II.2.5.1 Basic procedural requirements

Main Debate

Do accelerated procedures comply with the 1951 Geneva Convention and international standards?

Main Points

  • Minimum standards for refugee status determination
  • Prima facie recognition
  • Impact of absence of legal representation
  • Impact of barriers of communication for asylum seekers and advocates and, asylum seekers and decision makers

Soft Law

  1. UNHCR EXCOM, Conclusion No. 8 ‘Official Records of the General Assembly, Thirty-Second Session’, Supplement No. 12, A/32/12/Add.1, para. 53(6)(e).
  2. UNHCR, ‘Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status under the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees’, HCR/IP/4/Rev.1, 1979, para. 189–194.

UNHCR Documents

  1. UNHCR ‘Asylum Process (Fair and Efficient Asylum Procedures)’, in Global Consultations on International Protection, 31 May 2001.
  2. UNHCR, ’UNHCR Statement on the right to an effective remedy in relation to accelerated asylum procedures’, 21 May 2010.
  3. UNHCR, ’Improving Asylum Procedures: Comparative Analysis and Recommendations for Law and Practice – Detailed Research on Key Asylum Procedures Directive Provisions’, March 2010.

Cases

  1. Landon v. Plasencia, [1982] 459 U.S. 21 (US judicial decision stating that the domestic law guarantee of due process requires that cases considering deportation of noncitizens provide substantial advance notice, access to legal assistance, and information concerning the applicable legal standards in order to safeguard the right to full and fair court hearings).

Readings

Core

  1. G. Goodwin-Gill and J. McAdam, The Refugee in International Law, 3rd edn, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 528–535. [G. Goodwin-Gill, The Refugee in International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 324–332.]
  2. J. Simeon, ‘A Comparative Analysis of the Response of the UNHCR and Industrialized States to Rapidly Fluctuating Refugee Status and Asylum Applications: Lessons and Best Practices for RSD Systems Design and Administration’, International Journal of Refugee Law, vol. 22, no. 1 (March 2010), pp. 72–103.

Extended

  1. S. Legomsky, ‘An Asylum Seeker’s Bill of Rights in a Non-utopian World’, Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, vol. 14 (2000), pp. 619–640.

Editor’s Note

The 1951 Convention does not specify procedural standards. Therefore, it is important that an analysis of the minimum standards for refugee status determination identify and interpret the sources of law that establish these standards, in particular international human rights law.

 II.2.5.1. Basic Procedural RequirementsII.2.5.1. Basic Procedural Requirements

UNHCR DocumentsUNHCR Documents

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1UNHCR, Improving Asylum Procedures: Comparative Analysis and Recommendations for Law and Practice – Detailed Research on Key Asylum Procedures Directive Provisions, March 2010.UNHCR, Improving Asylum Procedures: Comparative Analysis and Recommendations for Law and Practice – Detailed Research on Key Asylum Procedures Directive Provisions, March 2010.Empty
2UNHCR ‘Asylum Process (Fair and Efficient Asylum Procedures)’, in Global Consultations on International Protection, 31 May 2001.UNHCR ‘Asylum Process (Fair and Efficient Asylum Procedures)’, in Global Consultations on International Protection, 31 May 2001.Empty