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UK: France and Germany again ruled unsafe

01 January 2001

On 19 December 2000, five law lords in the UK High Court upheld a Court of Appeal ruling from 23 July 1999, which held that Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, acted unlawfully when he issued deportation orders to remove a Somali and an Algerian refugee back to Germany and France on "safe third country grounds" (see Statewatch Vol 9 no 5 for a more detailed legal analysis of the 1999 ruling). The "safe third country" regulation, which was first introduced with the Dublin Convention, has been criticised by asylum rights groups for failing to guarantee the principle of non?refoulement (sending refugees back to unsafe countries). The Appeal and now the High Court, have ruled that France and Germany deviate from the international law when interpreting the "well founded fear of persecution" under Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Geneva Convention as only relating to state agents. The law lords held that both Ms Adan and Mr Aitseguer would most probably be sent back to Somalia and Algeria by the German and French authorities as both countries do not recognise non?state forms of persecution. Britain, as most other signatories to the Geneva Convention, recognises the inability or unwillingness of states to ensure protection from persecution.