“A taboo has broken around the 1951 Refugee Convention,” said Dr Sophie Capicchiano Young, a lawyer specialising in international refugee law who is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the University of Galway. “The answer is not to push aside the Refugee Convention. Photograph: Frederic J Brown/AFP/Getty ImagesIts agreement was partly driven by a failure to agree on refugee rights before the second World War, which had catastrophic consequences. Agreed at a United Nations assembly in Geneva, the Refugee Convention provided protection for the millions of people who had been displaced in Europe by the war. “That’s precisely what’s happening in international refugee law.”

Source: The Irish Times December 31, 2025 11:52 UTC