Brussels, 28/07/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 28 July, the Geneva Convention on Refugees celebrated its 60th anniversary. Immediately after the Second World War and the Shoah, the United Nations convention was adopted in Geneva on 28 July 1951, defining refugee status and modalities whereby a state must grant refugee status to those making the request, as well as the rights and duties of those persons. The 1951 convention on the status of refugees has since become the main legal framework for defining the right of asylum in signatory states.
In a column published in Le Monde, European Commissioner Cecilia Malmström and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres called on Europe to set store by the values of the convention, and called on the EU27 to do much more in favour of the countries of North Africa that have been undergoing political upheavals since early this year, like Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.
The commissioner also deplores the fact that debate on asylum and refugees in member states is increasingly focused on the “challenges” raised by those fleeing Libya rather than on potential enrichment. She also pointed out that, although the EU received, in 2010, 29% (243,000) requests for asylum worldwide, South Africa received 180,000, and four refugees out of five today live in developing countries. (S.P./transl.jl)