Pakistan has been hosting Afghan refugees for the past 4 decades, making it one of the largest recipients of refugees globally

The globally known term refugee as defined in Article 1 of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (commonly known as the Refugee Convention), says that a refugee is, one who owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country. A core principle of the convention is non-refoulment, which is mentioned in Article 33 of the convention. Section 1 of Article 33 provides that “No Contracting State shall expel or return (‘refouler’) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” 3 reports issued in 2023, on the situation of Afghanistan by UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, the UNSC Monthly Forecast for June 2023 and the UNSG/ UNGA report have demonstrated that Afghan refugees in Pakistan may safely return to their country of origin as the circumstances mentioned in Article 1 of the convention justifying their protection as refugees are no more obtaining in Afghanistan. Therefore, on the basis of stable security conditions in Afghanistan, the relocation of Afghanis to their homelands is safe by all means, and they have no threat of persecution anymore. It is pertinent to mention that following the terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001, a number of countries have increasingly sought to rely on the ‘national security’ exception to limit the broad application of the non-refoulment principle. Reference may also be made to Australia, which in 2004, through legislation specifically made the ‘non-refoulment’ protection ineffective in relation to thousands of illegal migrants. In any case, Pakistan, due to its own national security, economic and political crises, is no more in a position to sustain millions of refugees who are otherwise no more entitled to the protection and status according to refugees under international law.