What does the UN 1951 Refugee Convention say – and can you change it?
The home secretary has suggested the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention needs updating to stop “simply being gay or a woman” being a reason for people to claim asylum in the UK.
In a speech to a right-wing thinktank in New York today, Suella Braverman will ask whether the 1951 convention is “fit for our modern age” or “whether it is in need of reform”.
She cites the rising number of refugees across the world and those arriving in the UK in small boats as proof we “now live in a completely different time” to when the convention was written.
Here Sky News looks at what the convention says and how difficult it would be to change.
What does it say?
The UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees was originally signed by 28 countries, including the UK, in Geneva in July 1951.
As a “post-Second World War instrument” it was “originally limited in scope to persons fleeing events occurring before 1 January 1951 and within Europe”, namely the Holocaust.
But it has since expanded and updated with more than 100 countries now signatories.
It defines what a refugee is, what rights they have and what obligations states have to them when they arrive.
According to the convention, a refugee is “someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion”.
With the development of international human rights law, the convention says it should now be applied “without discrimination as to sex, age, disability, sexuality, or other prohibited grounds of discrimination”.
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It gives refugees the right to “non-discrimination, non-penalisation and non-refoulement”.
The “non-penalisation” section means refugees “should not be penalised for their illegal entry or stay” in the country they flee to and recognises that “seeking asylum can require refugees to breach immigration rules”.
The “non-refoulement” part bans countries from “expelling or returning a refugee against his or her will, in any manner whatsoever, to a territory where he or she fears threats to life or freedom”.
According to the convention, countries are also obliged to give asylum seekers access to “courts, primary education, work, and documentation, including a refugee travel document in passport form”.
The convention does not apply to refugees who benefit from another specific UN or equivalent humanitarian programme, for example people from Palestine who fall under the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman
What does Suella Braverman want?
The home secretary says that while after the Second World War, the convention conferred protection on around two million refugees, some data analysis suggests that in the current context, this number is now 780 million.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) puts the original figure at one million and the current one at 35.3 million, as of the end of 2022.
Suella Braverman argues that the provisions on having a “well-founded fear of persecution” have been watered down to just “discrimination”.
She says this has created an asylum system where “simply being gay, or a woman, and fearful of discrimination in your country of origin is sufficient to qualify for protection”.
Can you change the convention?
The original 1951 convention was updated in 1967 to remove the “geographical and temporal limitations” and give it “universal coverage”.
Since then it has been “supplemented” according to the “progressive development of international human rights law”.
Although the convention itself hasn’t changed – the way courts have interpreted it to rule on cases has – providing new case law for their own and other countries.
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Natasha Tsangarides, associate director of advocacy for the charity Freedom from Torture, says Ms Braverman is wrong to say case law now defines a refugee as facing discrimination – not persecution.
“That’s incorrect, there’s no case law to support that,” she told Sky News.
“People, whether they are LGBT or not, need a ‘well-founded fear of persecution’ to be able to seek asylum.”
On the growing numbers of migrants globally, which some estimate could reach a quarter of a billion due to the climate crisis and other conflicts, Ms Tsangarides stresses that isn’t the issue.
“It’s correct to say that more people are on the move than they were before. But of those displaced people, two thirds stay in their country and just move to a different part.
“Of that third who leave, seven out of ten stay in their region, which means only a small fraction of them come to Europe and try to seek asylum in the UK.
“The asylum system is in chaos, not because more people are coming, but because the Home Office has been presided over by chaotic governments that have neglected the system.”
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Labour: ‘There’s a migration system crisis’
Immigration lawyer Harjap Bhangal also says changing the convention or the way it’s interpreted by judges and Home Office decision makers won’t solve the UK asylum crisis.
Out of 78,768 asylum applications for the year ending June 2023, 71% were approved.
Only six return agreements have been struck in recent years and there is still a Home Office backlog of more than 130,000 cases.
“The problem here is the government isn’t sending as many people back as they used to,” Mr Bhangal said.
