Fridtjof Nansen: pioneer of protection

Fridtjof Nansen, who is widely regarded as the founding father of the international system of protection and assistance for refugees, was born in Christiana, now the city of Oslo, on 10 October 1861. After achieving considerable success as a zoologist in his early twenties, he went on to make similarly valuable contributions to marine biology, oceanography, geology, anthropology and sociology.

Not content with purely academic pursuits, he became one of the leading Arctic explorers of the period. In 1988, at only 26 years of age, Nansen led the first expedition to cross Greenland. Five years later, he set about proving his theory that the Arctic icepack flowed from Siberia to Greenland via the North Pole region. In June 1893, he set sail in the specially designed Fram, which was duly caught up in the ice and began the long drift north. By March 1895, however, the ship had made much slower progress than anticipated, so Nansen and a companion, Hjalmar Johansen, started off on their own across the ice. Although they failed to conquer the Pole, they went further north than anyone else had been, before being forced to turn back. After surviving a long and perilous trek south, and an entire Arctic winter spent in a makeshift hut living off walrus and polar bear meat, they were finally rescued in June 1986 and arrived back in Norway to tremendous acclaim on 13 August -- five days ahead of the Fram.

As a scientist and explorer, Nansen acquired such enormous stature that his transformation to statesman was almost inevitable. In 1905, when the union between Norway and Sweden broke up, he used his diplomatic skills and prestige to help win international recognition of Norway as an independent state.

When the League of Nations was created in 1920, the world was still suffering from the ravages of World War I and the ensuing political and social upheaval. Nansen believed that the new world body provided an unprecedented opportunity for establishing peace and reconstruction in a devastated Europe. He set out to prove that it was not just an idealistic concept but a practical tool for improving the lot of humankind.

Over the next three years, he took responsibility for four huge humanitarian operations. First, on behalf of the newly-formed League, he organized the repatriation of half a million prisoners of war from 26 countries, mainly in southeastern Europe and the USSR. Next, after a devastating famine struck the USSR during the winter of 1921, Nansen was asked by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and a number of governments to supervise a massive relief effort for some 30 million men, women and children who were threatened with starvation.

In addition to the prisoners of war, World War I and its turbulent aftermath had left a legacy of 1.5 million refugees and displaced people scattered in a variety of countries. In the autumn of 1921, in order to provide a focal point for the coordination of relief efforts, the League of Nations appointed Nansen as the first High Commissioner for Refugees -- a role he was to perform tirelessly until his death.

One of the fundamental problems refugees and displaced people faced was their lack of internationally recognized identity papers. So in 1922, the new High Commissioner introduced the "Nansen passport," the forerunner of today's Convention Travel Document for refugees. Enabling thousands to return home or settle in other countries, it represented the first in a long and still evolving series of international legal measures designed to protect stateless people and refugees.

In the same year, a war between Greece and Turkey caused several hundred thousand Greeks to flee from their homes in eastern Thrace and Asia Minor to Greece. Charged with finding a solution to this colossal dislocation, Nansen proposed a population exchange, as a result of which half a million Turks moved in the other direction, from Greece to Turkey, with the League of Nations providing compensation to help both groups reintegrate. This ambitious and unprecedented scheme took eight years to complete, but was ultimately successful.

In 1922, Nansen received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on behalf of refugees and displaced people. He died on 13 May 1930 at his home near Oslo. His name lives on as one of the great humanitarian innovators of the 20th century -- and a powerful reminder to humankind of its moral duty to protect and assist refugees and others in similar distress.

Photo: Here image/photo/table. (Source:          )

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The Rights of Refugees and Displaced Persons