74 years of the United Nations Convention of 1951: challenges and reflections on the definition of “Refugee”

Abstract

This study reflects on the definition of “refugee” under the 1951 United Nations Convention, seventy-four years after its adoption. To this end, there will be a review of the post-Second World War context (1939-1945) that led to the emergence of the aforementioned document, as well as its updating with the 1967 New York Protocol and complementations by the Convention of the Organization of African Unity of 1969 and by the Cartagena Declaration of 1984. Continuously, with the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) and the end of the Soviet Union (1991), the change in the profile of migratory flows, from the South towards the Geopolitical North, was accompanied by the (re)emergence of Refuge studies as studies of Forced Migration. In the 21st century, the controversial outdated legal definition of “refugee” will be discussed in view of challenges such as the climate crisis, gender and sexuality cleavages and their blurred line with economic migrants. As a result, it is pointed out that refugee status was transformed into a privilege whose exception in the case of a danger or threat to national security became the rule in destination countries in the Geopolitical North. Finally, despite popular demands for reform of the 1951 Convention, given its increasing relativization by States, its conservation proves to be indispensable to the minimum guarantee of rights and protection for the most vulnerable category of refugees.