Speech to the International Association of Refugee and Migration Judges (IARMJ) Europe Chapter Conference

Honourable Judges, dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,

Allow me to begin by thanking the International Association of Refugee and Migration Judges (IARMJ), its European Chapter, as well as the Conseil d’État and the French National Court of Asylum (Cour nationale du droit d’asile, CNDA) for inviting me to address this distinguished audience. I would also like to thank the Vice-President of the Conseil d’État and the President of the French National Court of Asylum for convening this conference on the theme: “Judging asylum and immigration in a new era: between policy and the rule of law.”

I would like to acknowledge the long-standing cooperation between UNHCR, the International Association of Refugee and Migration Judges and the French National Court of Asylum. UNHCR’s cooperation with the CNDA dates back to 1952. Today, this partnership is reflected in the appointment of associate judges proposed by UNHCR to serve on the Court’s collegiate panels, as well as in the sharing of expertise through the training of asylum judges. UNHCR attaches great importance to this cooperation. I would also like to thank the CNDA for sharing its good practices with other judges across Europe and beyond. I look forward to the opportunity to continue strengthening this partnership.

Today’s conference takes place as we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. We are also commemorating the 65th anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, one of the two international treaties that form the cornerstone of the global response to statelessness and a key pillar of UNHCR’s work in this area.

While we commemorate the Anniversary of the Refugee Convention, we are clear that the right to seek asylum was not invented 75 years ago: the moral obligation to provide refuge to those fleeing danger has historically been enshrined in religious texts and in traditions of hospitality and humanity across the world and in the laws and practice of States.

The 1951 Refugee Convention is the modern embodiment of universal and deeply rooted norms. Since 1951, UNHCR’s mission has been to work with States and other partners to protect people forced to flee, provide life-saving assistance and solutions to millions around the world. 75 years of providing protection is a remarkable accomplishment. However, the scale and complexity of our task is vast, not least given the numbers of the forcibly displaced. According to our latest Global Report, over 117.8 million people are displaced worldwide, many trapped in protracted displacement and dependent on humanitarian aid. This includes 41.6 million refugees. Most are hosted in low- and middle-income countries, often in States facing acute economic, social and political pressures of their own.

Statelessness remains a major problem globally, including because of gender- discriminatory laws and the unlawful revocation of the citizenship of thousands of people in recent years. These and other legal and policy gaps leave many without a nationality.

At the same time, it is clear that States are facing challenges that need to be addressed. Mixed movements are straining asylum systems, including where people who are not in need of protection nevertheless claim it as a means to regularize their stay, often in the absence of other options. At the end of 2025, some 9 million asylum seekers were still awaiting a decision on their asylum claims. Climate change and its interlinkages with wars, violence and instability is acting as a vulnerability multiplier, contributing to changing patterns of displacement.

I wish to focus my remarks on three key contemporary challenges facing national asylum systems and ways in which they can be addressed. I will also briefly address the implementation of the EU Migration and Asylum Pact, before ending with remarks on the vital role of the judiciary.

The right to access asylum and the principle of non-refoulement are at the heart of the international protection system. Under international law, states have the sovereign right to manage their borders and regulate the entry of foreigners. However, international law also provides that measures to this effect may not prevent people from seeking and enjoying asylum from persecution.

Access to territory – and to fair and efficient asylum procedures – are essential requirements that necessitate judicial protection in many cases. Yet, we witness worrying trends in different parts of the world:

First, the violation of the principle of non-refoulement. The principle is a norm of customary international law and consequently binding on all States. Nonetheless, refoulement continues to be documented each year in all parts of the world. Closed borders, arbitrary and collective expulsions, violent pushbacks at land borders and interceptions at sea, among other measures, have denied international protection to individuals in need, putting many at risk of refoulement.

In addition to these direct forms of refoulement, we have also noted increased instances of disguised refoulement. This is a form of refoulement that occurs when host countries deliberately deny persons their economic, social and cultural rights in order to leave them with no choice but to return to a territory where they would be at risk of persecution. This is a form of refoulement that is not committed directly but indirectly through policies and practices that compromise the legal, material, and physical safety of asylum-seekers and refugees.

