Non-Refoulement: The Rule Against Sending People Back

The heart of refugee protection is non-refoulement, from the French 'refouler', to drive back. Article 33 of the 1951 Convention forbids states to expel or return a refugee 'to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened' on a Convention ground. Human rights law extends the principle further: the Convention against Torture bans returning anyone, refugee or not, to a real risk of torture. Many lawyers regard non-refoulement as customary international law, binding even on states that have not ratified the Convention.

The principle does not give a right to enter any country, but it constrains what states may do at borders and at sea. Governments facing large arrivals have tested its limits through measures such as interceptions at sea or processing asylum claims in other countries. Courts have examined some of these; in Hirsi Jamaa v. Italy (2012), the European Court of Human Rights ruled that pushing migrants back to Libya from the high seas violated Italy's obligations.