Who Is A Refugee?

Jean was the Parliament’s Rapporteur (responsible MEP) on a report for the Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee Concerning minimum standards for determining who qualifies as a refugee – ie how to interpret the definition of a refugee.  It also sets out the status refugees and people with other forms of international protection will receive in the host member state.

The core definition of a “refugee” is contained in the 1951 United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol … which define a refugee as an individual who: “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion and nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable or unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.”