ContactsWho is a refugee
The RRT reviews decisions to refuse to grant or to cancel protection visas within Australia. The review of these decisions usually involves a consideration of whether or not the applicant is a person to whom Australia has protection obligations. This includes consideration of whether he or she is a ‘refugee’ within the meaning of the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (as amended by the 1967 UN Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees) (the Convention).
The Convention was drafted between 1948 and 1951 with the principal aim of creating a regime to cope with the large numbers of people who had been displaced by the Second World War. The original definition only permitted a person to be declared a refugee as a result of events occurring in Europe before 1 January 1951. However, the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (the Protocol) removed the time and geographical limitation in the Convention’s definition of a refugee. The Convention now extends to all persons who are refugees because of events occurring at any time in any place. Australia became a signatory to the Refugees Convention in 1954 and to the Protocol in 1973.
The term ‘refugee’ is defined in Chapter 1, Article 1 of the Convention. In particular, Article 1A(2) of the Convention, as amended by the Protocol, defines a refugee as a person who:
... owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it...
This definition is set out below in the following community languages:
Albanian
Arabic
Bengali
Burmese
Cambodia
Chinese
Dari
Hindi
Indonesian
Korean
Macedonian
Mongolian
Nepali
Persian
Punjabi
Portuguese
Russian
Serbian
Singhalese
Spanish
Tagalog
Tamil
Thai
Turkish
Urdu
Vietnamese
