UNHCR Protection Manual

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.

This annex to UNHCR’s note on the “externalization” of international protection (the ‘Note’) examines various policies and practices which effectively serve to “externalize” international protection obligations. It explains that measures designed, or effectively serving, to avoid responsibility or to shift, rather than share, burdens are contrary to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (‘1951 Refugee Convention’) and widely-accepted principles of international cooperation and solidarity. It further explains that such externalization measures are distinct from policies and practices adopted in accordance with international law, aimed at sharing international protection responsibilities in the spirit of international cooperation and solidarity.

This Note summarizes applicable legal standards and UNHCR’s positions regarding policies and practices which effectively serve to “externalize” international protection obligations.