73 years of Geneva Convention on the Refugee: Appeal for stronger protection of refugees in Germany and Europe

73 years of Geneva Convention on the Refugee: Appeal for stronger protection of refugees in Germany and Europe

The German Institute for Human Rights published a critical statement on the occasion of the Geneva Refugee Convention on July 28th. In it, the institute calls on politically responsible to work more for the implementation of the rights of refugees of refugees in Germany and at the EU level. In particular, the violent return of those seeking protection at the EU external borders and the outsourcing of asylum procedures into safe third countries are denounced as violations of the rights of refugees.

The Geneva Convention of Refugee was adopted in 1951 in response to the human crimes of National Socialist Germany and has since represented a civilizational milestone. It protects life, physical integrity and freedom of people who have to flee from their homeland due to persecution, war and great need.

A central principle of refugee protection is the ban on refoulement, which says that nobody who threatens to persecute in his home country may be deported to this country. This ban results in the obligation to set up effective and fair asylum procedures in order to prevent people from being returned to their persecuting countries of origin.

Protection against persecution and fair asylum procedure only became possible through the Geneva Convention on the Refugee and the associated international law of protection against deportation in a persecuting state. Before that, people who had fled to another state could be deported to Germany again without having a claim to protection.

According to the United Nations' refugee agency (UNHCR), around 120 million people were fleeing worldwide at the end of 2023.

The German Institute for Human Rights in particular criticize the decisions of the Prime Ministers and Interior Ministers' Conference in June 2024, which aim to reduce the number of those seeking protection in Germany. The institute sees this as a lack of willingness to implement the international law obligations in accordance with the Geneva Refugee Convention. These decisions endanger international refugee protection and undermine the rights of refugees in Germany.

It is requested by politically responsible to work more for the protection and compliance with the rights of refugees anchored in the refugee convention. In particular, the violent return of those seeking protection at the EU external borders and the outsourcing of asylum procedures into safe third countries must be put to the test to ensure the protection of human rights.