This year marks the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the 1951 Refugee Convention, the foundational treaty of the modern international refugee protection regime. Negotiated in the aftermath of the Second World War, the Convention continues to provide the legal framework for identifying refugees and defining the rights and protections to which they are entitled.

At a moment of hardening borders, shrinking humanitarian resources, rising geopolitical tensions, and increasingly hostile political rhetoric, critics have argued that the Refugee Convention is no longer fit for purpose. Jane McAdam has recently argued the opposite: that the Convention is more important than ever. Without a shared international framework for protection, displacement would not disappear; it would become more chaotic, unstable, and dangerous.

This online conversation brings together Jane McAdam, one of the world’s leading experts on international refugee law, and Leah Zamore, Senior Research Fellow at the Zolberg Institute, for a discussion of the continuing relevance of the Refugee Convention and the future of international protection. The conversation will consider what the Convention has achieved, what it was never designed to do, and what forms of international cooperation are needed to address contemporary displacement.

Jane McAdam

Jane McAdam is Scientia Professor of Law at UNSW Sydney.

Leah Zamore

Senior Research Fellow, Director of Global Policy Engagement