10 M.S.S. v. BELGIUM AND GREECE JUDGMENT II. RELEVANT INTERNATIONAL AND EUROPEAN LAW A. The 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees 54. Belgium and Greece have ratified the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (“the Geneva Convention”), which defines the circumstances in which a State must grant refugee status to those who request it, as well as the rights and duties of such persons. 55. In the present case, the central Article is Article 33 § 1 of the Geneva Convention, which reads as follows: “1. No Contracting State shall expel or return (‘refouler’) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” 56. In its Note on international protection of 13 September 2001 (A/AC.96/951, paragraph 16), the UNHCR, whose task it is to oversee how the States Parties apply the Geneva Convention, stated the following in regard to the principle of “non-refoulement”: “The obligation of States not to expel, return of refoule refugees to territories where their life of freedom would be threatened is a cardinal protection principle enshrined in the [Geneva] Convention, to which no reservations are permitted. In many ways, the principle is the logical complement to the right to seek asylum recognised in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It has come to be considered a rule of customary international law binding on all States. In addition, international human rights law has established non-refoulement as a fundamental component of the absolute prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The duty not to refoule is also recognised as applying to refugees irrespective of their formal recognition, thus obviously including asylum-seekers whose status has not yet been determined. It encompasses any measure attributable to a State which could have the effect of returning an asylum-seeker or refugee to the frontiers of territories where his or her life or freedom would be threatened, or where he or she would risk persecution. This includes rejection at the frontier, interception and indirect refoulement, whether of an individual seeking asylum or in situations of mass influx.” B. Community law 1. The Treaty on European Union (as amended by the Treaty of Lisbon, which entered into force on 1 December 2009) 57. Fundamental rights, as guaranteed by the Convention, are part of European Union law and are recognised in the following terms: