The world celebrates 160th years since the birth of Fridtjof Nansen
The life of Fridtjof Nansen is an incredible tale of great achievements in many fields. Born in Norway in 1861, Fridtjof Nansen was a scientist, polar explorer, diplomat and statesman. Above all, he was a humanist, with deep compassion and care for his fellow human beings. Today, the legacy of his dedication and courage remains highly relevant as the number of people forcibly displaced around the world has reached a record 82.4 million.
In 1888, while still in his twenties, Nansen led the first crossing of Greenland on skis in what was to be one of many adventures of exploration. His quest for knowledge led him to the Arctic and the Antarctic and in 1893, he set off on a three-year Arctic journey aboard the ship Fram. As the immensely strong vessel drifted through the ice, Nansen and a companion made a dash for the North Pole, coming closer than any other person had previously been.
His intellectual ability was no less astonishing. By the age of 26, he had completed a doctoral thesis on the human central nervous system.
Nansen is also widely remembered and praised for his pioneering work on behalf of refugees.
In 1921, shortly after the end of World War I, Nansen was appointed High Commissioner for Refugees by the League of Nations, established as the first worldwide intergovernmental organization with a principal mission to maintain world peace. He was soon put in charge of the League’s first large-scale humanitarian task – the repatriation of 450,000 prisoners of war. Nansen succeeded by enlisting the support of governments and voluntary agencies. During his tenure, Nansen helped hundreds of thousands of refugees to return home and his efforts enabled many others to become legal residents and find work in the countries where they had found refuge.
Nansen realized that one of the main problems facing refugees was their lack of internationally recognized identification papers, which in turn complicated their search for asylum. The Norwegian visionary introduced the so-called “Nansen passport”, which was the first legal instrument used for the international protection of refugees.
In 1921, Nansen was requested to organize a relief programme for millions of victims of the famine in Russia and the Soviet Union in 1921-1922. For his crucial work, Nansen was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922. He donated half of his prize money to the humanitarian emergency response in Ukraine.
During this time, there was a center for helping starving people in Kharkiv as well as orphanages, which were called Nansen’s houses. Nansen personally visited these to check that the children were given what they needed. Some of his Nobel Peace Prize money was also used to help agricultural cooperatives in Ukraine with machinery and grain for sowing.
It has been estimated by the League of Nations that Nansen’s efforts saved 7 million people, mostly children, from starvation in Ukraine and Russia.
As High Commissioner for Refugees, Nansen set a high standard for action on behalf of refugees and has since served as an example and role model to those working for humanitarian causes.
Nansen died in 1930 at the age of 68, and UNHCR established the Nansen Refugee Award in his honour in 1954. It is given to a person or a group for their outstanding service on behalf of forcibly displaced or stateless persons, in line with UNHCR’s global mandate. In Ukraine, Crimean Tatar activist Mustafa Dzhemilev was awarded the Nansen Medal in 1998 for his commitment to the right of return of the Crimean Tatar people. Tetiana Barantsova, a civil activist who has tirelessly supported internally displaced persons (IDPs), especially children and families with disabilities affected by the conflict in eastern Ukraine since 2014, was named the 2020 Europe Regional winner of the Nansen Refugee Award.
Fridtjof Nansen is often referred to as a founder of the modern refugee protection system which remains crucial today, when more than 82.4 million people are displaced as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order.
Ukraine is home to around 800,000 of those who have been internally displaced (IDPs), within their own countries, and to around 5,000 refugees and asylum-seekers. While the number of IDPs is considerable, the number of asylum-seekers and refugees is relatively small, but includes men, women and children who have fled countries in conflict and humanitarian crises such as Afghanistan and Syria.
Ukraine recently received a few hundred Afghan nationals on evacuation flights from Kabul in a laudable gesture of international cooperation and responsibility sharing. Many of them are expected to be granted admission to third countries such as the US, while some will pursue their asylum application in Ukraine. Within its global commitment to contribute to international responsibility sharing for people in need of international protection, Ukraine has over the years acceded to the 1951 Refugee Convention, endorsed the Global Compact on Refugees, developed a national legal framework and established an asylum procedure dedicated to identifying who is in need of international protection as a refugee. These steps taken by the Government of Ukraine and institutions like the State Migration Service and the State Border Guard Service are commendable and a contribution to the global good, and in line with the humanitarian and human rights protection vision spearheaded by Fridtjof Nansen.
During his lifetime, Fridtjof Nansen made a remarkable contribution to the development of a global commitment and framework for the protection of refugees and other forcibly displaced persons. Thanks to this, a person who is forced to flee his or her home in search of safety should be able to trust that there is a legally and morally binding framework that ensures the protection of his or her rights, as a human being, and as a refugee or internally displaced person.
No person is longing to become a refugee or IDP and no country is longing to receive refugees. But at the same time, countries hosting refugees have over the decades experienced how people who have come to their country as refugees have enriched their communities with new talents, skills and experiences and contributed to the development of local economies. Nansen once said that “properly settled, the refugees who were regarded as an intolerable burden would comprise a rich asset.” Some of the most renown talents in the world have in fact been refugees, integrating and contributing to their new home countries: Albert Einstein, Marc Chagall, George Soros, Madeleine Albright, Vladimir Nabokov, Igor Stravinsky, Sergey Brin, are just a few.
Fridtjof Nansen remains an inspiration for us, a true humanitarian hero, who trusted in humanity and who said in his Nobel lecture in 1922: “Everyone must join in this work… We must raise our banner in every country and forge the links of brotherhood around the world. The governments too must stand shoulder to shoulder, not in a battle line, but in a sincere effort to achieve the new era.”
This opinion piece is written by Mr. Erik Svedahl, Ambassador of Norway to Ukraine, Ms. Karolina Lindholm Billing, UNHCR Representative in Ukraine
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