Symposium on the 1951 Refugee Convention at 75: Everlasting Cornerstone of Refugee Protection in Europe

[Karolína Babická is a Senior Legal Adviser with the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ).

Rosa Tibbetts is a Legal Intern with the ICJ.

Stavros Papageorgopoulos is a Senior Legal Officer with the European Council on Refugees and Exiles.]

Across Europe, some political actors are nowadays questioning the ability of the international legal order, including instruments such as the 1951 Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to address contemporary issues such as migration. Most recently, these attempts of States to evade their international legal obligations have been illustrated by the CoE’s adoption of the Chişinǎu Declaration in May 2026, which has been criticised by civil society organisations as potentially weakening established principles, such as non-refoulement by endorsing “new approaches”, such as external asylum processing centres and undermining the independence and authority of the Convention system.

In this context, the 75th anniversary of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (the 1951 Refugee Convention) takes on particular significance this year. The 1951 Refugee Convention, adopted in Geneva on 28 July 1951, and/or its 1967 Protocol have since been ratified by 149 States, making them the most universal statements on refugee rights and protection today. This foundational international treaty established the core principles underpinning the European approach to asylum, guiding states and international institutions including the European Union and the Council of Europe, as well as civil society organisations organisations such as the International Commission of Jurists and European Council on Refugees and Exiles

Beyond its binding provisions, the 1951 Refugee Convention is reinforced by the institutional role of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which is mandated by its Statute and under article 35 of the Convention to supervise its application. The Executive Committee of the Programme of the High Commissioner for Refugees (ExCom) further provides important sources of guidance for the interpretation and application of binding refugee law obligations. UNHCR has become an important interpretative authority, widely relied upon by practitioners and international bodies to secure the right to protection from non-refoulement and provide legal guidance on how the 1951 Refugee Convention should be applied in practice.

Unlike other international human rights treaties, the 1951 Refugee Convention lacks a dedicated treaty body. The absence of a formal mechanism gives the supervisory role of UNHCR, their authoritative guidance, interpretation and third-party interventions, a particular importance. The continued relevance of the Refugee Convention in Europe is shown through its integration into international and European legal systems.

Against this backdrop, this post examines the continued significance of the 1951 Refugee Convention as the cornerstone of international protection for refugees and asylum seekers in Europe.

The 1951 Geneva Convention in the Council of Europe Legal Order

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is the judicial body responsible for interpreting and supervising the ECHR through individual and inter-state complaints alleging violations of the rights of the ECHR. While the ECHR does not contain an explicit provision referring to the right to asylum, the ECtHR developed a body of case law protecting refugees and asylum-seekers, often integrating the 1951 Refugee Convention in its jurisprudence. The Court’s approach on securing protection from prosecution and serious harm relies mostly on article 3 ECHR, whose absolute nature was reiterated in the recently adopted Declaration (para. 22), and article 4 of Protocol 4 to the ECHR (A4P4).

The significance of the 1951 Refugee Convention in the protection of the rights of refugees and asylum seekers is illustrated in the Court’s case law, such as in the case of Hirsi Jamaa and Others v. Italy. In this landmark judgment, the Grand Chamber of the Court addressed Italy’s “pushback” practice of intercepting migrants at sea and returning them to Libya without assessing their international protection needs. Drawing on submissions from UNHCR and other actors, the Court affirmed that the principle of non-refoulement applies extraterritorially where a State exercises effective control, including on the high seas. It found violations of article 3, A4P4, and article 13 on account of the applicants’ return to Libya, the lack of individual examination (para. 185) and the absence of an effective remedy (paras. 205-206). As the first ECtHR case on extraterritorial interception-at-sea, the Hirsi judgment was highly important in extending the jurisdiction of human rights beyond the territorial borders of a State. The judgment drew specifically on the 1951 Refugee Convention, including the prohibition of refoulement under article 33, and on UNHCR’s authoritative interpretation of those obligations, treating the 1951 Refugee Convention as informing both the substantive scope of article 3 ECHR (including its extraterritorial application) and the prohibition of collective expulsion under A4P4.

