Definition of a refugee under international law

Refugee definition in international law The definition of the term "refugee" in international law is a very wide issue which can be conceived from many different points of view. One of the best ways how to deal with it is to focus on only one part of the generally most widely accepted definition of a refugee. This is the definition according to the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. According to this document a refugee is a person who "owing to a 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 to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country..." This definition is more than fifty years old and still actual. It has been adopted in response to the Second World War and the mass refugee flood. The missing interpretation of the term "persecution", which is the fundamental element of the Geneva Convention refugee definition, is still one of the biggest problems of refugee law. The aim of my thesis is to find out whether the missing definition of the term "persecution" is really such a serious imperfection as it is brought out sometimes. I try to answer this question through researching the..