Blog by Sukru Kagan Surucu *
While refugee law remains largely the domain of states, the UNHCR holds a key position as the primary supervisory authority, acting as a pillar that both defines and upholds the legal order of refugee management. Despite such a vast function acting as the central authority on refugee management, and the guardian of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (hereinafter the Convention), in a tangible sense it only exists as a building – at 94 rue de Montbrillant in Geneva. While the legal order of the UNHCR, its significance in refugee governance and the impact it has on international protection situations worldwide is not tied to this physical dimension, the law and policy making of the UNHCR emanate through actual discussions, occurring in various rooms and halls of this building in Geneva, which are then exported worldwide.
In mainstream refugee law scholarship, and more broadly in institutional law scholarship, the role of physical locales, architecture and art are marginal, as law and decision-making in international institutions are mostly approached in the conceptual, theoretical and normative sense. However, as Vos and Stolk argue “ Through their buildings, institutions can communicate and create ideas and values of international law, but the audience is free to interpret them in its own way.” This underlines the significance of the “physical”, the locales of lawmaking, in the way an institution constitutes and implements its own legal order. This blog is inspired by the account of Vos and Stolk focusing on the ICC and the EU buildings as two physical manifestations of where international law is made and presented to the public. In a similar vein, this post aims to demonstrate the significance of the architecture of the UNHCR’s headquarters and the layout of the building, in how the UNHCR constitutes and presents itself as a particular legal actor in the international refugee regime.
Geneva, Nations and Buildings of International Organisations
Along with many international organisations, the headquarters of the UNHCR (hereinafter the UNHCR HQ) is in Geneva. Situated in 94 rue de Montbrillant, it is adjacent to the iconic “Broken Chair” monument, facing the Palais des Nations. From this perspective, the UNHCR HQ is placed in a very outwardly “legal” district. Co-existing with other significant international bodies such as the UN building, WIPO, WHO and ILO, UNHCR both constitutes and draws from the “legal” character of the district. Being placed in that specific location, alongside many significant buildings for international law, and benefitting from that “legal” character, provides a sense of inaccessibility, exclusivity and normative importance to the building itself, even without entering the building. In a similar way to how Rue de la Loi, provides a physical spectacle of the size and depth of EU law and policy, this section of Geneva compounds the functional importance and power of the UNHCR. Moreover, it reinforces the idea of the UN as a significant legal and political authority, with buildings of its many agencies physically sprawling through the city itself and physically inserts the UNHCR within this constellation of legal buildings. For the audience who is walking through that section of Geneva, it is easy to see how the concept of international law and governance could be synonymous with the city. While in essence they are not different from other buildings in the area, they are inherently more solemn, both in terms of the physical architecture and the gravity of the norms, concepts and ideas they embody. More fundamentally, the physical presence of the buildings of international organisations, makes international law manifest. There in Geneva, international law and governance is truly “made”. Viewing the buildings of international organisations evokes the same sense of viewing factories or large-scale manufacturers. The largely obscured process of manufacturing behind a commodity becomes apparent when the factory is viewed, as the buildings of international institutions reveal how international law and governance is something that is “made” in a process of practice.
Headquarters of the UNHCR and Producing the “Inside” and the “Outside”
In the same way, UNHCR’s HQ also reveals the practical tangibility of lawmaking in international protection, and its design and characteristics also reflect specific values and ideas pertaining to the asylum regime. It is a tall, arrowhead shaped building, with series of small windows on both sides of the main structure, along with a middle section that has a glass façade with the word UNHCR displayed at the top. With limited design elements displayed outside and its modernist look, the building indeed follows in the footsteps of the headquarters of the ILO, to convey a sense of neutral technicality, functionalism and practicality.
When one enters the building, another significant element emerges with the design of the UNHCR’s HQ. All visitors need to go through an extensive security check and passport control. In this way, the building itself is a manifestation of the separation between the “inside” and the “outside”, almost functioning as a hypothetical border zone albeit separating the world of international protection to where law is made, and implemented. Entering the inner courtyard of the UNHCR’s HQ, the sense of “inside” and “outside” is compounded. Entering the tip of the hypothetical arrowhead, the visitor sees a large inner semi-circular façade of seven floors, covered in concrete and metal with small hole-punch openings. Looking at this semicircle with imposing grey walls combined with the security gates invokes a sense of “inaccessibility”.
