Abstract
The framework for refugee protection established around 1950 seemed to be essentially territorial. In this chapter, the ways in which states redefined entry into territory and indeed territory itself in order to accommodate schemes for migration control and to limit refugee law obligations is explored, as well how states, drawing on the notion that refugee law applies within the territory, set up border controls away from their borders. Furthermore, the responses of human rights treaty monitoring bodies are analysed - both as regards the redefinitions of borders and territory, as well as regards extraterritorial acts. The picture is mixed: on the one hand human rights law did develop constraints on state actions, on the other hand the notion of territoriality limits alternative human rights law approaches to define state responsibility.
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Notes
- 1.
Asylum case (Colombia/Peru), ICJ, Judgment, 20 November 1950, at 274.
- 2.
Vilvarajah and others v UK, ECtHR, Ser. A 215, 30 October 1991; and repeated in about every case since regarding claims to Article 3 ECHR against expulsion. The principle was mentioned well before the Vilvarajah judgment—see for the origins of this unwritten rule McKeown 2008.
- 3.
1951 Convention Relating to Status of Refugees, UNTS 189, 137 (RC).
- 4.
Preamble RC: ‘considering that the grant of asylum may place unduly heavy burdens on certain countries, and that a satisfactory solution of a problem of which the United Nations has recognized the international scope and nature cannot therefore be achieved without international co-operation’.
- 5.
Grahl-Madsen 1963, Commentary to Article 33, para (2).
- 6.
Sale v Haitian Centers Council, Supreme Court, 509 U.S. 155 (1993), para 182; cf. Grahl-Madsen 1963, Commentary to Article 33, para (2).
- 7.
Institut de Droit International (1950) L’asile en droit international public (à l’exclusion de l’asile neutre), Session de Bath, http://justitiaetpace.org/resolutions_chrono.php?start=1947&end=1952, accessed 16 January 2017. This definition is invoked here because a definition in an international treaty is as yet non-existent. A similar link to territory can be found in Article 1(1) of the Draft Convention on Territorial Asylum (ExCom Reports 1974, A/AC.96/508/Add.1), and in Article I of the 1954 Convention on Territorial Asylum (OAS, TS 19).
- 8.
Article 3(1).
- 9.
France had proposed it (E/AC.32/L.3, Articles 1 and 2). Instead, a reference to asylum was included in the Preamble (E/AC.32/SR. 26, at 10–11).
- 10.
UN Doc A/CONF.2/SR.16 (1951), at 6 and 10.
- 11.
Goodwin-Gill and McAdam 2007, at 206.
- 12.
Grahl-Madsen 1963, Commentary to Article 33, para (3).
- 13.
Ibid.
- 14.
UN General Assembly, Declaration on Territorial Asylum, 14 December 1967, A/RES/2312(XXII).
- 15.
Article 3(2): ‘Exception may be made to the foregoing principle only for overriding reasons of national security or in order to safeguard the population, as in the case of a mass influx of persons’.
- 16.
- 17.
Article 3(1) Asylum Procedures Directive (APD), Directive 2013/32/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 on common procedures for granting and withdrawing international protection.
- 18.
Temporary protection as defined in the Temporary Protection Directive serves to alleviate the burden mass influxes may bring to asylum procedures (cf. Article 2(a)), not to extend or diminish the personal scope of protection for the purposes of non-refoulement.
- 19.
Coleman 2003, at 31–33 and 38–40.
- 20.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees (2016) UNHCR Concerned by build up along borders and additional hardships for refugees and asylum seekers, 23 February 2016, http://www.unhcr.org/news/press/2016/2/56cc521c6/unhcr-concerned-build-along-borders-additional-hardships-refugees-asylum.html, accessed 16 January 2017.
- 21.
Situation on 5 May 2016.
- 22.
Directive 2013/32/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 on common procedures for granting and withdrawing international protection (Asylum Procedures Directive, APD).
- 23.
Article 9(1) APD. The provision mentions two exceptions that do not concern us here (to wit, repeated applications and extradition).
- 24.
Article 2(p) APD.
- 25.
