Rewriting Febles, Decolonialising Exclusion.

The article critically examines the Supreme Court of Canada's 2014 decision in *Febles v. Canada*, which interpreted Article 1F(b) of the 1951 Refugee Convention to exclude from refugee protection individuals who have committed a "serious non-political crime," with "seriousness" fixed at the time of the offence and unaffected by subsequent rehabilitation or sentence completion. The authors argue this literalist and positivist approach risks material and epistemic injustices, including reinforcing racialized migration controls and marginalizing refugee claimants' perspectives, particularly those from Majority World countries. They propose a non-positivist, purposive interpretation aligned with the United Nations' broader project of maintaining peaceful international order, whereby exclusion applies only to crimes intrinsically threatening civil order and is conditional on whether the claimant has expiated their offence through formal or informal means. This framework supports revisiting exclusion decisions post-expiation, thereby reducing injustice and better reflecting the human rights and equitable access objectives of the Refugee Convention.