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Refugee Convention at 75: Britain owes Palestine an answer
S9Refugee Convention at 75: Britain owes Palestine an answer Submitted by Victor Kattan on Wed, 07/29/2026 - 16:39 Ten months after a 400-page legal petition demanded an apology for the Balfour Declaration and its aftermath, Downing Street has said nothing A protester holds a placard during the Nakba 78 march in London, on 16 May 2026 (Loredana Sangiuliano/SOPA Images via Reuters Connect) Off Tuesday 28 July marked 75 years since the 1951 Refugee Convention was adopted at a United Nations conference in Geneva, with Britain among the states that negotiated and shaped it. The anniversary raises a question for the British government: whether it has ever confronted its role in creating the world's longest-standing refugee crisis . The occasion carries an uncomfortable irony. That same convention ultimately left Palestinian refugees - the population whose displacement was shaped in significant part by British policy - outside its ordinary protection through a separate legal regime. I have spent a large part of my career studying how international law shaped Palestine, from the origins of the conflict to the rights of its refugees. One principle runs through all of it: legal obligations do not lapse because they become inconvenient. This is at the heart of the Britain Owes Palestine petition, a 400-page legal submission I co-authored, which argues that Britain acted unlawfully in Palestine between 1917 and 1948, and that the UK now has a duty to formally acknowledge and apologise for that record. Through the Balfour Declaration , Britain promised to support a national home for one people on land inhabited by another, without the consent of the majority who lived there. For three decades, it governed under irreconcilable obligations, entrenching division and suppressing Palestinian self-government - at times through emergency powers that made collective punishment lawful in name while closing the courts to its victims. In 1948, Britain withdrew from the instability that its own policies had produced, leaving the population without protection. What followed was the Nakba - the "catastrophe" - in which more than 750,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes. Today, those refugees and their descendants number in the millions. A 'temporary' exception The Refugee Convention established a universal framework for refugee protection, overseen by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees ( UNHCR ). However, Palestinians were carved out. Because they already received assistance from the UN Relief and Works Agency ( UNRWA ), Article 1D of the convention excluded them from its scope while that assistance continued. It was conceived as a temporary arrangement, pending a political solution that was assumed to be imminent. The refugees whose displacement is most directly tied to British policy are also those least protected by the regime Britain helped create Seventy-five years later, that "temporary" arrangement still defines Palestinian refugeehood. Unrwa provides vital services, but it has no mandate to pursue the durable solutions - voluntary repatriation, local integration, resettlement - that UNHCR offers other refugee populations. As the arrangement never ended, generations of Palestinian refugees have gone without the protections that everyone else is guaranteed. The refugees whose displacement is most directly tied to British policy are also those least protected by the regime Britain helped create. This unresolved legal anomaly is one reason the petition that is now before the government matters. It asks for a search of unreleased archives, a full public response, an acknowledgement of wrongful acts, an official apology in parliament and serious consideration of reparations. Months of silence A cross-party coalition of 45 MPs and peers has urged the prime minister to respond. Some 10 months after its submission, and despite Andy Burnham replacing Keir Starmer as prime minister this month, the government has said nothing. That silence carries both legal and moral costs. Britain often invokes the Refugee Convention and international law to criticise other states and defend its own record. Yet the authority of law depends on consistent application, including to oneself. 'Gaza is a direct result of Balfour': Palestinians petition UK for reparations over historic crimes Read More » Britain cannot credibly champion refugee protection while refusing to confront its role in creating a refugee population excluded from the very regime it helped build. A state confident enough to examine its own record honestly is a state whose word on international law carries weight. Acknowledging wrongdoing can take many forms: an apology in parliament and investment in teaching a history that remains barely covered in British schools. The precedents exist: Britain has acknowledged and settled claims for colonial-era wrongs before, notably in the 2013 settlement with Kenyan victims of abuses committed during the Mau Mau uprising. The Refugee Convention was born of the conviction that displacement demands responsibility. The petition asks nothing more than Britain applying its own principles consistently. Seventy-five years after the Refugee Convention was adopted, Britain owes Palestine an answer. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye. Refugees As the Refugee Convention turns 75, Britain owes Palestine an answer Opinion Palestinian refugees were carved out of the 1951 convention - and the government has yet to answer a petition seeking an apology and reparations Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:29 Update Date Override 0
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