Introductory Note to UNHCR Guidelines on International Protection
Abstract
à VOLKER TURK* The ``second track'' of the Global Consultations on International Protection, launched by UNHCR in 2000,1 was dedicated to analysing and discussing the issue of diverging views on the interpretation of certain aspects of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. These included selected areas of the refugee definition, such as membership of a particular social group, gender-based persecution, and the exclusion and cessation provisions.2 In the course of 2001, UNHCR organised four expert seminars on these issues, with broad participation by governments, the International Association of Refugee Law Judges, other legal practitioners, non-governmental organisations and academia. These seminars were built around background studies commissioned from experts. Their purpose was to take stock of the state of law and practice in these areas, to consolidate the various positions taken and to develop concrete recommendations on the way forward to achieve more consistent understandings of these various interpretative issues. In terms of concrete outcomes of the ``second track'', the background papers and the conclusions of the roundtables will be published in mid2003 as an edited collection entitled Refugee Protection in International Law: UNHCR's Global Consultations on International Protection. UNHCR * Chief, Protection Policy and Legal