Global Asylum Governance and the European Union's Role : Rights and Responsibility in the Implementation of the United Nations Global Compact on Refugees

Abstract

This open access book provides a state-of-the-field of the interactions between emerging national asylum governance systems and the 2018 United Nations Global Compact for Refugees (UN GCR). It provides a detailed examination of the relationship and compatibility between asylum governance and refugee protection and human rights, and the responsibilities for states and other implementing actors in cases of human rights violations. This book analyses the characteristics and impacts of existing and emerging asylum governance instruments and their practical implementation in selected countries hosting large communities of refugees around the world. Particular focus is given to the cases of Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Jordan, Niger, Serbia, South Africa and Turkey. Attention is put into regional and country-specific asylum instruments and actors from the perspective of their effectiveness, fairness and consistency with refugee protection and human rights standards as well as the UN GCR commitments. By doing so, the book identifies key lessons learned and offers a critical view on policies framed as `promising practices' so as to inform future steps in the UN GCR implementation and asylum governance more generally. As such, the book provides a better understanding of the concept of “mobility” in asylum governance, and the ways in which it is articulated into legal and policy instruments framed as "protection" and - in the language of the UN GCR - “third country solutions” for refugee mobility, including resettlement, private/community sponsorships, humanitarian corridors, in the European Union and around the world.