Are the Guiding Principles binding?
The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement is as such not a binding instrument that could be ratified by States. However, the Guiding Principles reflect and are consistent with international human rights law and international humanitarian law, as set out in the Annotations to the Guiding Principles. To the extent that States have ratified the human rights and humanitarian instruments upon which the Guiding Principles are based, they are bound by the corresponding principles. States also can opt, as some have done, to make them binding by incorporating them into their domestic law.
