page_title: Refugee
section_title: Definitions
hierarchical_section_title: Refugee / Definitions
caption_attribution_description: Darfur refugee camp in Chad
context_page_description: A refugee, generally speaking, is a displaced person who has been forced to cross national boundaries and who cannot return home safely. Such a person may be called an asylum seeker until granted refugee status by the contracting state or the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees if they formally make a claim for asylum.
  The lead international agency coordinating refugee protection is the United Nations Office of the UNHCR. The United Nations has a second Office for refugees, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency or UNRWA, which is solely responsible for supporting the large majority of Palestinian refugees.
context_section_description: The first modern definition of international refugee status came about under the League of Nations in 1921 from the Commission for Refugees. Following World War II, and in response to the large numbers of people fleeing Eastern Europe, the UN 1951 Refugee Convention defined  "refugee" (in Article 1.A.2) as any person who:
  "owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it."
  In 1967, the definition was basically confirmed by the UN Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees.
  
  The Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa expanded the 1951 definition, which the Organization of African Unity adopted in 1969:
  "Every person who, owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing public order in either part or the whole of his country of origin or nationality, is compelled to leave his place of habitual residence in order to seek refuge in another place outside his country of origin or nationality."
  The 1984 regional, non-binding Latin-American Cartagena Declaration on Refugees includes:
  "persons who have fled their country because their lives, safety or freedom have been threatened by generalized violence, foreign aggression, internal conflicts, massive violation of human rights or other circumstances which have seriously disturbed public order."
  As of 2011, the UNHCR itself, in addition to the 1951 definition, recognizes persons as refugees:
  "who are outside their country of nationality or habitual residence and unable to return there owing to serious and indiscriminate threats to life, physical integrity or freedom resulting from generalized violence or events seriously disturbing public order."
  European Union's minimum standards definition of refugee, underlined by Art. 2 (c) of Directive No. 2004/83/EC, essentially reproduces the narrow definition of refugee offered by the UN 1951 Convention; nevertheless, by virtue of articles 2 (e) and 15 of the same Directive, persons who have fled a war-caused generalized violence are, at certain conditions, eligible for a complementary form of protection, called subsidiary protection. The same form of protection is foreseen for displaced people who, without being refugees, are nevertheless exposed, if returned to their countries of origin, to death penalty, torture or other inhuman or degrading treatments.
caption: Darfur refugee camp in Chad, 2005
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