The 1951 Convention on the status of refugees: Up-to-date or in need of reformulation?

Refugees are symptoms of war, persecution and intolerance, all themes of human drama. World War II had long since ended, but hundreds of thousands of refugees still wandered aimlessly across the European continent or squatted in makeshift camps. In 1951 the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Status of Refugees, which contains a definition of the term refugee and accords them a broad range of rights. It was hoped that with this institutional setting the refugee crisis could be cleared up quickly. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the guardian of the Convention, was given a three-year mandate to solve the situation, but refugee issues were a major international problem and have remained so. More than fifty years later, the treaty remains a cornerstone of refugee protection. With the treaty’s help, the UNHCR has assisted an estimated 50 million people in restarting their lives. But much has changed over the past half century. There are still millions of refugees, economic migrants and others that are on the move: the world and the refugee’s problem became more complex than they were back in 1951. In fact, the context in which the Convention was created differs much from the one we have now, both in quantitative and qualitative terms. Can the 1951 Convention respond to every situation where refugees urgently need protection? The events in Bosnia and in Kosovo during the 1990s demonstrate that it cannot, as analysed in the paper. So, is the Convention outdated like some of its critics claim? Or is it just a problem of interpretation?

By Teresa Cierco.