The cornerstone of international refugee protection, the prohibition of non-refoulement, is enshrined in Article 33 of the 1951 Refugee Convention and prohibits States Parties from expelling or returning refugees, “in any manner whatsoever”, to a country where they may be persecuted or otherwise seriously harmed. This principle applies at the border and within the territory of a State, regardless of formal recognition of refugee status. It further entails that to determine whether the expulsion of an asylum-seeker would put them at risk of persecution, the State must scrutinise the individual circumstances of the applicant. This was acknowledged by the ECtHR in R.U. v. Greece where the Court stated that:

“it follows from articles 31 to 33 of the Refugee Convention that the expulsion of a person who has filed an asylum claim is not permissible until there has been a final decision rejecting the asylum claim”.

(para. 94)

G.R.J. v. Greece and A.R.E. v. Greece both addressed allegations of systematic refoulement of foreign nationals at Greece’s land and sea borders with Türkiye. In G.R.J, UNHCR’s submissions provided detailed analysis of the domestic and international legal framework, as well as extensive evidence of pushback practices. In both judgments, the ECtHR found that a systematic practice of pushbacks existed in Greece at the time of the alleged events (A.R.E., paras. 226-229 and G.R.J., para. 190). However, it declared the application of G.R.J. inadmissible on the basis that the applicant had failed to establish individual victim status under article 34 ECHR, due to insufficient proof that he had personally been subjected to such treatment (para. 224). By contrast, in A.R.E., decided on the same day, the applicant succeeded in substantiating her claim through a combination of audiovisual evidence, witness testimony, and supporting documentation, enabling the Court to examine the merits of the case (paras. 265–267). In its reasoning, the Court characterised the conduct of summarily turning back a person without affording access to the asylum procedure as being “manifestly in breach both of domestic and international law” (A.R.E., para. 282), framing the article 3 obligation by reference to the 1951 Refugee Convention’s prohibition of refoulement and to UNHCR’s submissions. Although these judgments highlight the high evidentiary threshold applicants must meet to demonstrate individual victim status, even in the face of credible indications of systemic practices in violation of the ECHR, the Court’s acknowledgment of widespread refoulement marks an important development in its jurisprudence on access to asylum procedures.

Further integrating the 1951 Refugee Convention in its jurisprudence, the ECtHR uses provisions of the latter as an interpretative tool to inform how the rights guaranteed by the ECHR apply in migration situations. In S.S and Others v. Hungary, a case concerned with the removal of two families from Hungary to Serbia, the Court did not consider the use of counterfeit documents for the purposes of travel as capable of discharging the Hungarian authorities of their duties under A4P4 ECHR. When assessing the State’s obligations, the Court referred to article 31(1) of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which prohibits the penalisation of refugees for irregular entry (paras. 30 and 31). The Court acknowledged that, in exercising the right to seek asylum, individuals seeking international protection are often compelled to travel without valid documentation and may resort to false or fraudulent documentation (para. 50). This informed the judgment in which the ECtHR found that the applicants were removed to Serbia without being afforded an effective opportunity to submit arguments against their removal, in violation of article 3 ECHR.

The 1951 Geneva Convention in EU Law 

Within the legal order of the European Union (EU), the 1951 Refugee Convention is accorded a central place in the making and implementation of the common asylum policy. Article 78 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) requires the EU’s common asylum policy to be developed “in accordance with” the Refugee Convention, while article 18 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU (the Charter) states that: “the right to asylum shall be guaranteed with due respect for the rules of the [Geneva Refugee Convention]”. Although the EU is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, these provisions integrate it as a binding interpretative framework within the EU asylum acquis: the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) has clarified that, although the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) is peculiar to the EU, its purpose is to ensure full compliance with the Refugee Convention (Joined Cases C-391/16 and C-77/17 and C/78/17, para. 83). In the same line, the CJEU has examined article 18 of the EU Charter in conjunction with article 33 of the Refugee Convention (Case C‑431/24, Multan, para. 31) and considers that documents issued by UNHCR are particularly relevant in asylum cases due to the role conferred to that organisation by the same Convention (C‑621/21, DAB, para. 38).

