Some Observations on the Legal Responsibility of States and International Organizations in the Extraterritorial Processing of Asylum Claims
The final, edited version of this contribution has been published in "The Italian Yearbook of International Law", Volume 25, pp. 135-158.
18 Pages Posted: 2 Feb 2017
Date Written: May 27, 2016
Abstract
The idea of establishing centres for the “external processing” of asylum claims – already supported by some EU Member States, and actually realized in the Caribbean by the United States and in the Pacific area by Australia – has recently come to the fore again in European debate.
The recent proposals - which tend to create offshore centres in Turkey and probably in African countries too - envisage various levels of involvement of EU Member States and of the European Union itself.
The present paper intends to analyse, in particular, which of the various actors implicated would be responsible, and to what extent, in cases of violations of asylum seekers’ human rights. In fact, the scenario that could be envisaged is extremely complex. Disentangling the web of action/attribution/responsibility is very difficult and the risk of “blame shifting” or “passing the buck” among the various actors is high. Finally, the possibility of the extraterritorial application of the European Convention on Human Rights will also be explored, in order to verify individuals’ access to remedies before the European Court of Human Rights.
Keywords: Extraterritorial processing; asylum; responsibility; ECHR; jurisdiction
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