EC:`no serious risk of persecution'
01 January 1991
EC:`no serious risk of persecution'
actdoc September=1993
CONCLUSIONS
on countries in which there is generally
no serious risk of persecution
[SN 4821/92 WGI 1281 AS 145]
1. The resolution on manifestly unfounded applications for asylum
(WGI 1282) includes at paragraph l(a) a reference to the concept of
countries in which there is in general terms no serious risk of
persecution.
This concept means that it is a country which can be clearly
shown, in an objective and verifiable way, normally not to generate
refugees or where it can be clearly shown, in an objective and
verifiable way, that circumstances which might in the past have
justified recourse to the 1951 Geneva Convention have ceased to
exist [ref:Report from Immigration Ministers to the European
Council meeting in Maastricht (doc WGI 930, page 38)]
Purposes
2. The aim of developing this concept is to assist in
establishing a harmonized approach to applications from countries
which give rise to a high proportion of clearly unfounded
applications and to reduce pressure on asylum determination systems
that are at present excessively burdened with such applications.
This will help to ensure that refugees in genuine need of
protection are not kept waiting unnecessarily long for their status
to be recognized and to discourage misuse of asylum procedures.
Member States have the goal to reaching common assessment of
certain countries that are of particular interest in this context.
To this end, Member States will exchange information within an
appropriate framework on any national decisions to consider
particular countries as ones in which there is generally no serious
risk of persecution. In making such assessments, they will use, as
a minimum, the elements of assessment laid down in this document.
3. An assessment by an individual Member State of a country as
one in which there is generally no serious risk of persecution
should not automatically result in the refusal of all asylum
applications from its nationals or their exclusion from
individualized determination procedures. A Member State may choose
to use such an assessment in channelling cases into accelerated
procedures as described in paragraph 2 of the resolution on
manifestly unfounded applications, agreed by Immigration Ministers
at their meeting on 30 November and 1 December 1992. The Member
state will nevertheless consider the individual claims of all
applicants from such countries and any specific indications
presented by the applicant which might outweigh a general
presumption.
Elements in the assessment
4. The following elements should be taken together in any
assessment of the general risk of persecution in a particular
country
(a) previous numbers of refugees and recognition rates. It
is necessary to look at the recognition rates for asylum
applicants from the country in question who have come to
Member States in recent years. Obviously, a situation may
change and historically low recognition rates need not
continue following (for example) a violent coup. But in the
absence of any significant change in the country it is
reasonable to assume that low recognition rates will continue
and that the country tends not to produce refugees.
(b) observance of human rights. It is necessary to consider the
formal obligations undertaken by a country in adhering to
international human rights instruments and in its domestic law
and how in practice it meets those obligations. The latter is
clearly more important and adherence or non-adherence to a
particular instrument cannot in itself result in consideration
as a country in which there is generally no serious risk of
persecution. It should be recognized that a pattern of
breaches of human rights -may be exclusively linked to a
particular group within a country's populatio