Abstract

This article reveals the policy background to Britain's reluctant decision to become party to the 1933 Convention relating to the International Status of Refugees. National interests were a dominant factor, at a time when many European countries were being asked on what basis they might be prepared to accept Jewish refugees. The author examines two competing understandings of the sovereignty concept: «national sovereignty» and «State sovereignty,» and shows how the latter framed both the British decision not to participate in the drafting process, and the later decision to sign and ratify the treaty. The inter-war period remains important, for it was then that refugees emerged as an international issue and that the original international refugee regime came into being. The United Kingdom also merits study, because it was one of the few «Great Powers» with global reach and impact, and because of its engagement in the related issues of Palestine, as the League of Nations Mandatory, and Jewish immigration. Notwithstanding its reservations, it was also a conspicuous exception to the then general State practice of refusing to accept formal refugee-related limitations on sovereignty. On the basis of a review of its inter-war refugee treaty policy-making, the author offers conclusions on matters such as international advocacy, international norms scholarship, and national sovereignty.

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