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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‘Would a female Afghan interpreter for the British army be allowed to stay in the UK?’
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.”
The US Securities and Exchange Commission and crypto exchange Gemini have asked to pause the regulator’s suit over the exchange’s Gemini Earn program, saying they want to discuss a potential resolution.
In an April 1 letter to New York federal court judge Edgardo Ramos, lawyers representing the SEC and Genesis requested a 60-day hold on the case and that all deadlines be pulled “to allow the parties to explore a potential resolution.”
“In this case, the parties submit that it is in each of their interests to stay this matter while they consider a potential resolution and agree that no party or non-party would be prejudiced by a stay,” the letter states.
The lawyers added that a stay was in the court’s interest as “a resolution would conserve judicial resources” and proposed that a joint status report be submitted within 60 days after the entry of the stay.
The SEC sued Gemini and crypto lending firm Genesis Global Capital in January 2023, alleging they offered unregistered securities through the Gemini Earn program.
In March 2024, Genesis agreed to pay $21 million to settle charges related to the lending program, but the enforcement case against Gemini remains outstanding.
Letter from SEC and Genesis Global requesting extension of stay. Source: CourtListener
The letter did not specify what a possible resolution would entail, but the SEC has dropped several lawsuits it launched against crypto companies under the Biden administration, including against Coinbase, Ripple and Kraken.
Related: Will new US SEC rules bring crypto companies onshore?
In February, Gemini said the SEC closed a separate investigation into the firm as the regulator winds back its crypto enforcement under President Donald Trump.
“The SEC cost us tens of millions of dollars in legal bills alone and hundreds of millions in lost productivity, creativity, and innovation. Of course, Gemini is not alone,” Gemini co-founder Cameron Winklevoss said at the time.
OpenSea, Crypto.com and Uniswap, among others, have also recently reported that the SEC had closed similar probes into their companies that were investigating alleged breaches of securities laws.
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Two Republicans who received a combined $1.5 million from the crypto-backed political action committee (PAC) Fairshake will enter the US House after winning special elections in Florida.
Republican Jimmy Patronis won the vacant seat in Florida’s 1st Congressional District to replace Matt Gaetz, taking 57% of the vote to defeat Democrat Gay Valimont, according to AP News data.
Randy Fine also took Florida’s 6th Congressional District with 56.7% of the vote to beat his Democratic rival, public school teacher Josh Weil, and fill a seat left vacant by Mike Waltz, who took a job as White House national security adviser.
Florida’s 1st and 6th Congressional Districts — located in Florida’s western panhandle and along the state’s northeast coast — have been controlled by Republicans for roughly 30 years, but their lead has narrowed in recent years.
Fairshake, a PAC backed by crypto industry giants including Coinbase, Ripple and Andreessen Horowitz, gave Fine around $1.16 million in advertising spending and funneled $347,000 to Patronis to support his campaign.
Both Republicans have expressed support for the crypto industry, with Fine stating in a Jan. 14 X post that “Floridians want crypto innovation!”
Source: Randy Fine
Fairshake and its affiliates poured around $170 million into the 2024 US presidential and congressional elections to back candidates who committed to supporting the crypto industry.
The wins by Patronis and Fine increased Republican representation in the House to 220 seats, with the Democrats holding 213 seats.
There are two vacant seats to be filled after Texas and Arizona Democrats Sylvester Turner and Raúl Grijalva died on March 5 and March 13, respectively.
Florida can expect to see a crypto-friendly regulatory environment
The victories for Patronis and Fine likely mean that crypto legislation will continue to see support in the US capital.
The Republican Party would have maintained its House majority even if it lost both seats in Florida, but it would have made it more difficult for some of the recently introduced Republican-backed crypto bills to pass through the House and Senate.
Related: Florida bill proposes strict rules against online gambling
At the Digital Assets Summit on March 18, Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna said he believes Congress “should be able to get” both a stablecoin and crypto market structure bill done this year.
Bills that could eventually make their way to the House include the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, which passed the Senate Banking Committee in an 18-6 vote on March 13.
Senator Cynthia Lummis also reintroduced a Bitcoin reserve bill about a week after the Trump administration announced the establishment of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve on March 6, with the legislation referred to the Senate Banking Committee on March 11.
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Several British trade associations have asked Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office to appoint a special envoy dedicated to crypto and for a dedicated action plan for digital assets and blockchain technology.
In a March 31 letter, the coalition of six UK digital economy trade bodies urged Starmer’s special adviser on business and investment, Varun Chandra, for a “greater strategic focus and alignment to deliver investment, growth and jobs” for the crypto industry.
The group, which consisted of the UK Cryptoasset Business Council, Global Digital Finance, The Payments Association, Digital Currencies Governance Group, the Crypto Council for Innovation and techUK, noted the US policy shift on crypto under President Donald Trump and his appointment of a crypto czar.
Britain’s commitment to an economic trade deal focused on technological cooperation with the US “presents a significant opportunity to mirror the United States’ ambition in fostering leadership in blockchain, digital assets, and other emerging financial technologies,” the letter stated.
The group recommended that the UK appoint a blockchain special envoy, similar to the US, to coordinate policy, foster innovation, and position the country competitively in global markets.
The trade bodies also called for the development of a dedicated government action plan for crypto and blockchain technology, including a concierge service to attract high-potential firms.
They added that the government should acknowledge and leverage the commonalities between blockchain, quantum computing and artificial intelligence technologies, including potential applications for government services.
Another recommendation was to create a high-level industry-government-regulator engagement forum to ensure informed decision-making and cross-sector collaboration.
The UK crypto and tech associations lobbying the government for a policy shift. Source: LinkedIn
“With deep pools of talent, access to capital, world-class academic institutions, and sophisticated regulators, the UK provides an environment where digital assets and blockchain innovation can thrive,” they stated.
Related: UK should tax crypto buyers to boost stock investing, economy, says banker
The coalition argues that crypto and blockchain technology could boost the UK economy by 57 billion British pounds ($73.6 billion) over the next decade, with the sector potentially increasing global gross domestic product by 1.39 trillion pounds ($1.8 trillion) by 2030.
Tom Griffiths, the co-founder and managing partner of crypto compliance advisory firm BitCompli, said in response to the letter on LinkedIn that the Financial Conduct Authority “has a lot of talent and a good sight of future plans, but the UK is definitely losing pace with Dubai, Singapore, and other EU jurisdictions.”
“Now is the time for the FCA to act, or the UK will lose out on this huge opportunity, which is digital assets and all the benefits this sector can bring, not only now but over the next 20 years,” he added.
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