The term has a commonly accepted meaning under the Refugee Convention and Protocol but it no longer covers all people who are forcibly displaced.
The international organisations have given specific definition about refugees, but still it is difficult to apply it to many forcibly displaced people due to little political support on widening its definition.
So, it has become very hard nowadays to say who counts as a “refugee”, and who does not? The answer to this question are still quite blurry.
The story goes back to the two world wars that led governments to prepare international laws to protect some of the people displaced by them.
In 1921 the League of Nations established a High Commission for Refugees to aid the millions of people who were left stateless by the first world war.
In the post-second world war, as Europe faced an even larger refugee crisis, Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed at the UN in 1948 to obligate states to protect refugees.
But it was the Refugee Convention of 1951 that sketched how.
The first version was restricted to people who became refugees due to events in Europe before 1951.
In 1967, the “Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees” extended the convention’s protections to non-Europeans.
During the cold-war, millions of people have been displaced and the number of refugees sharply increased. It has been growing ever since.
82.4 million forcibly displaced people worldwide at the end of 2020 as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order, according to the UN refugee agency.
Seeking inclusive definition
The Refugee Convention describes a refugee as “someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.”
The major provision of the document is that of “non-refoulement”, which prevents sending people back to countries where they encounter a “credible” threat of persecution.
The document also requires that countries will not penalise refugees who entered their countries illegally if they arrived “directly” from the place they were persecuted.
It also emphasizes refugees’ rights to work, housing and education in their host countries.
In time, tribunals in numerous countries have expanded their interpretation of the convention.
For instance, some have recognised the irregular entry should not block asylum-seekers from obtaining refugee status even if they passed through a third country.
However still, many people who are forced to leave their homes are not included by the boundaries of the convention.
Moreover, millions of people escaping natural disasters are excluded. As climate change threatens societies today, some people argue that such climate migrants deserve international protection.
But the idea of widening the refugee definition has little political support.
Over the past several years a rise in the number of asylum-seekers coming to Europe and America has provoked a reaction against the obligations imposed by the refugee convention.
But they are not aware that many of today’s forcibly displaced people are fleeing perils that the convention’s drafters could not imagine.
READ MORE: What’s the difference between migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers?
Source: TRTWorld and agencies
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