We are at a crossroads for refugee protection. Around the world, displacement has reached record highs, with more than 122 million people forced from their homes, including over 31 million refugees.

Devastating conflicts are raging in so many parts of the world. Some are receiving prominent coverage; some are neglected; all are utterly tragic. From the destruction in Gaza and the ongoing war in Ukraine, to the brutal conflicts in Sudan and Myanmar, and the deepening humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, the scale of displacement and human suffering is staggering.

At the same time, division is deepening, funding is contracting, and populist rhetoric is surging – shrinking the space for humane, coordinated responses just when they are needed most.

Refugees and migrants are too often scapegoated for economic, security or cultural anxieties – made into easy targets while the real causes of these issues go unaddressed.

Recent global shifts remind us how fragile and contested refugee protection has become. The US, under President Trump, has dramatically cut international aid, slashed funding to UNHCR, and reduced resettlement opportunities. It has also floated reforms that would threaten the very foundations of the global refugee protection system.​

Yet it is vital that we not lose sight of reality: the biggest problems confronting refugee protection are not flaws in the Refugee Convention, but failures in implementation and political will.

The Refugee Convention, rooted in the longstanding institution of asylum, offers states the very predictability and stability needed to balance sovereignty with humanitarian obligation – respecting national interests while ensuring access to safety and dignity for those fleeing persecution.

This framework has enabled millions of refugees – including my own family – to find security and rebuild their lives.

But recent years have seen many states deliberately undermine that framework.

Instead of honouring the spirit of their international obligations towards refugees, many governments have exploited legal gaps and ambiguities – redefining territory and jurisdiction, constructing legal fictions to treat asylum seekers as if they were not present and legislating away inconvenient safeguards.

This has, in part, been fuelled by a strategy of hyper-legalism, with states adopting bad-faith interpretations of international law.

In this way, states pay lip service to their international obligations, while at the same time applying them in ways that undermine access to asylum and fundamental rights.

The result is an architecture of exclusion: externalisation policies such as interception, push-backs, offshore processing and third-country transfers block access to protection.

Even for those who do arrive, underfunded, overstretched and often unfair asylum procedures too often deny people a fair hearing.

These approaches produce the very failures now cited to justify restrictive reforms: slow, inconsistent processing, long delays, inequitable responsibility sharing, loss of public trust and suffering for those seeking safety.

Disturbingly, some states are no longer even attempting to pay lip service to their obligations under international law, with the very spirit and letter of those laws being openly targeted.

Some have argued that the Refugee Convention has run its course and must be replaced or amended.

The Trump administration recently set out its own “new principles” for reform, including requiring asylum seekers to claim protection in the first country they enter, offering only temporary protection and expanding powers of removal and return.

Some well-intentioned actors have joined the chorus for reform, based on a belief that compromise and concessions are required to head off more radical proposals.

But as Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, has warned: “Putting the Refugee Convention and the principle of asylum on the table would be a catastrophic error.” ​

Such reform proposals risk diluting foundational principles, and narrowing the scope of protection for refugees, at precisely the moment protection is most needed.

In the face of attacks on the very foundations of the international protection regime, defending its core principles is not head-in-the-sand, wishful thinking.

It is an act of leadership that these times demand.

It arises from a clear-eyed accounting of where the failures of the system lie – not in the Convention, but in the lack of good-faith implementation of its principles on the part of states.

That’s not to say that fresh thinking is not required. There are genuine challenges that require our collective effort to address. Slow and inconsistent procedures, chronic underfunding, and unequal responsibility-sharing are all undermining both the integrity of the system and public trust.

In this environment, populist narratives thrive – offering easy villains instead of workable solutions.

This is precisely why building bridges is so essential.

If our challenge is one of division, then our response must be one of connection – between truth and empathy, between governments and communities, between those seeking protection and those offering it.

Because the path forward is not rewriting the Refugee Convention, but rebuilding the trust, co-operation, and fairness on which it depends.

Building bridges requires more honest and effective communication – addressing the real challenges facing asylum systems and the refugee protection regime, while simultaneously countering exaggerations and misinformation.

It means focusing our collective effort on implementation rather than abandoning principles: developing fair and fast procedures, while fostering greater solidarity and responsibility sharing.

It requires reframing refugee protection as not only an act of obligation but of shared opportunity.

Refugees bring skills, resilience, knowledge and enterprise that enrich societies – proof that when protection is upheld, everyone gains. This vision comes to life when we create conditions that value and amplify refugees’ resilience – providing the support that enables their contributions to flourish.

And finally, building bridges requires recognising and elevating refugee expertise and leadership.

People with experience of displacement understand the problems within our systems – and the solutions needed to overcome them. When their leadership helps to shape policy and practice, refugee protection becomes not only more effective but more just and enduring.

Bridge-building, in this sense, is not abstract. It is an approach grounded in partnership: connecting governments, local communities, practitioners and people with experience to co-design solutions that are both principled and workable.

In an age of polarisation, this is how we reclaim the space for principled action – and demonstrate that humanity and effectiveness can, and must, go hand in hand.

This is an edited version of opening remarks made at the 2025 Kaldor Centre Conference, ‘Building bridges: Advancing refugee protection in a divided world’ at UNSW Sydney on 23 October 2025. 

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.