From the League of Nations to the law of the European Union: categorical and individual approaches to defining refugee status

The subject of the research is the historical and legal evolution of the international definition of the concept of "refugee": from the categorical (group) approach used by the League of Nations from 1921 to 1939, based on a person's affiliation with a specific national or ethnic group, to the individual criterion of "well-founded fear," established by the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which implies the assessment of the personal circumstances of each applicant. The author also considers the reflection of both approaches in European Union law: from the initial instruments of the Dublin system to the Lisbon Treaty and the Migration and Asylum Pact of 2024. A particular focus is on whether contemporary EU law – despite the constitutional enshrinement of the individual standard in Article 78(1) of the TFEU – reproduces elements of the historically overcome group logic, and what the legal consequences of such a regression are for applicants with atypical threat profiles. Historical and legal analysis of the League of Nations treaties is applied in their semantic interconnection; a comparative legal method is used when comparing the group definition of a refugee with the individual definition of the 1951 Convention and the EU legal criterion; a systemic method is employed to study legal evolution as a single systematic sequence; and a formal-legal method is utilized when analyzing specific contractual provisions. The novelty of the research lies in the introduction of the analytical opposition "categorical – individual approach" as a tool for the historical and legal analysis of the evolution of international refugee protection. It is established that the transition to the individual criterion in 1951 was a response to the structural deficiencies of the League of Nations system: the group definition of a refugee, the non-binding nature of the acts, a limited number of participants, and the absence of a supervisory mechanism. The phenomenon of the "structural pendulum" has been identified – a return to group criteria during periods of migratory pressure. It is shown that the twenty percent criterion of the 2024 Pact reproduces this logic and conflicts with the individual protection standard. Continuity between historical and contemporary models of asylum regulation has been proven. Proposals de lege ferenda have been formulated to adjust accelerated procedures and to apply the concept of safe countries.