Part IV Access to Protection and International Responsibility-Sharing, Ch.32 Asylum Procedure

Subject(s):

Right to effective remedy — Asylum — Non-refoulement — International procedural law

This chapter addresses the standards on asylum procedures that apply within various regulatory contexts. Its normative focus includes not only the standards for determination of refugee status under the Refugee Convention and Protocol, but also those concerning the examination of applications for complementary or subsidiary forms of protection. Nonetheless, the legal interaction between asylum procedures and Convention refugee status will be the starting point. As the Refugee Convention is scant on procedural standards, the chapter discusses the soft law standards that partly fill the normative gap. It also examines procedural standards concerning subsidiary or complementary protection that have been developed on the basis of human rights norms prohibiting refoulement beyond the scope of the Refugee Convention. Human rights treaties generally include the right to effective remedies at national level and are therefore relevant for the administrative or/and judicial procedures that apply when States parties to such treaties examine asylum applications. Although directly linked to the protection against refoulement under human rights treaties, the requirement of effective remedies has indirect effect also for procedures concerning the determination of Convention refugee status.