The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

In one line

The Office was established by General Assembly resolution 428(V) of 14 December 1950 with a Statute annexed, entered upon its work on 1 January 1951, and provides international protection to refugees and seeks permanent solutions, while the 1951 Convention and its 1967 Protocol supply the definition, the rights and the prohibition on return to persecution.

Creation and status

Established by General Assembly resolution 428(V) of 14 December 1950, with the Statute of the Office annexed to it, and began work on 1 January 1951.

It is a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly, not a specialised agency. [UNESCO, UNICEF and the Other Agencies] draws that distinction.

It was created for three years and has been extended repeatedly, and the temporal limitation was later removed.

The Statute's key propositions. The High Commissioner shall assume the function of providing international protection to refugees and of seeking permanent solutions for the problem of refugees. The work shall be of an entirely non-political character, and it shall be humanitarian and social and relate as a rule to groups and categories of refugees.

The non-political clause is the price of the mandate, and it recurs whenever the Office is criticised for silence about the causes of displacement.

The 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol

The Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951, and the Protocol of 1967.

The definition, article 1A(2): a refugee is a person who, owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.

Five elements, and each is litigated. A well-founded fear, which is partly subjective and partly objective. Persecution, undefined in the Convention. One of five listed grounds, of which membership of a particular social group has carried the development of the law. Being outside the country of nationality, which excludes the internally displaced. And inability or unwillingness to seek that country's protection.

The Convention as adopted was limited to events occurring before 1 January 1951, with an optional geographic limitation to Europe. The 1967 Protocol removed both, which is why the Protocol matters as much as the Convention.

Article 1F excludes those about whom there are serious reasons for considering that they have committed a crime against peace, a war crime or a crime against humanity, a serious non-political crime outside the country of refuge before admission, or acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Non-refoulement

Article 33(1): no Contracting State shall expel or return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.