In the aforementioned joined cases, which considered three sets of proceedings on revocation, refusal and withdrawal of refugee status of individuals who had committed serious crimes, the Court provided an extensive analysis of the relationship between the 1951 Refugee Convention and EU law. It sought to ascertain whether the Qualification Directive created a new ground for exclusion from refugee status as set out in the 1951 Refugee Convention and therefore whether these articles were compatible with the Convention in light of article 18 of the Charter and article 78 TFEU.

First, the Court noted that the circumstances, referred to in article 14(4) and (5) of the Qualification Directive, in which Member States may revoke or refuse to grant refugee status, correspond, in essence, to those in which Member States may refouler a refugee under article 21(2) of that Directive and article 33(2) of the Geneva Refugee Convention. The Court clarified that while the 1951 Refugee Convention permits an exception to the principle of non-refoulement on the grounds of the refugee being a danger to the security of the country or, having been convicted by final judgement of a particular serious crime, constitutes a danger to the country’s community, the Directive must conform with the EU Charter and the absolute nature of the principle of non-refoulement under articles 4 and 19(2) (paras. 94-95). Second, this case enabled the CJEU to develop a more detailed understanding of key elements of the definition of the term “refugee” as enshrined in article 1 of 1951 Refugee Convention. In line with the Advocate General’s Opinion, the CJEU considered that “being a refugee” and “being granted refugee status” are different and underlined that being a refugee is not dependent on the formal recognition of that fact through the granting of refugee status (para. 92). The Court found that the refugee status of a person with a well-founded fear of persecution in the country of origin could be revoked or refused, yet this person would remain a refugee for the purposes of inter alia article 1(A) of the Geneva Refugee Convention and should thus be guaranteed certain rights as in the Refugee Convention, which does “not require a lawful stay, but merely the refugee’s physical presence in the territory of the host Member State” (paras. 99 and 107). 

This judgment illustrates how the incorporation of the 1951 Refugee Convention into EU law allows the CJEU not only to interpret the EU asylum acquis consistently with the Convention, but also to strengthen protection through the application of the EU Charter. In simple words: Member States cannot offer protection that diminishes the guarantees enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention but can and should offer greater protection when EU primary law requires it.

Lastly, it’s worth noting that even before the establishment of the CEAS, the CJEU had considered the international obligations that the six original EU Member States accepted under the 1951 Refugee Convention when examining the question of social rights of refugees under EU law. Since the 1951 Refugee Convention requires states to grant refugees lawfully staying in the country access to social security on the same terms as their own nationals, the Court held that there was no reason to consider Regulation No 1408/71 invalid because its personal scope extended to stateless persons, refugees residing in a Member State, and their family members (Khalil, paras. 44-58). 

The relevance of the 1951 Refugee Convention within the EU legal order has guided the development of EU asylum law from the outset. As the Pact on Migration and Asylum enters into force this month, the Convention will continue to guide the interpretation and application of the new rules, reaffirming its enduring role as the foundation of the CEAS.

Final Remarks 

Regional Courts and bodies often rely on the 1951 Refugee Convention in their judgments, and it remains an important cornerstone of refugee protection in the region. Despite increasing political contestation of refugee protection in Europe, the 1951 Refugee Convention remains a central and resilient legal framework. Its authority persists not through coercive enforcement mechanisms but through its deep integration into international and European legal systems, its continuous judicial interpretation, and the institutional role of UNHCR. Far from being a static historical treaty, it functions as a living instrument that constrains State discretion, structures judicial reasoning, and embeds minimum standards of human dignity within refugee law. In an era of intensified political pressure and calls for restriction on human rights of migrants and refugees, after 75 years the Convention continues to operate as a stabilising legal foundation ensuring that refugee protection remains grounded in binding international obligations rather than contingent political will.

[Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash]