The 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention: Its Evolution, Current Practices, and the Need for Reform

Abstract

The 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention laid the foundations of the modern international asylum regime and provided the most comprehensive legal framework to protect refugees. However, today, global migration dynamics and state security-focused policies have made the effectiveness and relevance of the Convention debatable. This article critically evaluates the historical development of the Convention, its fundamental articles, and its impact on today's asylum regimes. In the scope of the article, the fundamental articles of the Convention, 1 and 33 will be examined and the definition of refugee, the principle of non-refoulement, and the obligations of the party states will be analyzed through country examples. In addition, the sociological, legal, and political (theoretical) dimensions of the refugee definition, which are missing in the literature, will be addressed together and the existing gaps will be tried to be filled. Today, the emphasis on exclusionary migration policies and safe third-country practices instead of international protection mechanisms limits the capacity of the Convention to secure the individual. In this context, the capacity of the Convention to respond to the current global migration crises and the need for reform will be discussed. Finally, the need for updating the Convention will be evaluated in light of the current deficiencies and possible solutions will be presented.