UNHCR Protection Manual

Laws, policies and practices penalizing people in need of international protection because of their unauthorized or irregular entry and presence and/or restricting their freedom of movement can breach Article 31 of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (1951 Convention). The purpose of these Guidelines is to provide substantive guidance for interpreting and applying Article 31 of the 1951 Convention and to promote consistency in such interpretation and application among Contracting States of the 1951 Convention and its 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees.

This guidance provides globally relevant advice and considerations to inform cooperative arrangements among States on asylum and ensure their consistency with international refugee and human rights law. In particular, it aims to inform the development and implementation of arrangements for State cooperation in relation to the transfer of refugees and asylum-seekers to a third country, when States are considering such arrangements. This guidance outlines the legal basis for such arrangements as well as their scope and content and should be read together with UNHCR’s existing positions and guidance on related issues, on which it is based. It also underscores the importance of responsibility-sharing and international cooperation as essential elements for the legality and practical viability of these arrangements. This guidance further describes the potential role of UNHCR in the development, conclusion, implementation and monitoring of transfer agreements pursuant to its mandate for the international protection of refugees and its supervisory responsibility for the application of refugee law instruments.

UNHCR together with the University of Essex convened on 22 and 23 October 2024 an Expert Roundtable held in Colchester, UK on travel documents for persons in need of international protection and stateless persons . The Roundtable was organized with support from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The objective of the Roundtable was to obtain a deeper understanding of legal and technical issues around travel documents for persons in need of international protection and stateless persons, explore areas for improvement, and enhance collaboration between key stakeholders. The document summarizes the discussions at the Expert Roundtable, highlighting protection safeguards as well as obstacles and solutions to issuing machine-readable travel documents, and makes multi-stakeholder recommendations for the way forward. These Summary Conclusions reflect the themes and understandings that emerged but they do not necessarily represent the views of individual participants or of UNHCR or ICAO.

These Guidelines set out relevant legal standards concerning family reunification for refugees and other beneficiaries of international protection, in accordance with international and regional refugee and human rights law. The Guidelines first outline the right to family life and the principle of family unity as they apply to refugees and other beneficiaries of international protection and explain the concepts of family and of family reunification. They then address procedural requirements that may constitute obstacles to family reunification for refugees and other beneficiaries of international protection, including specific challenges for family reunification for children. Finally, the Guidelines discuss other specific issues related to family reunification, including restrictions related to mode of arrival, access to courts and travel documents.

A review of State practice to provide international protection based on international and regional refugee and human rights law or to provide admission and stay based on migration law to persons displaced across borders in the context of disasters and adverse effects of climate change demonstrating growing consensus on the need to protect such persons through national and regional applications of these three areas of law, but indicating that the use of these tools is limited, often random, hard to predict, and neither harmonized nor well-coordinated.

The Procedural Standards for RSD under UNHCR’s Mandate sets out the minimum procedural standards
for when RSD is conducted by UNHCR under its mandate. It establishes core principles and standards
that must be observed to ensure that all asylum-seekers applying for refugee status determination under
UNHCR’s mandate benefit from accurate, timely and consistent decision-making and to support capacity-
development of UNHCR RSD staff and other stakeholders.