Your role as judges in examining such cases is essential. Judicial scrutiny is critical in determining whether safeguards are effective in practice, whether remedies are genuinely accessible and whether protection against refoulement is effective.

The 1951 Convention does not end with recognition of refugee status. It is also about enabling refugees to rebuild their lives and become full members of the societies that protect them. For decades, many European States gave practical effect to this vision by facilitating refugees’ integration and access to permanent residence and citizenship. Article 34 of the 1951 Convention explicitly calls on States to facilitate the naturalization of refugees. Yet today, we are seeing a trend in some countries towards greater restrictions on long-term legal stay, permanent residence and citizenship. As we mark the Convention’s 75^th anniversary, it is worth recalling that protection is not only about safety from refoulement, but also about providing a secure legal future and a genuine opportunity to contribute.

Second, we are equally concerned about the externalization of international protection obligations, as some countries move towards laws, policies and the implementation of measures designed to deter the arrival of people or remove them through measures contrary to international refugee law and in manners that effectively shift or avoid responsibility for refugee protection. UNHCR recognizes that cooperation between States is important, indeed necessary, to address challenges around the protection of refugees. However, cooperative arrangements need to contain binding safeguards and guarantees of treatment in line with international standards and access to asylum for those who need it. Above all, they need to advance international responsibility-sharing as called for by the Global Compact on Refugees, rather than allowing certain States to divest themselves of their protection obligations, shifting them onto others, often less well-placed, States.

The recent adoption and implementation of certain bilateral agreements between countries for deporting persons to other countries without essential safeguards – in practice including some people with pending asylum claims or continuing international protection needs – to countries where they cannot have access to fair and efficient procedures and where their rights, including protection from refoulement, are ignored, are of significant concern.

Third, we remain concerned about the issue of so called ‘instrumentalization’, referring to situations where States are alleged to have encouraged individuals to enter other countries with the aim of destabilizing the receiving countries. UNHCR’s 2024 "Legal Considerations on asylum and non-refoulement in the context of ‘instrumentalization’" outline States’ obligations under international refugee and human rights law on access to asylum in these situations. This sensitive and complex issue is the subject of three cases currently before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights.

UNHCR stresses that the answers to the current challenges facing the global refugee system lie not in disregarding or proposing to renegotiate fundamental principles of refugee law. The challenge before us is one of implementation, not of principles. It is operational, not normative. The key question – and one which comes before judges deciding complex cases every day – is how we apply existing principles to contexts that continue to evolve.

To assist States, UNHCR has issued guidance on the possibility for States to consider International Agreements for the Transfer of Refugees and Asylum-seekers. UNHCR’s 2025 guidance on this issue explains that such arrangements must ensure safety, access to fair and efficient asylum procedures, dignified reception conditions and continuing protection against direct and indirect refoulement. The transferring State cannot simply assume that responsibility has ended once an individual has been removed.

These considerations will be particularly relevant as courts review the Pact’s safe-third-country rules and any corresponding national measures. Courts must be able to examine whether all applicable safeguards exist in practice, whether the person will be admitted to the third country, whether they will have access to a fair asylum procedure, and whether protection against chain refoulement is effective.

It is important to recall that the international asylum framework is intended for people who flee war, violence, discrimination and persecution, and who need protection. This means that, by definition, those who do not fall within that category – and who do not have other ways to regularise their stay – can be returned in safety and dignity to their countries of origin, or, subject to Agreements containing essential safeguards, to other countries. We have also in 2025 issued concrete guidance on ‘The Need for Effective Returns Systems and the Potential Role of Return Hubs’, providing recommendations on returns for individuals found not to need international protection after a fair and efficient process and a final decision on the merits of their claims. The paper recalls that the return of such persons reinforces the credibility and legitimacy of national asylum systems.

States often justify restrictive measures and practices that violate international refugee and human rights law on the grounds of upholding sovereignty and safeguarding national security. However, security considerations and international refugee protection are not in opposition. Security and protection need to go hand in hand – they complement each other, and one is not possible without the other. The international refugee protection regime acknowledges and reflects this, as UNHCR has outlined in its recently published guidance on ‘Expulsion of refugees involved in committing serious crimes in host countries’. International refugee law provides for safeguards and mechanisms to protect those fleeing persecution, conflict, and violence while bearing in mind the security needs of host countries and their communities.

