The founding of the 1951 Refugee Convention and today’s global refugee regime have mainly been linked to the Second World War and to the early phase of the Cold War in research. But what role does colonialism play here? This article complements Postcolonial and Ignorance Studies and uses online archival research to explore debates among state delegations about the Convention’s refugee definition and ‘colonial clause’ at the founding conference (2–25 July 1951). It illuminates delegations’ strategic production of knowledge and especially ignorance—meaning the construction of issues as irrelevant—leading to the prioritisation of ‘the West’ over ‘the Rest’. Colonial and imperial states generally dominated debates while colonised ones were excluded, and thus silenced. Despite broad support for the universal refugee definition, several powerful delegations demanded its limitation to Europe and therewith strategically subordinated and ignored the ‘Other’ refugees and regions in pursuit of geopolitical interests. They thus made the colonial ‘Others’ irrelevant in the creation of ‘international’ refugee law. I argue that these debates rendered the Convention’s founding ‘colonial-ignorant’, with lasting effects for the regime’s functioning.

中文翻译：

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1951 年难民公约的殖民根源及其对全球难民制度的影响

1951 年难民公约的建立和今天的全球难民制度主要与第二次世界大战和冷战的早期研究有关。但殖民主义在这里扮演什么角色？本文对后殖民和无知研究进行了补充，并使用在线档案研究来探讨各州代表团在成立会议（1951 年 7 月 2 日至 25 日）上就《公约》的难民定义和“殖民条款”进行的辩论。它阐明了代表团对知识的战略性生产，尤其是无知——意味着将问题构建为无关紧要——导致“西方”优先于“其他”。殖民地和帝国国家通常主导辩论，而被殖民国家则被排除在外，因此保持沉默。尽管普遍支持难民的定义，几个强大的代表团要求将其限制在欧洲，从而在战略上从属并忽视“其他”难民和地区，以追求地缘政治利益。因此，他们使殖民地的“其他人”与“国际”难民法的制定无关。我认为，这些辩论使公约的成立变得“无知”，对政权的运作产生了持久的影响。