As a citizen of the only country with a five-decade-long armed conflict and the highest number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) due to violence in the Western Hemisphere, I could not, during my studies and early professional experience, avoid being involved in the difficult attempts of Colombian institutions to deal with the wake of violence that continues to affect the country. Indeed, from my first years of professional practice in the legal clinic of Universidad de los Andes’ Faculty of Law, through to my first job as a consultant for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, to my time working at the Constitutional Court, I was constantly doing research on internal displacement and protection frameworks. The plight of IDPs was a reality Colombians were inevitably exposed to, regardless of their social status or where they lived, for at the height of violence...
