Documents

Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees

Citation Formats

General Reference

Political Atlas. "Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://dev-political.interactiveatlas.org/documents/convention-relating-to-the-status-of-refugees.

APA Style

Political Atlas. (n.d.). Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://dev-political.interactiveatlas.org/documents/convention-relating-to-the-status-of-refugees

BibTeX

@misc{politicalatlas-convention-relating-to-the-status-of-ref,
  author = {Political Atlas},
  title = {Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-political.interactiveatlas.org/documents/convention-relating-to-the-status-of-refugees},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees is the foundational treaty of international refugee law, defining who qualifies as a refugee, setting out refugees' rights, and establishing the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits returning a refugee to a country where they face persecution. Adopted in the aftermath of the Second World War and originally limited to events occurring in Europe before 1951, its scope was extended worldwide by a 1967 Protocol. It is supervised by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Facts

Year

1951 1

Key Provision

Adopted in Geneva on 28 July 1951 and originally limited to persons displaced by events in Europe before 1951 until a 1967 Protocol removed that geographic and temporal limitation, it defines a refugee as a person with a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, who is outside their country of nationality and unable or unwilling to seek that country's protection. Its central obligation, the principle of non-refoulement in Article 33, prohibits a state from expelling or returning a refugee to a territory where their life or freedom would be threatened on those grounds, and the Convention further sets out refugees' rights to work, housing, education, freedom of movement and identity and travel documents in the country that receives them. 1

Cross-Tradition Connections