Changing asylum principles would be ‘catastrophic,’ says UN refugee agency head

GENEVA (Reuters) -Bowing to pressure to reform the refugee convention and asylum system would be a “catastrophic error”, the head of the UN agency for refugees said on Monday.

“Putting the Refugee Convention and the principle of asylum on the table would be a catastrophic error,” the High Commissioner of the UNHCR, Filippo Grandi, told member states during its annual meeting of the agency in Geneva on Monday.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration plans to call for sharply narrowing the right to asylum at the United Nations later this month, documents show, as it seeks to undo the post-World War Two framework around humanitarian protection.

(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin, Editing by Miranda Murray)