One must also recall that fleeing persecution, conflict or violence and crossing an international border in order to claim international protection in accordance with the human right to ‘seek and enjoy’ asylum is not a crime, but rather a universal right enshrined in international and regional human rights instruments.

Turning now to the EU Pact, it is important to recall that the implementation of the Pact must remain firmly anchored in the 1951 Convention and its key principles of access to protection and non-refoulement. EU law itself acknowledges that relationship. Article 18 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights guarantees the right to asylum with due respect for the rules of the 1951 Convention.

Current discussions on innovative solutions and emergency measures should not overshadow the core objective of Pact implementation which is to build asylum systems that are efficient, rights-compliant and capable of delivering timely, quality decisions.

As implementation of the new Pact advances, the central questions before courts are likely to concern not only who qualifies for protection, but whether individuals can effectively access asylum procedures; whether procedural safeguards remain meaningful in accelerated procedures; whether vulnerability has been properly identified; whether States have fully respected the principle of non-refoulement before removal; and whether efficiency and solidarity are pursued in a manner consistent with the rule of law. Beyond the Pact, the recent adoption of the EU Return Regulation places renewed emphasis on these questions and underscores the importance of ensuring that return procedures remain fully consistent with international refugee and human rights law.

Further questions regarding border procedures, the legal fiction of non-entry, safe-country concepts and combined asylum-and-return procedures, may all create risks if implemented without adequate safeguards. Short appeal periods, restrictions on the scope of judicial review and the absence of automatic suspensive effect in many procedures may make it harder for applicants to secure an effective remedy before removal, increasing the risk that individuals with protection needs are returned without their claims having been fully examined on the merits.

The Pact and the EU Return Regulation will generate an evolving body of national and European jurisprudence on how its new procedures interact with the Refugee Convention, the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights. This places judges at the heart of the Pact’s implementation. Through the interpretation and application of these rules, Courts will play a decisive role in ensuring that greater efficiency does not come at the expense of effective protection.

The real test is not laws adopted, but whether asylum systems are efficient enough to command public confidence and fair enough to protect those fleeing persecution and conflict.

With that, let me turn more specifically to the role of the judiciary and the rule of law. Strong, independent judges and judicial institutions are crucially important in upholding the rule of law and ensuring that refugee rights and access to asylum are not undermined in these challenging times.

Judicial independence remains a crucial principle that is far from secure in many parts of the world. Some of your fellow judges need all of our support to maintain their professional objectivity and perform their roles, often in the face of great pressure. Some judges are subject to negative and threatening attacks on social media and in the press. In addition, many judiciaries must also contend with bureaucratic barriers, insecurity, structural underfunding and capacity gaps. Addressing them requires sustained investment in legal reform, capacity-building, and institutional strengthening.

The judiciary is critical to the effective functioning of governance systems that respect the rule of law. You are pivotal to the administration of justice and the protection of human rights, providing the voice of reason in public debates that are often rooted in fear and xenophobia.

Lastly, I would like to highlight UNHCR’s role as an amicus curiae or friend of the court. In 2025, UNHCR intervened in 18 cases in 13 jurisdictions, 16 before national courts in 12 countries and two before regional courts. In jurisdictions where the rules prohibit UNHCR from acting as an amicus or third-party intervener, UNHCR has issued public statements which provide our interpretation of the relevant principles of international refugee and human rights law to assist courts in their deliberations. These interventions are critical to the fulfilment of our supervisory responsibility as per article 35 of the 1951 Convention.

The history of refugee protection is not simply the history of a treaty. It is the history of courts and lawyers engaging in a continuous dialogue across jurisdictions and generations. National courts cite regional and international courts, and vice versa. Regional tribunals draw on refugee and human rights law. Advocates build on precedents developed thousands of miles away. Together, they have ensured that the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol remain living instruments, capable of responding to new forms of persecution while remaining faithful to their original purpose.

We count on you, your fellow judges and your association to safeguard the manner in which regional and national law is interpreted and applied, and ensure that people who have been forced to flee persecution and violence can enjoy their rights in practice and that the rule of law prevails even in times of political pressure.

Thank you very much for your attention.