What does the UN 1951 Refugee Convention say – and can you change it?

Published

2 years ago

September 26, 2023

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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.

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.

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.”

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.”

Politics

UK won’t give more visas to Indian workers, says PM

Published

9 hours ago

October 8, 2025

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UK won't give more visas to Indian workers, says PM

Sir Keir Starmer has said the government will not relax visa rules for India, as he embarks upon a two-day trade trip to Mumbai.

The prime minister touched down this morning with dozens of Britain’s most prominent business people, including bosses from BA, Barclays, Standard Chartered, BT and Rolls-Royce.

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The first full-blown trade mission to India since Theresa May was prime minister, it’s designed to boost ties between the two countries.

Sir Keir – whose face has been plastered over posters and billboards across Mumbai – will meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, five months after the UK signed the first trade deal with India since Brexit.

The agreement has yet to be implemented, with controversial plans to waive national insurance for workers employed by big Indian businesses sent to the UK still the subject of a forthcoming consultation.

However, the business delegation is likely to use the trip to lobby the prime minister not to put more taxes on them in the November budget.

Sir Keir has already turned down the wish of some CEOs on the trip to increase the number of visas.

Speaking to journalists on the plane on the way out, he said: “The visa situation hasn’t changed with the free trade agreement, and therefore we didn’t open up more visas.”

He told business that it wasn’t right to focus on visas, telling them: “The issue is not about visas.

“It’s about business-to-business engagement and investment and jobs and prosperity coming into the UK.”

No birthday wishes for Putin

The prime minister sidestepped questions about Mr Modi’s support of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, whom he wished a happy birthday on social media. US President Donald Trump has increased tariffs against India, alleging that Indian purchases of Russian oil are supporting the war in Ukraine.

Asked about Mr Modi wishing Mr Putin happy birthday, and whether he had leverage to talk to Mr Modi about his relationship with Russia, Sir Keir sidestepped the question.

“Just for the record, I haven’t… sent birthday congratulations to Putin, nor am I going to do so,” he said.

“I don’t suppose that comes as a surprise. In relation to energy, and clamping down on Russian energy, our focus as the UK, and we’ve been leading on this, is on the shadow fleet, because we think that’s the most effective way.

“We’ve been one of the lead countries in relation to the shadow fleet, working with other countries.”

PM: We aren’t forcing wealthy people out

Sir Keir refused to give business leaders any comfort about the budget and tax hikes, despite saying in his conference speech that he recognised the last budget had an impact.

“What I acknowledged in my conference, and I’ve acknowledged a number of times now, is we asked a lot of business in the last budget. It’s important that I acknowledge that, and I also said that that had helped us with growth and stabilising the economy,” he added. “I’m not going to make any comment about the forthcoming budget, as you would expect; no prime minister or chancellor ever does.”

Asked if too many wealthy people were leaving London, he said: “No. We keep a careful eye on the figures, as you would expect.

“The measures that we took at the last budget are bringing a considerable amount of revenue into the government which is being used to fix things like the NHS. We keep a careful eye on the figures.”

Politics

Spying trial collapsed after government refused to brand China a threat, says top prosecutor

Published

9 hours ago

October 8, 2025

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A Chinese spying trial collapsed last month after the UK government would not label Beijing a national security threat, a top prosecutor has said.

Christopher Berry, 33, and former parliamentary researcher Christopher Cash, 30, were accused of espionage for China.

But the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced on 15 September that the charges would be dropped, sparking criticism from Downing Street and MPs.

Berry, of Witney, Oxfordshire, and Cash, from Whitechapel, east London, had denied accusations of providing information prejudicial to the interests of the state in breach of the Official Secrets Act between December 2021 and February 2023.

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Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions (DPP), told MPs in a letter on Tuesday that the CPS had tried “over many months” to get the evidence it needed to carry out the prosecution, but it had not been forthcoming from the Labour government.

However, Sir Keir Starmer insisted the decision to brand China a threat would have to have been taken under the last Conservative administration.

The prime minister said: “You can’t prosecute someone two years later in relation to a designation that wasn’t in place at the time.”

It is understood that the decision to end the case came after a meeting of senior officials which, according to The Sunday Times, included Jonathan Powell, the national security adviser, and Sir Oliver Robins, the Foreign Office’s top diplomat.

To prove the case under the Official Secrets Act of 1911, prosecutors would have to show the defendants were acting for an “enemy”.

Both the current Labour government and the previous Conservative governments have not labelled China a risk to national security.

In his letter to the chairs of the Commons home and justice select committees, Mr Parkinson said: “It was considered that further evidence should be obtained.

“Efforts to obtain that evidence were made over many months, but notwithstanding the fact that further witness statements were provided, none of these stated that at the time of the offence China represented a threat to national security, and by late August 2025 it was realised that this evidence would not be forthcoming.

“When this became apparent, the case could not proceed.”

He also pointed out that in a separate case about Russian spying last year, a judge ruled that an “enemy” under the 1911 Act must be a country that represents a threat to national security of the UK “at the time of the offence”.

How has the government responded?

Sir Keir has addressed the contents of the letter, which he said he had “read at speed”, while on board a flight to Mumbai, as part of the UK’s largest ever trade mission to India.

The PM said: “What matters is what the designation [of China] was in 2023, because that’s when the offence was committed and that’s when the relevant period was.

“Statements were drawn up at the time according to the then government policy, and they haven’t been changed in relation to it, that was the position then.

“I might just add, nor could the position change, because it was the designation at the time that matters.”

Sir Keir, a former director of public prosecutions, added that he wasn’t “saying that defensively”, but because “as a prosecutor, I know that… it is what the situation at the time that matters”.

He also declined to criticise the CPS or the DPP, as he said “it’s wise not to”.

Since the alleged spying offences took place, the new National Security Act has superseded elements of the 1911 Act.

But Conservatives, including shadow home secretary Chris Philp, insist that Sir Keir has “very serious questions to personally answer”.