UN refugee Convention turns 75

At other times, it is not honoured at all. After three-quarters of a century, it is easy to forget the hot ideal that streaks through the document: that it contains, as Christopher Bentram aptly remarks, “a kind of substitute citizenship” for those who have left their country of origin and find their bonds “broken by the threat of prosecution.”

It was the first of its kind to expand the focus of protection beyond narrowly designated groups. (Consider, in this regard, the 1933 Convention relating to the International Status of Refugees, applicable to Russian, Armenian and “assimilated” refugees.)