise to provoke a general discussion of such an agreement just now’.Footnote 151 While the concerns of the Beirut office were acknowledged by staff at Headquarters, Weis repeatedly urged Sadry and Goodyear to reconsider their strategy.Footnote 152 Weis was known for issuing direct instructions to branch offices and ‘running the show’ regarding protection matters, so the resistance by Sadry and Goodyear must have been quite unusual for the time.Footnote 153 Only after a meeting between Weis and Sadry at UNHCR Headquarters in May 1966 was it agreed to leave the initiative for reopening the matter to the office in Beirut.Footnote 154
For Sadry and Goodyear, concluding an agreement with the Lebanese government was believed to be best achieved directly through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Typically, international agreements required approval first by the Council of Ministers and subsequent discussion in the Chamber of Deputies, Lebanon’s legislative body and key forum for political debate and decision-making.Footnote 155 The Lebanese political system’s unique nature, with political posts allocated by sect, meant political decisions on international issues could not be taken without consensus across major factions.Footnote 156 Sadry and Goodyear sought to avoid initiating a broader discussion about UNHCR’s role in other government departments or in parliament.Footnote 157 This meant that if an agreement solely with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was unattainable, they believed that Lebanese adherence to refugee protection principles would be ‘better achieved by personal contact than by written agreements’.Footnote 158 Much to the discomfort of the Legal Division in Geneva, they regularly advised Headquarters to favour informal approaches—at least until an opportune political moment arose.
No ideal time seemed to emerge for UNHCR to advocate concluding the host-state agreement. Beyond fluctuations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, debates about refugees in Lebanese society were overshadowed by the presence of both Palestinians and Syrians. A cautious approach was necessary, Goodyear argued, because ‘all refugee matters here are completely dominated by the Palestinian question. General discussion of assistance to non-Palestinian refugees, and of migration and establishment programmes in particular, might very well balloon into a “cause celebre”’.Footnote 159 Additionally, it was UNRWA—not UNHCR—that was ‘the only refugee organization of any real importance to them [the Lebanese]’.Footnote 160 Therefore, discussions about UNHCR’s role in Lebanon inevitably led to comparisons with UNRWA. As Irfan has explained, Lebanese government officials looked favourably on UNRWA’s operations because, in their eyes, UNRWA’s work helped prevent the permanent settlement of Palestinians in Lebanon by underlining the Palestinian refugees’ ‘separateness’ from the Lebanese population.Footnote 161 The provision of basic services by UNRWA also promoted stability among the refugees, which was thought to minimize the chances of agitation and violence.Footnote 162 However, UNRWA’s quasi-governmental role for Palestinian refugees was frequently questioned in terms of its legitimacy, and its relationship with Lebanon was ‘blighted by … tensions over jurisdiction’.Footnote 163
The Palestinians were not the only refugee group to be the focus of political stirs in Lebanon during the 1960s. Syrians seeking refuge were also a concern, though regarded by the Lebanese authorities as ‘non-refugees’.Footnote 164 Perceived by Damascus as using Lebanon for subversive activities, these refugees were alleged to endanger Lebanon’s relationship with Syria.Footnote 165 Bilateral relations were tense, for reasons relating to unresolved sovereignty and independence issues after French colonial rule, Cold War dynamics, and Syria’s pan-Arabist ideology. Both Lebanese authorities and UNHCR faced pressure to avoid direct or indirect assistance to this group. In 1967, Ghandour advised against discussing the draft agreement in the Chamber of Deputies, warning that the timing was risky due to ‘the present delicate situation regarding political refugees from Syria’.Footnote 166
Given the circumstances, it may seem paradoxical for a government to initiate an agreement only to ultimately reject its formalization. Similarly, UNHCR’s inability to formalize its relations with the Lebanese government might appear as a failure. However, UNHCR’s activities in Lebanon did not depend on a formal agreement; in practice, the normative content of the draft agreement mattered. In 1966, Goodyear noted, ‘At no time have any difficulties been encountered in corresponding with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or any other department concerned with Refugee matters’.Footnote 167 The position of the Beirut office was ‘stronger than ever before’, meaning a written agreement was advantageous only if achieved ‘without raising questions’.Footnote 168 Goodyear cautioned against prompting needless scrutiny: ‘What must be avoided … is to raise questions in the mind of the authorities on matters which presently are accepted, by asking such written confirmation which would necessitate their studying the whole issue carefully’.Footnote 169 This sentiment was echoed by Ghandour, who in 1967 confirmed that the draft agreement was already being followed in practice, with Lebanon’s intelligence agency, the Sureté Générale, instructed to base its collaboration with UNHCR on it.Footnote 170 The director of Aliens Service at the Sureté Générale, in a separate conversation with Goodyear, similarly advised that ‘the agreement is already being implemented in practice by the Lebanese authorities, and to open discussion at a political level could be detrimental’.Footnote 171
