This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In that half century, an estimated 50 million refugees have been helped to restart their lives, either by settling in new countries or returning home.
But in a chilling symmetry of figures as we approach the end of this millennium there are an additional 50 million people - a group more than 12 times the size of Ireland's population - who continue to need the protection and assistance of the international community. The image of refugees has become so commonplace on television or in newspapers that it has lost some of the shock or sympathy value it once attracted - except perhaps in the most extreme circumstances such as the latest massacre in Kosovo or the 1994-96 tragedy in central Africa. But, no matter how far away the crisis in geographical terms, the refugee issue has become part of our daily lives.
Refugees are ordinary people living extraordinary lives. Each individual has lost the most basic and fundamental of human rights which, in more stable nations, are taken for granted; homes, schools, clinics, friends - their dignity and at times even their identity.
Refugees, most of whom are women and children, form both the largest and most vulnerable group of abused people in the world. The mere existence of so many uprooted people is a stark reminder of our collective failure to solve those economic, social and political problems which create refugees in the first place.
As the number of refugees has increased inexorably in the past five decades, so too has the complexity of the underlying problems and the search for solutions. Many refugees today are fleeing ethnic or religious civil wars which prove more intractable and blood thirsty than old fashioned inter-state conflict.
Civilians are often unable to reach the comparative safety of surrounding states where they may be classified as bona fide refugees. Instead they become trapped in the conflict itself - as so-called internally displaced people.
These civilians and the humanitarian workers trying to help them have become targets and hostages to warring parties. Increasingly, refugees are faced with the unpalatable choice of staying in a wretched camp or inhospitable country or attempting to return to a homeland still riven by war or ethnic division.
European nations are grappling with their own dilemma. Refugees have become inextricably linked with economic migrants in the eyes of many governments and their publics.
As more disenfranchised people clamour to reach the promised land they have responded with stricter immigration controls. Efforts to stem the flow of illegal migration have sometimes operated like a border drift net - catching the un-deserving but also leading to unfairness and hardship for genuine refugees. In the end, it is governments and civil society that must be more generous in their response to refugees. This must not solely be a response to law and obligation but, foremost, an expression of genuine compassion and humanity.
Without this, the well-being of millions of the world's most vulnerable people, and their human rights, will remain in jeopardy.