“The removals numbers have been whittled down. That isn’t the fault of the convention – it’s the machinery and a case of a bad workman blaming his tools.”
Official changes, like the one in 1967, have to be approved by all 149 member states, Mr Bhangal added, which with Ms Braverman’s lack of success on returns agreements, would be near impossible.
“I don’t think she’s going to get the support,” he said. “At the moment she can’t even get EU countries to sign return agreements, so it’s not even workable.
“Changing the wording of the convention isn’t going to stop the boats – people smugglers don’t care about what the official definition of a refugee is.”
United States Senator Jon Ossoff expressed support for impeaching President Donald Trump during an April 25 town hall, citing the President’s plan to host a private dinner for top Official Trump memecoin holders.
“I mean, I saw just 48 hours ago, he is granting audiences to people who buy his meme coin,” said Ossoff, a Democrat, according to a report by NBC News.
“When the sitting president of the United States is selling access for what are effectively payments directly to him. There is no question that that rises to the level of an impeachable offense.”
Senator Ossoff said he “strongly” supports impeachment proceedings during a town hall in the state of Georgia, where he is running for reelection to the Senate.
The Senator added that an impeachment is unlikely unless the Democratic Party gains control of Congress during the US midterm elections in 2026. Trump’s own Republican Party currently has a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
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Conflicts of interest
On April 23, the Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin’s website announced plans for Trump to host an exclusive dinner at his Washington, DC golf club with the top 220 TRUMP holders.
The website subsequently posted a leaderboard tracking top TRUMP wallets and a link to register for the event. The TRUMP token’s price has gained more than 50% since the announcement, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
The specific guest list is unclear, but the memecoin’s website states that applicants must pass a background check, “can not be from a [Know Your Customer] watchlist country,” and cannot bring any additional guests.
On April 25, the team behind TRUMP denied social media rumors that TRUMP holders need at least $300,000 to participate in an upcoming dinner with the president.
“People have been incorrectly quoting #220 on the block explorer as the cutoff. That’s wrong because it includes things like locked tokens, exchanges, market makers, and those who are not participating. Instead, you should only be going off the leaderboard,” they wrote.
Legal experts told Cointelegraph that Trump’s cryptocurrency ventures, including the TRUMP memecoin and Trump-affiliated decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol World Liberty Financial, raise significant concerns about potential conflicts of interest.
“Within just a couple of days of him taking office, he’s signed a number of executive orders that are significantly going to affect the way that our crypto and digital assets industry works,” Charlyn Ho of law firm Rikka told Cointelegraph in February.
“So if he has a personal pecuniary benefit arising from his own policies, that’s a conflict of interest.”
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Crypto investor sentiment has seen a significant recovery from global tariff concerns, but analysts warn that the market’s structural weaknesses may still result in downside momentum during periods of weekend illiquidity.
Risk appetite appeared to return among crypto investors this week after US President Donald Trump adopted a softer tone, saying that import tariffs on Chinese goods may “come down substantially.”
However, the improved investor sentiment “does not guarantee that Bitcoin will avoid volatility over the weekend,” analysts from Bitfinex exchange told Cointelegraph:
“Sentiment improvements reduce fragility, but they do not eliminate structural risks like thin weekend liquidity.”
“Historically, weekends remain vulnerable to sharp moves — especially when open interest is high and market depth is low,” the analysts said, adding that unexpected macroeconomic news can still increase volatility during low liquidity periods.
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Bitcoin (BTC) staged a near 11% recovery during the past week, but its rally has previously been limited by Sunday liquidity dynamics.
Bitcoin fell below $75,000 on Sunday, April 6, despite initially decoupling from the US stock market’s $3.5 trillion drop on April 4 after US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned that Trump’s tariffs may affect the economy and raise inflation.
The correction was exacerbated by the lack of weekend liquidity and the fact that Bitcoin was the only large liquid asset available for de-risking, industry watchers told Cointelegraph.
