Protection at the Margins: European Asylum Law and Vulnerable Refugee Populations

The purpose of this study was to examine the ways in which the European Union and its member states offer protection to particularly vulnerable refugee populations. The dissertation’s three articles focused primarily on the obstacles to securing asylum protection faced by children, women, and stateless persons. While the analysis, overall, shows there is some cause for optimism regarding European protection schemes, there are numerous remaining gaps in protection to be addressed.The first article examines the possible determinants of asylum claims in Europe. Using statistical data from the European Commission, it explores the impact of variables related to the applicant, the deciding state, and the state of origin. The critical asylum literature argues there is systemic bias against women and children seeking refugee status. However, the results of this article do not support this critique. Instead, the conditions in the state of origin – which can be seen as a proxy for the claim’s merit – have the greatest explanatory power in the models.The second article examines the obstacles faced by refugees seeking protection from gender-based persecution. Unlike other areas of asylum law, there are no definitive EU-level guidelines on how to assess such claims, leaving states to determine their own paths. A comparative legal analysis of 44 appeals decisions demonstrates that although the available European guidelines have some impact on courts’ decisions, other factors – including the rates of applications received by the state, the type of court deciding the case, and the length of EU membership – have greater influence on national courts.The final article explores the gaps in the protections available to stateless persons, including stateless refugees. An examination of policies and documents from IGOs, NGOs, and national government identifies several approaches to addressing protection claims from stateless persons in the EU. Problematically, a lack of supranational leadership has allowed states to use this divergence in approaches to either avoid responsibility for stateless persons or minimize the protection available to them. In particular, the delegation of statelessness determination procedures to asylum authorities has created and institutionalized several obstacles to protection for stateless persons