Case 357/09 PPU, Kadzoev [2009] ECR I-11189, para 41.
- 26.
Article 43(1) APD.
- 27.
Article 8(3)(c) APD.
- 28.
Regulation (EC) No 562/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006 establishing a Community Code on the rules governing the movement of persons across borders (Schengen Borders Code), OJ [2006] L 105, 1, Article 13.
- 29.
Article 43(3) APD.
- 30.
- 31.
See Aliens Circular A1/7.1 and 7.3, Stcrt. 2015, 20854.
- 32.
Saadi v United Kingdom, ECtHR Grand Chamber, No. 13229/03, 29 January 2008.
- 33.
Saadi, para 65.
- 34.
Saadi, para 80.
- 35.
2007 Headquarters Agreement between the International Criminal Court and the Host State, ICC‐BD/04‐01‐08, Article 44.
- 36.
Judicial Division Council of State, ECLI:NL:RVS:2013:2050, 23 November 2013.
- 37.
Amuur v France, ECtHR, No. 19776/92, 25 June 1996.
- 38.
Amuur, para 52.
- 39.
Djokaba Lambi Longa v The Netherlands, ECtHR, No. 33917/12, 9 October 2012.
- 40.
1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 2187 UNTS 90.
- 41.
District Court The Hague, ECLI:NL:RBSGR:2011:BU9492, 28 December 2011, para 9.1.
- 42.
Longa, para 69.
- 43.
Longa, para 75.
- 44.
The Prosecutor v Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, Trial Chamber, Decision on an Amicus Curiae application, Case ICC-01/04-01/07-3003, 9 June 2011, para 85.
- 45.
- 46.
Legomsky 2006.
- 47.
Sale v Haitian Centers Council, Supreme Court, 509 U.S. 155 (1993), para 177. The reasoning as regards the territorial scope of Article 33 will be discussed in Sect. 11.3.1.
- 48.
- 49.
Wood and McAdam 2012.
- 50.
- 51.
Cuban American Bar Association, Inc. v Christopher, 43 F.3d 1412, Haitian Refugee Center, Inc. v Christopher, 43 F.3d 1431, US Court of Appeals, 11th Circuit, 18 January 1995.
- 52.
This line of argument is not dissimilar to the way treaty monitoring bodies construe the scope of application of human rights treaties—see Sect. 11.3.2 below.
- 53.
Boumediene v Bush, Supreme Court, 553 U.S. 723 (2008).
- 54.
Concluding observations on the third to fifth periodic reports of United States of America, CAT/C/USA/CO/3-5, 20 November 2014, para 10.
- 55.
Concluding observations on the fourth periodic report of the United States of America, CCPR/C/USA/CO/4, 23 April 2014; and One-Year Follow-up Response of the United States of America to Priority Recommendations of the Human Rights Committee on its Fourth Periodic Report on Implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/242228.pdf, accessed 16 January 2017, para 24.
- 56.
This matter will be discussed in Sect. 11.3.2.1 below.
- 57.
P.A.C. v Australia, CAT, No. 211/2002, 5 September 2005; F.K.A.G. et al., HRC, No. 2094/2011, 23 October 2013.
- 58.
The temporal aspect of these variants of pre-border detention schemes cannot be further exploited here. See on the issue of time and migration regulation Stronks 2017.
- 59.
- 60.
Cf. Article 3 Regulation (EC) No 810/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 establishing a Community Code on Visas (Visa Code), OJ [2009] L 243, 1.
- 61.
See for this response to the Syrian civil war Battjes et al. 2016, para 2.
- 62.
- 63.
1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 999 UNTS 171 (ICCPR).
- 64.
HRC, General Comment 31, Nature of the General Legal Obligation on States Parties to the Covenant, U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.13, adopted on 29 March 2004, para 10. The HRC had stated that the Covenant may apply extraterritorially since Lilian Celiberti de Casariego v Uruguay, HRC Communication No. 56/1979, 29 July 1981, U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/OP/1 at 92 (1984).
- 65.
Vidal Martins v Uruguay, HRC, No. 57/1979, 23 March 1982, para 7; see Den Heijer 2011, at 43–44 for more examples.
