ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the broader field of protection, including the extended refugee definitions, to take comprehensive account of refugee and regional protection explicitly addressing flight from conflict and to highlight the centrality of the 1951 Convention. Divergence in the application of the 1951 Convention indicates the existence of implementation gaps in the wider refugee protection regime in Europe and beyond. In the 1950s, when the Convention was adopted, it addressed more than one million persons displaced by the conflict caused by National Socialism and by the 1990s had garnered new addressees displaced by the dissolution of Communist states. The application of the Convention to the country in conflict is irrelevant for the assessment of protection claims in host countries. Religion or religious beliefs constitute another prominent and recognised motive of violence between states, groups and individuals. A major issue in assessing conflict-related protection claims revolves around determination of the risk faced during situations of violence and conflict.
