Convention and Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees

Grounded in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of human rights
1948, which recognizes the right of persons to seek asylum from persecution
in other countries, the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of
Refugees, adopted in 1951, is the centrepiece of international refugee protection
today.(1) The Convention entered into force on 22 April 1954, and it has
been subject to only one amendment in the form of a 1967 Protocol, which
removed the geographic and temporal limits of the 1951 Convention.(2) The
1951 Convention, as a post-Second World War instrument, was originally
limited in scope to persons fleeing events occurring before 1 January 1951 and
within Europe. The 1967 Protocol removed these limitations and thus gave
the Convention universal coverage. It has since been supplemented by refugee
and subsidiary protection regimes in several regions,(3) as well as via the
progressive development of international human rights law