The Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs, Embassy of Costa Rica.

People, due to political, religious or to any other type of persecution that had to flee from their own country, now have no country to defend them. They then fall under international protection. The Convention over the Statute of Refugees of 1951 grants them rights regarding asylum. The principle is the right to the protection from forced extradition to the state from which one fled persecution. A special category of refugees are those displaced persons in the interior of their own country. As citizens of the country in which they live, they can invoke general human rights. What is missing is a treaty of human rights that deal specifically with their needs.

© for all photographs: Magnum Photos
© 2005 by Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland

être, The Face of Human Rights Pictures 1
être, The Face of Human Rights Pictures 2