The 1951 Convention Relating To The Status Of Refugees And Its 1967 Protocol 2e

The Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees adopted on 28 July 1951 in Geneva continues to provide the most comprehensive codification of the rights of refugees yet attempted. Consolidating previous international instruments relating to refugees, the 1951 Convention with its 1967 Protocol marks a cornerstone in the development of international refugee law. At present, there are 149 States Parties to one or both of these instruments, expressing a worldwide consensus on the definition of the term refugee and the fundamental rights to be granted to refugees. These facts demonstrate and underline the extraordinary significance of these instruments as the indispensable legal basis of international refugee law. This Commentary provides for a systematic and comprehensive analysis of the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol on an article-by-article basis, exposing the interrelationship between the different articles and discussing the latest developments in international refugee law. In addition, several thematic contributions analyse questions of international refugee law which are of general significance, such as regional developments, the interrelationship between refugee law and general human rights law, as well as the relationship between refugee law and the law of the sea.

The Internal Protection Alternative in Refugee Law addresses the legal conditions under which a refugee claimant may be returned to a safe area within her country of origin.

UNHCR issues these Guidelines pursuant to its mandate, as contained in the 1950 Statute of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in conjunction with Article 35 of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and Article II of its 1967 Protocol. These Guidelines complement the UNHCR Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status under the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees (1979, re-edited, Geneva, January 1992). They should additionally be read in conjunction with UNHCR's Guidelines on International Protection on gender-related persecution within the context of Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention and/or 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees (HCR/GIP/02/01) and on membership of a particular social group within the context of Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention and/or its 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees (HCR/GIP/02/02), both of 7 May 2002. These Guidelines are intended to provide interpretative legal guidance for governments, legal practitioners, decision-makers and the judiciary, as well as for UNHCR staff carrying out refugee status determination in the field.

2. The role of UNHCR

The impact of violence and conflict on refugee status determination and international protection is a key developing field. Given the contemporary dynamics of armed conflict, how to interpret and apply the refugee definitions at global and regional levels is increasingly relevant to governmental policy-makers, decision-makers, legal practitioners, academics and students. This book will provide a comprehensive analysis of the global and regional refugee instruments as they apply to claimants in flight from situations of armed violence and conflict, exploring their interrelationship and how they are interpreted and applied (or should be applied). As part of a broader United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees project to develop guidelines on the interpretation and application of international refugee law instruments to claimants fleeing armed conflict and other situations of violence, it includes contributions from leading scholars and practitioners in this field as well as emerging authors with specific expertise.

Does human rights law help us to define who qualifies as a refugee? If so, then how? These deceptively simple questions sit at the heart of an intense contemporary debate over whether, or how, interpretation of the refugee definition in the Refugee Convention should take account of human rights law. In Human Rights and the Refugee Definition, Burson and Cantor bring a fine-grained comparative perspective to this debate. For the first time, they collect together in one edited volume over a dozen new studies by leading scholars and practitioners that explore in detail how these legal dynamics play out in a range of national and international jurisdictions and in relation to particular thematic challenges in refugee law.

The 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, and its 1967 Protocol, and many other important international instruments recognize the unique role the UNHCR plays in protecting refugees and supervising international refugee law. This in-depth analysis of the UNHCR's supervisory role in the international refugee protection regime examines the part played by key institutions, organizations and actors in the supervision of international refugee law. It provides suggestions and recommendations on how the UNHCR's supervisory role can be strengthened to ensure greater State Parties' compliance to their obligations under these international refugee rights treaties, and contributes to enhancing the international protection of refugees and to the promotion of a democratic global governance of the international refugee protection regime.

In an age of ethnic nationalism and anti-immigrant rhetoric, the study of refugees can help develop a new outlook on social justice, just as the post-war international order ends. The global financial crisis, the rise of populist leaders like Trump, Putin, and Erdogan, not to mention the arrival of anti-EU parties, raises the need to interrogate the refugee, migrant, citizen, stateless, legal, and illegal as concepts. This insightful Research Handbook is a timely contribution to that debate.

This book is an evaluation of the international response to a major protracted humanitarian situation. As such, it is the first comprehensive account and assessment of the effectiveness of international law in dealing with Iraqi refugees during the regime of Saddam Hussein.

The only comprehensive analysis of international refugee rights, anchored in the hard facts of refugee life around the world.