That grand old thing is getting on a bit.  Still significant and still functioning wearily, the United Nations Refugee Convention of 1951 has suffered abuse, subversion and neglect from state parties.  At times, it is only honoured in the breach.  At other times, it is not honoured at all.  After three-quarters of a century, it is easy to forget the hot ideal that streaks through the document: that it contains, as Christopher Bentram aptly remarks, “a kind of substitute citizenship” for those who have left their country of origin and find their bonds “broken by the threat of prosecution.”  It was the first of its kind to expand the focus of protection beyond narrowly designated groups.  (Consider, in this regard the 1933 Convention relating to the International Status of Refugees, applicable to Russian, Armenian and “assimilated” refugees.)

From the start though, the concerns and ambivalent approach of certain States, notably wealthier ones, were registered.  The original 1951 document maintained that a refugee was an individual outside their country of nationality or habitual residence with a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a social group or political opinion arising from “events occurring before 1 January 1951.”  It took the 1967 Protocol to remove the temporal limitation on the definition of refugees

Certain salutatory principles remain in the document.  The principles of non-discrimination, non-penalisation and non-refoulement (not returning refugees or asylum seekers to a place where they risk harm) seem deathless, even in the face of sovereign frigidity.

Certain salutatory principles remain in the document.  The principles of non-discrimination, non-penalisation and non-refoulement (not returning refugees or asylum seekers to a place where they risk harm) seem deathless, even in the face of sovereign frigidity.

Australia, a country very much a pioneer in the field of tarnishing, if not trashing the Convention, continues to take a brutal........

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