This chapter surveys work on three core topics in the interdisciplinary literature on ethics and international refugee law (IRL). First, it provides an overview of the most discussed issue among authors evaluating IRL from an ethical standpoint: i.e., whether the United Nations’ 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees justifiably limits its definition of a “refugee” to people who have fled their countries on account of fear of persecution. While some authors maintain that this definition is ethically sound, others contend that it inappropriately excludes forced migrants who have fled their countries due to threats besides persecution, people who have not left their countries, or both. A second area of dispute covered by the chapter concerns the ethical foundations of IRL. Here too, controversy centres on the Convention’s definition of a refugee, with authors dividing not only on the question of whether its restrictions with regard to persecution and alienage are justified, but also with the question of what moral judgements are implicit in conceiving of refugeehood as so-restricted. Finally, the chapter discusses work on the very connection between IRL and ethics as that topic arises within the context of the broader controversy between natural law and legal positivist approaches to the relationship between law and morality.