The walls are devoid of almost any décor, and the visible metal railings that frame the roof highlights the utilitarian nature of the HQ. The interior is modelled to be functional, technical, not aesthetically conveying a sense of humanitarianism, but instead a technical or epistemic precision. While “humanitarianism” is the core underlying norm of the UNHCR’s work, it belongs to the domain of the “outside”. The blue aesthetic that became synonymous with UN agencies, to symbolise the peace, development and humanitarianism is largely absent from the interior, even though it has a great significance for the UNHCR in the field – the field is, after all, where the law of the UNHCR is interpreted and implemented. Instead, the interior, as with the exterior, follows the design idea of the ILO HQ. It is designed to resemble an office space, almost a panopticon, with grey walls, series of identical windows, corridors and rooms that emphasise bureaucracy and efficiency. In such way, the “inside” is constituted differently, as the domain of the bureaucrats, lawyers and lawmakers where technical neutrality is the emphasised norm.
Floors of the HQ and the Operations Room
The layering of the seven floors of the organisation is also emblematic of the values and ideas that constitute the organisation and communicated by it. Each floor is dedicated to a different section, corresponding overall to a different function of the organisation. The top floor of the organisation is the seat for the High Commissioner and executive offices including the Division of International Protection (DIP). The DIP being physically at the “top” of the organisation, is symbolic of the historical primacy of the concept of protection, and how the department itself is seen as a collective voice for international law, serving as the final arbiter for UNHCR’s activities. However, more interestingly is the placement and existence of the Sergio Vieira de Mello Operations Room, situated at the centre of the semicircle. As much as the UNHCR’s HQ exists as the physical venue where law and policy of international protection is made, the Operations Room is the inner sanctum. It is the site of regular high-level meetings in the UNHCR, where different department heads gather and discuss, coming to disagreements, consensuses and compromises and ultimately reconstruct a shared understanding of the organisation’s policies and law. In this way, the Operations Room is the manifestation of the intra-organisational plurality, the physical nexus, and generator of the vast network of actors within the UNHCR’s HQ.
The sense that is evoked in the visitor when observing the Operations Room reflects this. It is placed in the centre of the seventh floor, overlooking the whole UNHCR HQ building and the inner courtyard. It is at the physical apex point of the building – at the highest and most central point -, and other departments converge and expand around it in a crescent shape. In this way, the room is invisible from the visitor standing in the inner courtyard, only accessible and seen when one ascends the stairs upwards In such a way the building itself draws a hierarchy, placing the zone of decision-making at the centre, and the other departments ordered around it. This reinforces the hierarchical nature of law and decision making in the UNHCR, and the location itself being removed from the gaze and presence of whomsoever not belonging to that level in the hierarchy.
Conclusion
The physical building of the UNHCR’s HQ, its exterior and interior design, the way its floors are structured and the placement of its central decision-making venue could be key in reflecting the main ideas, values and the mode of lawmaking that is dominant in the organisation. While UNCHR implements international protection, law and has oversight of governance in the field, in areas of humanitarian concern, the building of the UNHCR’s HQ reveals the duality of international protection beyond the humanitarian angle. It is defined, constituted and navigated in a different setting, that is characterised by bureaucracy, functionalism and utilitarian, technical neutrality. In this way, UNHCR’s HQ is a physical manifestation of the divide of the “inside” and the “outside”. This office-like building and the select few actors who populate this building belong to the “inside,” where the law and decision-making of the UNHCR is made. This legal order that is made however, only takes life when it is “outside”, at the borders, refugee camps or reception centres, in realities that are inevitably distinct from the technicality and functionalism of the “inside”.
* Kagan has a background in international relations and international law, and most recently entered Edinburgh Law School in 2023 for his PhD degree. His past experiences include working in the major legal ranking directory, Chambers and Partners as a Research Analyst, and working both in Ankara and in London on academic research projects focusing on nuclear proliferation as a research assistant. He is interested in various topics under international security, and international law though his current academic interests focus on international organisations and refugee management.
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