The Comprehensive Plan of Action for Indochinese Refugees, 1989-1997: Sharing the burden and passing the buck

The Comprehensive Plan of Action for Indochinese Refugees, 1989-1997, has been hailed as a model of international solidarity and burden-sharing and criticized as an example of international buck-passing and questionable compromises. Looking back on this agreement-one in which both Sergio Vieira de Mello and Arthur Helton played significant roles-a fair conclusion might be that it was both. Though flawed in its implementation, however, the CPA does serve as a model of how interlocking commitments-to asylum, resettlement and repatriation-can promote regional cooperation in response to protracted refugee crises. Considering their roles in the CPA, though they operated from different institutional vantage-points, both de Mello and Helton showed an ability to combine humanitarian principles with political pragmatism.