REVIEW ESSAY Unpacking World Refugee Day: Humanitarian Governance and Human Rights Practice? KRISTIN BERGTORA SANDVIK Abstract This review provides a contextual and critical account of World Refugee Day as it is staged by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Through a process of homogenizing and de-politicizing experiences, UNHCR’s World Refugee Day celebrations recast refugee agency as an extension of the organization’s humanitarian efforts. At the same time, these celebrations reflect UNHCR’s struggle to navigate the tension between the ideal of global community and its own role in governing the increasingly strict spatial divisions between regions, nations and groups. Keywords: displacement; global governance; humanitarianism; UNHCR; World Refugee Day Introduction For World Refugee Day, 20 June 2009, the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) published the following news story written by UNHCR web editor Leo Dobbs on its home page: World Refugee Day: The World Pays Tribute to Refugees with a Rich Mix of Events (Dobbs, 2009). Since 2001, World Refugee Day (WRD) has been celebrated on 20 June in refugee producing areas, receiving countries and resettlement countries across the globe. As a day of celebration for people ‘outside the national order of things’ (Malkki, 1995), WRD is used by UNHCR both as a community-building effort, and as part of the organization’s strategy to manage and re-territorialize the governance of displaced populations. ‘Refugee Day’ has been observed in Africa since 20 June 1975 under the supervision of the Organization of African Unity (UNHCR 2009a). In soli- darity with Africa, WRD was formally established by a UN resolution of December 2000 which determined that ‘from 2001, 20 June will be cele- brated as World Refugee Day’ (UN General Assembly, 2000). So far, little academic attention has been directed at this event and the questions it raises about representation, legitimacy and governance. This Journal of Human Rights Practice Vol 00 | Number 00 | Month 2010 | pp. 1–12 DOI:10.1093/jhuman/huq003 # The Author (2010). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Journal of Human Rights Practice Advance Access published May 21, 2010 at PRIO on May 27, 2010 http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org Downloaded from