Fairness

Transparency

Accountability

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RSDWatch report

 

 

 

Published 25 September 2006

 

No Margin for Error

Implementation of UNHCR’s Procedural

Standards for refugee status determination

at selected UNHCR field offices in 2006

 

 

For a printable version of the full report, click here.

 

Several large UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) field offices have failed to fully comply with the modest standards of fairness that the UN refugee agency set for its refugee status determination (RSD) procedures nearly three years ago.

 

Every year, at least 80,000 people who say they are in danger of persecution depend on UNHCR’s RSD procedures to obtain protection as refugees.  This study looked at the procedures used in 2006 at five of the largest UNHCR RSD operations in the world: Egypt, Hong Kong, Kenya, Lebanon and Turkey. It measured their procedures against UNHCR’s Procedural Standards for RSD under UNHCR's Mandate, which was issued to internally in November 2003 and published in September 2005. This report also examined the RSD procedures used by UNHCR’s office in Israel, where UNHCR handles most of the initial phases of RSD but the final decision is made by the government. 

 

Of the five offices, only one, UNHCR-Cairo (Egypt), had fully complied with all of the mandatory sections of the Procedural Standards. None had fully implemented the best practice recommendation that rejected asylum-seekers should be given specific reasons for rejection in writing:

 

Þ Failure to give all required information to asylum seekers early in the RSD process: Hong Kong, Israel, Kenya

Þ Failure to give a full RSD interview to all applicants: Israel, Lebanon

Þ Violation of the right to counsel: Hong Kong, Israel, Kenya

Þ Rejecting applications in an accelerated manner without full opportunities for case development, assessment and appeal: Hong Kong, Israel, Lebanon

Þ Failure to speed processing of special needs cases: Israel

 

The UNHCR standards have themselves been criticized for falling short of the normal benchmarks of due process that UNHCR advocates for governments.

 

 

For the survey on which the report is based, click here.

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