- 66.
Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, ICJ, Advisory Opinion, 9 July 2004, para 111; it found the reading of the HRC in accordance with object and purpose of the treaty as well as the preparatory works, see paras 108–110.
- 67.
Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v Uganda), ICJ, Judgment 19 December 2005, para 216.
- 68.
1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, UNGA Resolution 2106 (XX) of 21 December 1965 (CERD).
- 69.
Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Georgia v Russian Federation), ICJ, Order 15 October 2008, para 109.
- 70.
Den Heijer 2011, at 57.
- 71.
1984 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, UNGA Resolution 39/46, 10 December 1984 (CAT).
- 72.
CAT/C/GC/2, 24 January 2008, para 16.
- 73.
CAT/C/USA/CO/2, 25 July 2006, para 15.
- 74.
1950 Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 213 UNTS 222, 312 ETS 5 (ECHR).
- 75.
Al-Skeini and others v United Kingdom, ECtHR (GC) No. 55721/07, 7 July 2011, para 131 with references to earlier case law.
- 76.
Milanovic 2012.
- 77.
Al-Skeini, paras 138–140.
- 78.
Al-Skeini, para 133, referring to earlier case law.
- 79.
Bankovic and Others v Belgium and 16 Other States, ECtHR (GC), No. 52207/99, 12 December 2001, para 75.
- 80.
Den Heijer 2011, at 46.
- 81.
Al-Skeini, paras 133–136.
- 82.
Al-Skeini, para 137.
- 83.
Gammeltoft-Hansen 2014, at 125.
- 84.
E.g. Al-Skeini; and Al -Saadoon and Mufdhi v UK, ECtHR, No. 61498/08, 2 March 2010.
- 85.
E.g. Ocalan v Turkey, ECtHR (GC), No. 46221/99, 12 May 2005.
- 86.
J.H.A. v Spain, CAT, No. 323/2007, 21 November 2008.
- 87.
J.H.A. v Spain, para 8.2.
- 88.
Hirsi Jamaa and others v Italy, ECtHR (GC), No. 27765/09, 28 February 2012.
- 89.
Hirsi Jamaa, para 81.
- 90.
Xhavara and fifteen others v Italy, No. 39473/98, 11 January 2001.
- 91.
See, apart from the examples mentioned in Sect. 11.3.3, Issa and others v Turkey, ECtHR, No. 31821/96, 16 November 2004, para 74.
- 92.
Gammeltoft-Hansen 2014, at 120.
- 93.
See Den Heijer 2011, at 41–51 for cases and discussion.
- 94.
Asylum case (Colombia/Peru), ICJ, Judgment, 20 November 1950, at 275.
- 95.
Den Heijer 2011, at 167–172.
- 96.
Hirsi Jamaa, para 81.
- 97.
- 98.
Regina v Immigration Officer at Prague Airport and Another, Ex parte European Roma Rights Centre and Others, UKHL, [2004] UKHL 55, 9 December 2004.
- 99.
Den Heijer 2011, at 142–144.
- 100.
Soering, ECtHR, No. 14038/88, 7 July 1989, para 91.
- 101.
Chahal, ECtHR, No. 22414/93, 15 November 1996, para 74.
- 102.
Chahal, para 80.
- 103.
Soering, para 85.
- 104.
Soering, para 91.
- 105.
Den Heijer 2011, at 149.
- 106.
Slingenberg 2012.
- 107.
Alpes et al. 2016, paras 5 and 6.
- 108.
E.g. Goodwin-Gill and McAdam 2007, at 390–407.
- 109.
Hirsi Jamaa, para 156.
- 110.
See for a critical analysis of the EU-Turkey Deal Battjes, Brouwer, Slingenberg and Spijkerboer 2016, para 3.3.5.
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Battjes, H. (2017). Territoriality and Asylum Law: The Use of Territorial Jurisdiction to Circumvent Legal Obligations and Human Rights Law Responses. In: Kuijer, M., Werner, W. (eds) Netherlands Yearbook of International Law 2016. Netherlands Yearbook of International Law, vol 47. T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-207-1_11
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