The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol

The Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees adopted on 28 July 1951 in Geneva continues to provide the most comprehensive codification of the rights of refugees yet attempted. Consolidating previous international instruments relating to refugees, the 1951 Convention with its 1967 Protocol marks a cornerstone in the development of international refugee law. At present, there are 149 States Parties to one or both of these instruments, expressing a worldwide consensus on the definition of the term refugee and the fundamental rights to be granted to refugees. These facts demonstrate and underline the extraordinary significance of these instruments as the indispensable legal basis of international refugee law. This Commentary provides for a systematic and comprehensive analysis of the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol on an article-by-article basis, exposing the interrelationship between the different articles and discussing the latest developments in international refugee law. In addition, several thematic contributions analyse questions of international refugee law which are of general significance, such as regional developments, the interrelationship between refugee law and general human rights law, as well as the relationship between refugee law and the law of the sea.

Auteur

Professor Andreas Zimmermann is Professor of Law, University of Potsdam and Director of the Potsdam Centre of Human Rights; Dr. jur. (Heidelberg), LL.M. (Harvard); former Member of the German delegation to the Preparatory Committee and the United Nations Diplomatic Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court, and of the UN Human Rights Committee; member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration; counsel in various cases before the ICJ; former judge ad hoc at the European Court of Human Rights; arbitrator under the annex to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties; member of the advisory board on international law of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs; co-editor, inter alia, of The Statute of the International Court of Justice: A Commentary (Oxford University Press, 3rd edition, 2019). Professor Terje Einarsen is Professor of Law at University of Bergen (Norway) and Senior Research Associate, SOAS University of London. He holds a Ph.D. (Dr Juris) from the University of Bergen and a master's degree (LL.M.) from Harvard Law School. He is also a lawyer and member of the Norwegian Bar Association with permanent permission to appear before the Supreme Court. Einarsen was formerly a judge for ten years at the general Gulating High Court for the Western parts of Norway, and Head of the Human Rights Committee, Norwegian Judges' Association. He has also served as a permanent member of the Grand Chamber, Immigration Board of Appeals. He is chairperson of International Commission of Jurists, the Norwegian section (ICJ Norway) since 2018. Franziska M. Herrmann is a PhD candidate at the University of Potsdam, working in the context of the Berlin Potsdam Research Group "The International Rule of Law - Rise or Decline?". She studied law at the University of Potsdam and Bergen and holds a Bachelor of Law, as well as the German First State Examination.