GPPi researcher calls on EU to revise laws restricting secondary movement of refugees

European lawmakers need to rethink the rules restricting the movement of refugees after they have sought refuge in a first country of asylum, argues GPPi research associate Julian Lehmann in an article published in February 2014 in the German legal journal Asylmagazin (issue 1−2÷2014).

According to Lehmann, international refugee law intentionally grants second countries of asylum some latitude in deciding whether they allow a refugee to stay on their territory. Often, an asylum-seeker who has been granted refugee status is restricted from taking up residence in another country unless he fulfills immigration exigencies unrelated to his refugee status.

However, refugee law also guarantees refugees certain standards of protection. When a first country of asylum fails to deliver the most important standards – such as the obligation to not return a refugee to a country where the refugee risks being persecuted; physical and basic social security; freedom from arbitrary detention; and family unity – a refugee should be able to choose to move to a second country of asylum and have his stay there deemed lawful. In this case, state responsibility for the refugee should immediately shift to the second state.

Lehmann added that he doubted whether the European rules on secondary movement, which require a two-year period for transfer of status, actually comply with international refugee law, which does not require a two-year period.

It is time, argued Lehmann, for lawmakers to revise rules on secondary movement of refugees and to increase the testing of protection standards of refugees in first countries of asylum.

Lehmann’s article can be downloaded here.