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The Refugee Convention at 70 - The limits of Western hospitality: from asylum to deterrence?

Olivia Nantermoz - PhD Candidate in the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics (LSE)

As the world celebrates the 70^th anniversary of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, 82.4 million (or 1 out of 95) people worldwide are forcibly displaced. Among them, 26.4 million had fled to another country to seek refuge, thereby falling under the purview of the UN Refugee Convention. The 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Additional Protocol were born out of the realisation that the protection of those persecuted and forced into exile was of concern to the international community as a whole, requiring global cooperation to ensure respect for the fundamental rights and freedoms of those finding themselves ‘in between sovereigns’. Whilst the practice of granting protection the stranger goes far back in time, the Refugee Convention has led to the legalisation and institutionalisation of the principle of asylum. The 149 states parties to the 1951 Convention and/or its Additional Protocol is evidence of the broad consensus existing within international society on the importance of protecting refugees – a consensus echoed in the numerous soft law declarations and resolutions reaffirming the importance of asylum and of its core principle of non-refoulement.