Regional Refugee Frameworks
How Africa's OAU Convention and Latin America's Cartagena Declaration expanded refugee protection beyond the 1951 Convention.
Africa: The OAU Convention
The 1969 OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa was the first regional treaty to expand the refugee definition beyond the 1951 Convention. It includes people who flee 'external aggression, occupation, foreign domination, or events seriously disturbing public order in either part or the whole of his country of origin.' This broader definition was a direct response to the displacement crises of African decolonization, where millions fled wars of liberation, border conflicts, and state collapse that did not fit the Convention's persecution framework.
The OAU Convention also introduced important procedural innovations. Article II establishes that granting asylum is a peaceful and humanitarian act that should not be regarded as unfriendly by the state of origin. It provides for burden-sharing among African states, a principle that remains more developed in African refugee law than anywhere else. The African Union's 2009 Kampala Convention on internally displaced persons further expanded the protection framework.
