CA-2024-001818 - [2025] EWCA Civ 1273

Neither the 1951 Refugee Convention nor the 1967 Protocol provides for refugees, whether adults or children, to have a right to family reunion. The Final Act of the Conference which produced the 1951 Convention contained only a recommendation that governments

“take the necessary measures for the protection of the refugee’s family, especially with a view to:

(1)

ensuring that the unity of the refugee's family is maintained particularly in cases where the head of the family has fulfilled the necessary conditions for admission to a particular country;

(2)

the protection of refugees who are minors, in particular unaccompanied children and girls, with special reference to guardianship and adoption.”

In July 1983 UNHCR published Guidelines on Reunification of Refugee Families (“the UNHCR Guidelines”), stating its support for family reunion and in particular for the reuniting of unaccompanied minor children with their parents and siblings. Para. 5 (a) (iii) reads (so far as material):

“An unaccompanied minor child should be reunited as promptly as possible with his or her parents or guardians as well as with siblings. If the minor has arrived first in a country of asylum, the principle of family unity requires that the minor’s next-of-kin be allowed to join the minor in that country unless it is reasonable under the circumstances for the minor to join them in another country. Because of the special needs of children for a stable family environment, the reunification of unaccompanied minors with their families, whenever this is possible, should be treated as a matter of urgency.”

But UNHCR’s position does not reflect any treaty obligation. As Sales LJ put it in Mosira v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 407 (see para. 13)

“The Refugee Convention does not impose an obligation on Contracting States to grant leave to enter or leave to remain in order to achieve family reunion with a sponsor who has been granted refugee status in the host state, but the UN Human Rights Committee exhorts Contracting States to do this.”

In the absence of any treaty obligation the UK has not provided for family reunion for refugees, whether adults or children, in any primary legislation. Nevertheless, the Secretary of State has since at least 2000 had a policy, expressed partly in the Immigration Rules and partly in published guidance, about the circumstances in which leave may be granted for the purposes of family reunion. Describing the elements in that policy, and where they are to be found, is not entirely straightforward, and I need to go through the relevant Rules and guidance in some detail.