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E/CN.4/1503 page 13
(ii)
26.
In qualitative terms, a situation may be con- sidered one of mass exodus despite the number of people leaving being relatively low, if they should belong to a particular minority, such as a religious or ethnic group. If events or circumstances prevailing in a given country and affecting in particular a certain minority or group leads to the departure of a high pro- portion of them, this could be qualified as a mass exodus.
As will be seen, mass exodus may be caused by factors affecting any of the various spheres of human life which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrines, that is to say the personal life or the economic, political and civic aspects of human society. The Annexes to the Study will show that such is indeed the case.
27. In recent years, greater attention has come to be paid by the media and governments to events surrounding the creation of refugees. Here again, confusion in terminology is a strong contributing factor to the lack of a cohesive global attitude
towards the overall problem. Many different terms such
as "asylum-seeker", "illegal immigrant", "defector", "expellee", "migrant", "displaced person", "border-crosser" and so on
on are
all used, just as victims of natural disasters are frequently called "refugees" as well. Various categories of people are thus lumped together under the same general heading.
28.
The universally-accepted definition of refugee is con-
tained in the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of
Refugees, which at Article 1 states that the term
term "refugee" shall, for the purpose of the Convention, apply to any person who: