Cate Blanchett, Angelina Jolie, and Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally were among prominent figures who, on Tuesday, urged the United Nations to uphold refugee protections amid growing criticism of asylum system pressures.
The 1951 Refugee Convention, drafted after World War II to protect the tens of millions displaced by the war, enshrines legal safeguards for refugees. Although broad public support for safe refuge remains, many governments are tightening border controls as worldwide displacement reaches historic levels and conflicts multiply.
The UN Refugee Agency issued a supportive statement for the convention, titled “The Promise,” which has been signed by dozens of celebrities, athletes, business leaders, and faith leaders.
High Commissioner Barham Salih, a former Iraqi president and refugee himself, said the convention has saved millions of lives.
He said the convention’s fundamental promise is essential for humanity and must be upheld, adding that we need to keep that promise alive, during a side event on refugee protections at the UN in Geneva.
Signatories included actors Ben Stiller, Michelle Yeoh, Cynthia Erivo, and Riz Ahmed, as well as Africa’s first female president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, and basketball star Wenyen Gabriel.
Gabriel, a former refugee whose family fled southern Sudan’s civil war in the 1990s and was later resettled in the United States, told the UN meeting that he is “living proof that when you give refugees a chance, they will make something of it.”
