UNHCR and the Algerian war of independence: postcolonial sovereignty and the globalization of the international refugee regime, 1954–63

The Algerian war of independence (1954-62) was crucial to the extension of the modern international refugee regime beyond Europe. It is also the exemplar of how that regime became a site for the establishment of postcolonial sovereignty, globally. Tunisia and Morocco, newly independent, requested UNHCR’s help in assisting hundreds of thousands of Algerian refugees: interacting with the refugee regime allowed them to establish their credentials as independent states while asserting sovereignty over their own territories. In Algeria, the 1951 Refugee Convention applied before the war started, and UNHCR worked there to support ‘old’ refugees. During the war, the Front de Libération Nationale asserted itself as a state-in-waiting by engaging with UNHCR outside Algeria as the agency coordinated a vast relief operation. After the war, as refugees returned to a landscape riven by mass displacement, interacting with the refugee regime helped the new state assert sovereignty over Algeria’s territory, and Algerian bodies.