The Refugee Convention was once a text that all its signatories were supposed to take seriously. States were asked to sign it, ratify it and act on it. Now, in the shadow of the ongoing refugee crisis, the responsibilities and obligations signed up to by those states are being set aside in favour of an incomprehensible, unnecessary tit-for-tat deal with Turkey so that this human-rights-abusing, press-freedom-denying state can slip into the EU with all that inconvenient stuff ignored.

The Refugee Convention is far from perfect. With a bit of deft manoeuvring its founding principles can be (and have often been) sidestepped. But it was created for good, historical reasons and it’s still (just about) with us. Today The Guardian calls it “a hallowed text created in the aftermath of the Holocaust”.[1] This makes it sound religious, “more honoured in the breach than in the observance” maybe, with perhaps a suggestion that it might be out of date too, although The Guardian should know that the Holocaust can never be just another past event, the memory of it should follow us, haunt us, from generation to generation. But the Convention is neither just a hallowed text nor out of date. It is, however, inconvenient to many states and it won’t be long before the cry will go up (again) that it should be repealed and be done with. In fact, instead, it should be strengthened. It will certainly be needed in the foreseeable future, at least until we manage to learn to build a future other than one of perpetual war.

In 2009 I wrote a bit about the history of the Refugee Convention. You can find it here in Chapter 1 of Dealt with on their Merits? (pp 7-20):

https://www.academia.edu/3981192/Treatment_of_asylum_seekers

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/18/eu-deal-turkey-migrants-refugees-q-and-a