Population figures
Total country population
180,805
Forcibly displaced population
Refugees (under UNHCR's mandate):
5
Asylum-seekers:
0
IDPs (of concern to UNHCR):
0
Other people in need of international protection:
0
Other
Statelessness persons
0
Host community
0
Others of concern to UNHCR
0
Country context
Saint Lucia is an archipelagic state in the Eastern Caribbean Sea, situated southeast of Martinique and northwest of Barbados, and lying north of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
As a non-Party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, Saint Lucia has not enacted domestic asylum legislation or procedures for status determination, nor has it established an appeals mechanism for negative decisions. In the absence of a national framework, individuals expressing a fear of return are referred to the UNHCR’s Honorary Liaison for the territory, with formal recognition and protection decisions made by a regional office under UNHCR’s mandate rather than by domestic authorities. Draft proposals to introduce national refugee legislation have been discussed in past years but have not progressed to enactment, leaving procedural safeguards and rights of asylum-seekers unstandardized at the national level.
...Access to housing, education and public services is arranged under prevailing immigration and civil-residency provisions, without specialized reception facilities or encampment. Stateless persons, though few in number, are dispersed among foreign-national communities in urban areas and similarly depend on general administrative regulations for documentation.
Statelessness is similarly unaddressed through domestic law. Although a recommendation was made during Saint Lucia’s second Universal Periodic Review cycle to accede to the 1954 and 1961 Statelessness Conventions, no accession has occurred and no status-determination process exists. Persons without nationality remain subject to general immigration controls and may obtain temporary identity documentation at the discretion of immigration officials, without codified guarantees or appeal rights.
Internally displaced persons are not recognised under a standalone legal instrument. Relocations arising from natural disasters or development projects are managed under civil-law compensation schemes and emergency regulations, with affected individuals relying on ad hoc relief arrangements rather than a dedicated status or protection framework.
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