Non-governmental Organizations and the Global Refugee Regime: the Role of Ngos in the Era of Global Governance

Noone questions today the increasing role of non-governmental organizations in international relations. The field of refugee protection requires a complex attitude from NGOs, as here they meet with growing reluctance of state actors, whose interests are more formulated by economic and security aspects. That is why NGOs does not only provide first-hand assistance to those in need, but also try to influence state's actions, force them to comply with their obligations, sets up new issues on the international agenda, and cooperates with other actors in policy-formulation. Present essay aims to examine this complex role of the non-governmental actors in international relations, and more particularly in the global refugee regime from both NGO and regime analysis points of view. While this essay proves clearly the importance of NGOs, it also shows those faults the regime actors have to overcome and those areas where closer cooperation is needed between them in order to reach the regime's ultimate goal of ?providing international protection and seeking permanent solutions for the problems of refugees?.