Asylum Law in the European Union examines international and European laws on the international protection of asylum seekers. Written by Francesco Cherubini, a LUISS professor of International Organizations and Human Rights, and published by Routledge, the book focuses on the evolution of procedures for asylum seekers, starting with the first international treaty drawn up on the subject, the Geneva Convention of 1951. It then looks at the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and finally discusses the regulations contained in the first and second asylum package.
The Geneva Convention, aside from providing a definition of a refugee, also establishes various rights for persons who fall into this category. Cherubini explains: "Some fundamental rights, such as the prohibition on refoulement that prevents sending people back to the country where they risk being persecuted, are guaranteed regardless of how they fled. Then there are other rights that are extended based on the strength of the refugee’s presence in the territory."
The problem is that the figure of the refugee still remains very ambiguous for two main reasons: "the first is that it is based on a Convention that was stipulated in 1951 and modeled on the extent of migration within Europe during the Second World War. The second and more important reason is that the way the interpretation of these regulations has evolved requires an international body capable of exercising control and assurance regarding the procedures of individual member states."
In the case of international protection the only existing oversight body is the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which, however, does not have binding force on the interpretation of the Convention’s provisions and asks individual countries to determine the refugee’s status, which consequently leads to very different results from country to country.
Reconstructing the history of European regulations on international protection, Cherubini outlines EU regulation since 1984, when the idea of abolishing internal border controls and establishing an internal market began to take hold. "As was stated by the first president of the executive committee of the Convention that implemented the Schengen Agreement, abolishing internal border controls meant 'moving the controls from the apartment door to that of the property,' i.e., to adopt an immigration policy that was at least harmonized, which the European Union had begun generating after the changes introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam."
An important role in guaranteeing and interpreting European laws is played by the Court of Justice of the European Union. "Since the Treaty of Lisbon came into force, these norms have been handed back to the full jurisdiction of the Court of Justice, which has begun to issue rulings and which will have an impact on improving harmonization, which is one of the pillars upon which the entire regulatory system of international protection in Europe rests."
This system has not yet reached an acceptable level of harmonization: "One of the cornerstones of this system, the Dublin II Regulation (now III), is used to determine which member state is responsible for examining asylum applications. There are various criteria used to establish this responsibility, but the problem is that distributing people based on this criteria requires that the conditions of acceptance are as homogeneous as possible. But this is not how it is: figures related to the acceptance of applications in 2010 range from a success rate of 2% (Ireland) and 3% (Greece) to 61% for Finland and 100% for Portugal."
The data that emerges from the book’s analysis portrays a heterogeneous system, which the work of the Court of Justice can only partially correct. Some of the proposals set out in the last part of the book represent the more radical reforms that the system needs.