UNHCR Protection Manual - Related sources

This paper proposes criteria for determining when international law, and when sound policy, permit a country to return an asylum seeker to a third country without deciding the substance of his or her claim. It is argued, contrary to conventional wisdom, that the criteria for returning asylum seekers to “safe third countries” are precisely the same as the criteria for returning them to “first countries of asylum.” In the course of constructing these criteria, the paper argues that various developments in international law now add up to a general “complicity principle:”

This paper is written in the context of the growing importance of religion-based claims, and with the recognition of the complicated historical and socio-political factors within which the claims arise. The approach to determining the key elements in a refugee adjudication – what is a religion, what constitutes persecution in the context of religious practice, when is the persecution “for reasons of” the individual’s religious beliefs – are less clear today than they were when 1951 Refugee Convention was drafted. This paper is intended to address the need for a contemporary review of religion-based claims, and the concomitant need for the development of a framework for refugee adjudicators.

Claims of persecution on the basis of religion are likely to be among the most complex, arcane, and incomprehensible that will need to be decided by an asylum adjudicator. While religion may involve group identity (like race and nationality) or voluntary affiliation (like political and social groupings), it also encompasses an enormous range of human activities and beliefs. This paper seeks to provide useful background information that an adjudicator should consider when interpreting and applying asylum law in religion based claims.

whether forced recruitment or punishment for refusal to join a guerilla group can amount to persecution on account of political opinion, in the absence of proof regarding the specific intent of the guerillas.