Internally Displaced Persons (‘IDPs’) are described by the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement as persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights ornatural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognizedState border. IDPs are similar to → refugees in the sense that they may share the same experiences, needs,fears, and wants. Consequently, IDPs are sometimes referred to as ‘internal refugees’. However, this label is misleading as there is a significant legal distinction between IDPs andrefugees which stems primarily from the fact that a refugee has crossed an international frontier.A refugee is granted legal status and a range of rights set out in the Refugee Convention (1951)and falls within the protection mandate of the UN Refugee Agency, the UNHCR (→ Refugees,United Nations High Commissioner for [UNHCR]). IDPs, on the other hand, remain the responsibility of the State and have no specific international agency to protect them.