Report

Discussion paper: The 1951 refugee convention and a crisis of credibility

This report from UK think tank the Coalition for Global Prosperity asks why the system now commands so little political legitimacy and what it might take to restore it.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Europe was confronted with a crisis of staggering proportions: 55 million people had been forcibly displaced across the continent. It was recognised that an international legal framework would be necessary to ensure that those who had lost the protection of their own state could find it elsewhere. The result was the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees — a landmark achievement that set the rules for how the world manages large numbers of forcibly displaced people, and which continues to form the basis of that system today.

Yet over time, cracks in that initial design have begun to show. The international context has changed beyond all recognition. Refugee numbers are far greater now, driven by protracted conflicts, in greater numbers. The return of great power competition and retreat from multilateralism has undermined the forums through which transnational challenges like refugee flows can be addressed. Our current system has also produced large numbers of people trapped in camps for decades — ‘forever refugees’ with no prospect of return, resettlement, or any other durable solution.

The result is a system under serious strain: inconsistently applied, chronically underfunded, and haemorrhaging the domestic political legitimacy on which any international treaty ultimately depends. This paper traces the origins of the Convention, examines how it has intersected with the refugee crises of the 21st century, and asks a harder question than whether the Convention’s principles remain valid — it asks why the system built on those principles commands so little political legitimacy, and what it might take to restore it.