non-refoulement

Non-refoulement prohibits a state from expelling or returning a refugee in any manner to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. It is set out in Article 33 of the 1951 Refugee Convention and is widely regarded as part of customary international law.

India is not a party to the 1951 Convention or its 1967 Protocol and has no refugee statute. Indian courts have nonetheless drawn on the principle, reading protection from deportation into Article 21 in some High Court decisions, though the Supreme Court has also allowed deportation where procedure is followed.

Example

The petitioner relied on non-refoulement to resist deportation to the country where he had been persecuted.

In Indian law

• Article 33, Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951

See also

refugee · asylum · customary international law · jus cogens

Read more in the study notes

• The UN Charter and the UN human rights machinery (Human Rights Law and Practice)
• Asylum: territorial and extra-territorial, and the protection of refugees (Public International Law)