Legal Responsibility of the United Nations toward Syrian Displaced Persons: An Analysis through Buzan, Agamben, and Kingsbury with Emphasis on Global Public Law and Domestic Public Law Violations

Abstract

The Syrian displacement crisis represents one of the most significant humanitarian and legal challenges confronting the contemporary international order. Beyond the immediate consequences of armed conflict and forced migration, the crisis raises fundamental questions concerning the legal responsibility of the United Nations, the effectiveness of international protection mechanisms, and the relationship between global public authority and domestic public-law violations. This article analyzes the legal responsibility of the United Nations toward Syrian displaced persons through three complementary theoretical frameworks: Barry Buzan’s securitization theory, Giorgio Agamben’s concepts of the state of exception and bare life, and Benedict Kingsbury’s theory of global public law and global administrative law. The study argues that the limitations of UN protection cannot be explained solely by insufficient humanitarian capacity or by the formal distribution of obligations among states. Rather, they result from the interaction of distorted security priorities, prolonged exceptional legal conditions, geopolitical constraints, institutional fragmentation, and weak mechanisms of accountability. From Buzan’s perspective, the securitization of migration and the prioritization of terrorism, borders, sovereignty, and geopolitical rivalry have often marginalized the human-security dimension of Syrian displacement. From Agamben’s perspective, refugees and displaced persons may become trapped in prolonged states of legal uncertainty in which humanitarian protection preserves life without necessarily restoring secure political and juridical membership. Kingsbury’s framework provides a procedural response by emphasizing transparency, participation, reason-giving, review, and accountability in the exercise of global public authority. The article further demonstrates that global public-law failures and domestic public-law violations are mutually reinforcing. It concludes that effective protection of Syrian displaced persons requires an integrated model combining desecuritization, limitation of exceptional governance, stronger institutional accountability, and the reconstruction of domestic public institutions capable of guaranteeing rights and durable legal protection.