The US Proposal to Reinvent International Refugee Law

Several weeks ago, it was reported by Reuters (here) that the United States would seek to radically reshape the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951 Convention) at a side event it had organised at the 80th session of the UN General Assembly.  On the date on writing – 25 September 2025 – the Deputy Secretary of State, Christopher Landau, hosted a panel entitled, ‘Global Refugee Asylum System: What Went Wrong and How to Fix It.’  The recording of the event is publicly available, and I encourage those interested to listen to it in full here.  At the event, Landau advanced “five critical principles that the United States would like to put on the table” (at 12:00) for the modification of the 1951 Convention:

1. That every nation ultimately has the right to control its own borders;

2. That there is no right to immigrate or to receive asylum or refugee status in the country of an individual’s choice;

3. That refugee status is temporary;

4. That sovereign States, and not transnational bodies, should be making the determination whether the conditions in a country of origin permit return;

5. That every country must agree to accept expeditiously the return of its national.

While there is much to say on each of these proposals, this post is concerned with proposal 2 (that asylum seekers must claim international protection in the first State they enter, in line with the so-called ‘first country of asylum’ principle); and proposals 3 and 4 (that the conferral of refugee status should be temporary in nature, to be withdrawn when the State of reception determines that conditions in the State of origin are conducive to safe return).

A number of observations should be made regarding these proposals.

In respect of the second proposal, and beyond the obvious assertion that no such requirement forms part of the 1951 Convention, the ‘first country of asylum’ principle has nonetheless formed part of international refugee policy for decades.  It is in essence the foundation of the current Dublin Regulation and its predecessors; the mechanism for the determination of the EU Member State responsible for examining asylum applications.  Furthermore, and over the past eight years in particular, it has been the basis for much of the US’ foreign policy agenda in respect of ‘migration management’ throughout Central America.  The problems that arise from the implementation of such a policy are manifold.  Under such a regime, the US would – in the vast majority of cases – consider claims for international protection from Mexican nationals, to whom the US has systematically denied asylum, principally on the basis that generalised violence and domestic violence do not constitute grounds for the conferral of protective status.  Spontaneous arrivals at the Southwest border by nationals of other States would be rejected on the basis that such persons do not satisfy the requirement of this modified International Refugee Law.  As an example, Cuban and Haitian asylum seekers typically pass through Mexico, Honduras, or Nicaragua, before arriving at the US Southwest border and thus via another ‘first country of asylum’ per the US proposal.  The US would otherwise continue to grant refugee status to particular designated groups, as it has done with white South Africans.  

The consequences (and indeed, the intended purpose) of this proposed modification to International Refugee Law are obvious: asylum seekers will be relegated to States of the ‘Global South’ who are most frequently those ‘countries of first asylum.’  In turn, they must shoulder the burden of refugee movement, and in exchange – as has happened so many times throughout history – States of the ‘Global North’ will provide limited subsidisation for the containment of refugee populations.  This bartering system has existed in international refugee policy since the modern inception of International Refugee Law.  Enthusiasts of International Refugee Law history will recall that the failure of the 1938 Evian Conference was due to the insistence by (and presumption of) States of the Global North that their southern neighbours would accept the responsibility to resettle Europe’s refugees in exchange for limited concessions on their own part.  Unsurprisingly, they did not, the Colombian delegate famously declaring:

“[W]e might repeat here “Messieurs les français, Messieurs les anglais, Messieurs les hollandaise, it is for you to act first; it is to you that this appeal is addressed.”

Since that time, various proposals have been advanced, the effect of which has been to contain refugee populations in limited geographic spheres. The moratorium placed on the departure of Indo-Chinese refugees, and the implementation of the ‘aid and development’ agenda that facilitated the containment of refugee populations across the African continent are but two examples of what has been reimagined and repackaged numerous times, at one point even garnering significant academic support as a solution to the global refugee crisis. Against this background, the proposal of the US might appear only to codify what is already established in international refugee policy. Similarly, it might appear that the US is seeking to implement (in particular) longstanding policy of the EU, thus reinforcing international consensus. This is not the case. While there are of course many parallels, and undoubtedly the US considers that it will be supported in its proposals by some EU States, these proposals are rather intended to represent another step in the regionalisation of the US’ own foreign policy in respect of the Central American region, which it has been shaping over the course of numerous administrations (though this has significantly progressed over the course of the last three). The intended outcome is the near-total cessation of spontaneous arrivals at the US Southwest border, and the imposition of obligations on Central American States for the determination of asylum claims. In that regard, it is rather the effects of such a proposal – and the inevitable effects at that – which should be considered the basis for its wholesale rejection. The implementation of the ‘first country of asylum’ principle has in no circumstances resulted in enhanced effective protection of refugees, nor in the material improvement of asylum systems in States of first asylum, nor in the compliance of such States with requirements of International Refugee Law and International Human Rights Law, nor – it must be said – in the advancement of the internal politics and democratic institutions of such States.

In respect of the third proposal, it should be stressed that the 1951 Convention already provides clearly for the temporal limitation of refugee status in the case of stabilisation in the State of origin per the provisions on cessation. Article 1C provides at paragraphs 5 and 6 for the cessation of refugee status in the event that “the circumstances in connexion with which he has been recognized as a refugee have ceased to exist”.  In respect of the fourth proposal, this is necessarily an assessment that is undertaken by the State of reception under whose municipal law the 1951 Convention is implemented. Again, against this background, the proposal to limit refugee status and to qualify that limitation on the assessment of State of origin conditions may appear to rephrase existing international policy, but once again, this is not the case. The ‘safe country of origin’ determination is certainly not an innovation of the current US administration, but nonetheless, it is one that has permitted numerous severe violations of international law, and has exposed untold numbers of refugees to abuse, persecution, and grave danger.

It is undeniable, as Landau noted, that the global asylum system is open to abuse by persons without protection needs, but as High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, noted in remarks to the panel (and I paraphrase) each of the proposals advanced at the event were ultimately and essentially concerned with implementation, as the evolution of International Refugee Law is a question of its implementation, not of the modification of its principal treaty. But in light of the foregoing, it should be noted that it is not a fundamental concern of the US that the implementation of International Refugee Law should be improved or evolutionarily adapted to contemporary challenges. Rather, it is concerned with the management of migration on the American continent, which it now wishes to formalise internationally. This should be taken as the underlying premise of the US proposal to radically transform International Refugee Law. In that connection, and in continuing to be bound by fundamental requirements of International Refugee Law, the US is severely hindered in realising its foreign policy objectives for a regional doctrine of International Refugee Law, reflected in those same proposals advanced by Landau; that is, the aggressive minimisation of circumstances in which an individual may assert a right to international protection in the US.

Not only does the 1951 Convention require renewed international commitment and defence – this much is obvious – but particular attention should be paid to the on-going efforts of the United States to reinvent the terms of International Refugee Law in the image of its own regional doctrine, which it seeks to implement to the severe detriment of the world’s most vulnerable people. Such efforts should be recognised as what they are – an attempt to dismantle a system of international law that has provided invaluable protection to millions of people over the past 70+ years and must continue to do so unhindered and unaffected by the foreign policy objectives of the United States.