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There has been a significant push in recent years for greater and more meaningful participation of refugees in decision-making processes that affect them. This push is identifiable in a range of international instruments, including the 2016 New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants and the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees, as well as numerous initiatives developed by refugees, civil society organizations, and international organizations at the local, national, and international level. This article considers the emergent drive for refugee participation from the perspective of both law and policy. It examines the evolution of the international legal framework, analysing the extent to which international refugee and human rights law mandate the inclusion of refugees in decisions that affect them. The article also explores the notion of participation in detail, teasing out several key challenges for consideration in the development of inclusive participatory processes. Drawing this material together, it explores two options that could further promote the moral, political, and ultimately legal authority for meaningfully including refugees in the design and implementation of policy. These options are indicators that establish baselines and track refugee participation in decision-making processes, and a new, non-binding United Nations declaration that clearly details the right of refugees to have some authority in decision-making processes that affect them.

This article challenges the assumption that until relatively recently refugees or persons with lived refugee experience have not been involved in the development of international refugee law and policy. By drawing on primary source material – including the preparatory work for international legal instruments such as the 1933 Convention relating to the International Status of Refugees and the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, along with the operational work of the League of Nations, the International Refugee Organization and the early years of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees – this article argues that refugees and persons with lived refugee experience exercised significant influence and thought-leadership in the development of international refugee law and policymaking during the foundational years between 1921 and 1955. These contributions to the development of international refugee law and policy are significant because they not only reorient our understanding of the ways in which international law and policy pertaining to refugees has been developed and negotiated to date, but also because they provide a practical example of how refugees can more meaningfully be included in the creation of laws and policies that affect them going forward.