These discussions suggest that, despite not formalizing relations, the Lebanese government remained supportive of UNHCR at a diplomatic level, engaged productively with the organization at a practical level, and was generally perceived by UNHCR’s Beirut office to have adopted a refugee approach aligned with the main protection principles. The political sensibility of Sadry and Goodyear arguably ensured that the most critical elements of the draft agreement were implemented despite the absence of a formal agreement. In 1963, Lebanon was even elected as a member of UNHCR’s governing organ, the Executive Committee.Footnote 172 Moreover, it was surely in the interest of the Lebanese authorities to collaborate closely with UNHCR; the organization’s presence benefited Lebanon by addressing refugees’ positive liberties through status determination, registration, resettlement, health care, education, and livelihood assistance.Footnote 173 This shift in responsibility from state to UNHCR relieved the government of many tasks, akin to the duties UNRWA performed for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.Footnote 174
Conclusions
The story of UNHCR’s expansion to Lebanon in 1962 is significant for our understanding of how the organization globalized the international refugee regime. The case not only challenges the dominant single-story narrative of UNHCR’s global development, but also adds important nuance to the organization’s early operations in less studied contexts, such as the Middle East. The article illustrates how UNHCR’s expansion to Beirut was driven by a confluence of strategic, diplomatic, and advocacy-related factors, underscoring the organization’s flexibility and responsiveness to regional dynamics. Amid shifting political tides, Beirut provided UNHCR with a stable platform in the Middle East. The city was also a personally preferred location for Sadry, UNHCR Representative in Cairo since 1960. Finally, the advocacy of Armenian diaspora organizations in Portugal and the United States compelled and enabled UNHCR to increase its involvement in Lebanon.
The process of UNHCR’s expansion to Lebanon contrasts sharply with accounts of its extension in other contexts. In Morocco and Tunisia, host-state authorities actively requested UNHCR assistance, but in Lebanon the establishment of the UNHCR office was largely, if not entirely, initiated by UNHCR itself.Footnote 175 While Morocco and Tunisia utilized the international refugee regime to assert their new-found sovereignty in the global arena, Lebanese state sovereignty was articulated through different means. Notably, Lebanese authorities refused to formalize their relationship with UNHCR through an agreement. However, as I have demonstrated, this refusal did not imply that Lebanese authorities were passive, indifferent, or even hostile to UNHCR’s presence. Instead, UNHCR effectively maintained operations in Lebanon by prioritizing informal relationships and practical cooperation over bureaucratic formalities. These experiences are valuable for our understanding of the workings of humanitarian institutions more generally.
A key contribution of this article lies in the insights it provides regarding how individuals influenced UNHCR’s global expansion. Microprocesses and individual contributions are crucial for understanding the globalization of the refugee regime. In establishing the office in Beirut, UNHCR exhibited a heterogeneity of stances, with high-ranking staff members wielding significant influence over the organization’s direction. Contrary to the perception of UNHCR as a homogenous and monolithic organization, staff in Beirut were not merely passive implementers of policies dictated by Headquarters. Most importantly, the article underscores the flexibility and freedom that UNHCR representatives enjoyed during this period in determining the structure, functions, and direction of branch offices. In Beirut, Sadry had almost single-handedly set up the UNHCR office, which he then ran with considerable autonomy.
Among the most decisive efforts by Sadry was his insistence on pragmatic diplomacy when it came to the formalization of UNHCR’s relationship with the Lebanese government. His focus on direct interactions and the leveraging of personal relationships exemplifies how informal approaches can achieve substantive outcomes. The unique sectarian nature of Lebanon meant that these sorts of informal arrangements were preferable as they helped maintain political stability and avoided the need for consensus across major Lebanese factions. Consequently, UNHCR’s inability to formalize its relationship through a bilateral agreement with the Lebanese government should not necessarily be perceived as a failure. The essential elements of the draft agreement were implemented despite the absence of formal approval, and, as such, the draft agreement’s normative content mattered in practice. These insights may prompt a welcome reconsideration of the often-assumed sharp dichotomy between formal and informal refugee protection structures, in which the formal mechanisms are readily perceived as superior even though informality in some cases may be more constructive.
Acknowledgments
My deep gratitude to Heather Faulkner and the entire team at UNHCR’s Records and Archives for making the files available to me. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers, Susannah Salle for her editorial expertise, and Nora Milch for her research assistance.
Financial support
Funding for this research has been provided by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 851121 (ERC Starting Grant 2019).
Competing interests
The author declares none.
Maja Janmyr is Professor of International Migration Law at the University of Oslo and an Associate Fellow at the American University of Beirut. Focusing on Lebanon, her work takes a historical and sociolegal approach to international refugee law. Janmyr is Principal Investigator of the European Research Council-funded project ‘Protection without Ratification? International Refugee Law beyond States Parties to the 1951 Refugee Convention (BEYOND)’.
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