Advocate General: Army desertion due to belief that duty may result in war crimes is asylum ground

14th November 2014 | News

A real risk of persecution exists where a military personnel refuses to perform service on the basis of a conscientious belief that there is a direct link between his acts and the reasonable likelihood that war crimes will occur, concludes Advocate General Sharpston...

FRA: EU border guards frequently fail to identify refugees and victims of human trafficking

14th November 2014 | News

Two new reports by the European Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) reveal grave and widespread deficiencies in identifying persons in need of international protection and preventing violations of the absolute prohibition of non-refoulement at airport and land borders...

ECSR: The Netherlands violates the right of undocumented migrants to food, shelter and health care

14th November 2014 | News

The European Committee of Social Rights has found that the Netherlands is violating the rights of irregular migrants under the European Social Charter. In particular, as the large majority of undocumented adult migrants without resources who have not been returned are...

ECtHR: Greece condemned once again for detaining migrants in degrading conditions

14th November 2014 | News

The European Court of Human Rights found that the detention conditions endured by a Bangladeshi national, Mr Toiabali MD, at the aliens’ police department in Thessaloniki amounted to a violation of Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), which...

EP Study: EU should focus on better reception rather than coercive redistribution of asylum seekers

14th November 2014 | News

A study commissioned by the Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE) of the European Parliament examines the need and potential for new approaches to ensure access to protection for asylum seekers, including joint processing and distribution of asylum applicants among EU...

ECtHR rules against return of asylum-seeking family to Italy without reception guarantees

7th November 2014 | News

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) held this week that returning the Tarakhel family from Switzerland to Italy without guarantees that they would benefit from appropriate conditions would violate their human rights as enshrined in the European Convention of...

Italian legal system needs reforms to ensure access to justice for undocumented migrants, says ICJ

7th November 2014 | News

In its report, “Undocumented” Justice for Migrants in Italy, on the possibilities of challenging expulsion and detention decisions issued to undocumented migrants in Italy, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) highlights the shortcomings of the Italian system...

New report analyses access to the EU territory following ECtHR condemnation of pushbacks in high seas

7th November 2014 | News

In a new report, ‘Access to Protection: Bridges Not Walls’, the Italian Council for Refugees (CIR) analyses the impact of the case of Hirsi Jamaa and others v. Italy and argues that the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has established access to territory as a...

European Commission urged to intervene to stop violations of EU law in Ceuta and Melilla

7th November 2014 | News

ECRE, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Rights International Spain, have written to the EU Commissioner for Migration and Home Affairs Dimitris Avramopoulos to intervene with the Spanish government regarding proposed changes to Spanish immigration law that...

UNHCR: Registration of Syrian refugees drops in Lebanon due to restrictions on border-crossings

6th November 2014 | News

The UNHCR representative in Lebanon Ninette Kelley informed last week that the number of Syrian refugees registered by UNHCR offices in Lebanon had drastically decreased in the last few weeks. According to Kelley, this phenomenon is the result of the restrictions...