4:
Refugees have long been regarded as ‘unprotected persons’. In the interwar period, the absence of national protection was considered the key defining characteristic of a refugee in international law. Even as other qualifying requirements for refugee status began to emerge before, during and immediately after the Second World War, the absence of protection remained central to the various refugee definitions. It was only when the Refugee Convention was agreed that the issue of protection was relegated to the second part of the definition of a refugee in Article 1A(1): ‘…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 is unable or, owing to such fear, unwilling to return to it’. For a stateless refugee, though, it can be seen that refugee status is about inability or unwillingness to return, not the absence of protection as such. The language of protection also arises in the cessation clauses at Article 1C. Where a person voluntarily avails themselves of the protection of their country of nationality or acquires a new nationality and enjoys the protection of that country then a person ceases to be a refugee. Similarly, a person loses his refugee status if he ‘can no longer, because the circumstances in connexion with which he has been recognized as a refugee have ceased to exist, continue to refuse to avail himself of the protection of the country of his nationality’.
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