A sense of responsibility toward the most vulnerable refugees has caused the United Nations and its predecessor, the League of Nations, to express grave concern for the plight of unaccompanied refugee children from their earliest days. Continuing in this tradition, UNHCR is currently working with its member states to negotiate a statement of principles and agreed practice for identifying and serving children at risk. This annotated bibliography is intended to give all parties to this effort a common set of documents to work from with links to the underlying child welfare principles or laws from the United Nations, states or collections of states. Since our working group is comprised of U.S. NGO and government partners, we have given emphasis to the laws of the United States as they have evolved over time. The U.S. laws reflect and are reflected by those of other countries and international bodies and we see many themes emerging across regions and organizations.
