The 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees: Evolution and Relevance for Today

Authors

Pierre-Michel Fontaine, International Relations Department, Florida International University

First Page

149

Abstract

One may justifiably wonder why the relevance of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, ("Convention"), which has been called alternatively a "Bill of Rights for Refugees" and a "Magna Carta for Refugees," would be made an issue in a discussion on refugee law. The fact is that it became quite fashionable in some circles within the refugee advocacy community in the late 1980's and early 1990's to boldly claim that the 1951 Convention (its Protocol was rarely mentioned in this context) was no longer relevant to most refugee situations. Such a claim continues to be made today, though less vehemently. In this respect, the lesser vehemence is perhaps due to the evolution of the 1951 Convention and its Protocol (or more precisely the evolution of the international legal regime of which they are an integral part) and to the final realization that it is most unlikely that anything better would come out of any attempt to upgrade or replace these international instruments. Yet, some have argued that the Convention was in fact never relevant to certain refugee situations, meaning the situations of largescale influx that have characterized our world in the past several decades. This claim refers mostly to the fact that these large-scale displacements, which occurred during and between the two World Wars and then later during and after the period of decolonization that followed and well into the twenty-first century are not amenable to the application of the Convention refugee definition either before or even after it was modified by the 1967 Protocol, due to its focus on the notion of persecution. This view, which focuses on the Convention's refugee definition, is said to be out of step with our times by being too narrow, too concerned with persecution, and not in tune with the plight of the overwhelming majority of contemporary refugees, who are the victims of large-scale international or (increasingly) communal violence.

Recommended Citation

Pierre-Michel Fontaine, The 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees: Evolution and Relevance for Today, 2 Intercultural Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 149 (2007).
Available at: https://scholarship.stu.edu/ihrlr/vol2/iss1/11