Related: US banks are ‘free to begin supporting Bitcoin’ — Michael Saylor
“While improved sentiment creates a more stable foundation, cryptocurrency markets are still susceptible to rapid movements during periods of reduced trading volume,” according to Marcin Kazmierczak, co-founder and chief operating officer of RedStone blockchain oracle firm.
“The sentiment recovery provides some cushioning, but traders should remain cautious as weekend liquidity constraints can still amplify price movements regardless of the current market mood,” he told Cointelegraph.
Crypto investors may have “maxed out on tariff-related fears”
Cryptocurrency markets may have priced in the full extent of tariff-related concerns, according to Aurelie Barthere, principal research analyst at crypto intelligence platform Nansen.
“It feels like we’ve maxed out on tariff-related fear,” she told Cointelegraph, adding:
“While many remain uncertain about where things are headed over the next month or so, it also seems like markets were just waiting for the slightest signal that we’re back in the game.”
“Whether the rally is sustainable depends on whether we can break through previous resistance levels, at least in isolation. It could have legs, as markets now seem to believe there’s a ‘Trump put’ under equities, the US dollar and US Treasurys,” Barthere added, warning of more potential volatility amid the upcoming negotiations.
Nansen previously predicted a 70% chance that crypto markets will bottom and start a recovery by June, but highlighted that the timing will depend on the outcome of tariff negotiations.
The tariff negotiations may only be “posturing” for the US to reach a trade agreement with China, which may be the “big prize” for Trump’s administration, according to Raoul Pal, founder and CEO of Global Macro Investor.
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Over $4 trillion worth of real estate could be tokenized on blockchain networks during the next decade, potentially offering investors greater access to property ownership opportunities, according to a new report.
The Deloitte Center for Financial Services predicts that over $4 trillion worth of real estate may be tokenized by 2035, up from less than $300 billion in 2024. The report, published April 24, estimates a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 27%.
The $4 trillion of tokenized property is predicted to stem from the benefits of blockchain-based assets, as well as a structural shift across real estate and property ownership.
“Real estate itself is undergoing transformation. Post-pandemic work-from-home trends, climate risk, and digitization have reshaped property fundamentals,” according to Chris Yin, co-founder of Plume Network, a blockchain built for real-world assets (RWAs).
“Office buildings are being repurposed into AI data centers, logistics hubs and energy-efficient residential communities,” Yin told Cointelegraph.
“Investors want targeted access to these modern use cases, and tokenization enables programmable, customizable exposure to such evolving asset profiles,” he said.
Related: Blockchain needs regulation, scalability to close AI hiring gap
The uncertainty triggered by US President Donald Trump’s import tariffs has boosted investor interest in the RWA tokenization sector, which involves minting financial products and tangible assets on a blockchain.
Both stablecoins and RWAs have attracted significant capital as safe-haven assets amid the global trade concerns, Juan Pellicer, senior research analyst at IntoTheBlock, told Cointelegraph.
The tariff concerns also led tokenized gold volume to surpass $1 billion in trading volume on April 10, its highest level since March 2023 when a US banking crisis saw the sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the voluntary liquidation of Silvergate Bank
Related: US banks are ‘free to begin supporting Bitcoin’ — Michael Saylor
Blockchain innovation could drive regulatory clarity
Growing RWA adoption may inspire a more welcoming stance from global regulators, Yin said.
“While regulation is a hurdle, regulation follows usage,” he explained, likening tokenization to Uber’s growth before widespread regulatory acceptance:
“Tokenization is similar — as demand increases, regulatory clarity will follow.”
He added that making tokenized products compliant with a wide range of international regulations is key to unlocking broader market access.
However, some industry watchers are skeptical about the benefits introduced by tokenized real estate.
“I don’t think tokenization should have its eyes directly set on real estate,” said Securitize chief operating officer Michael Sonnenshein at Paris Blockchain Week 2025.
“I’m sure there are all kinds of efficiencies that can be unlocked using blockchain technology to eliminate middlemen, escrow, and all kinds of things in real estate. But I think today, what the onchain economy is demanding are more liquid assets,” he added.
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