Introduction - The Future of Asylum in the European Union? Problems, Proposals and Interaction with International Human Rights Standards

This book is based on the conference on Common European Asylum System which was held in April 2008. The book contains a wide variety of discussion, from academic experts in the field to refugee organisation representatives (UNHCR, ECRE) to human rights NGO (Amnesty International). The book , therefore, contains a broad discussion of the issues raised by building an European asylum system from four main perspectives: crossing the EU border, access to the asylum procedures, qualifications as a refugeeand the Dublin II Regulation system on allocating responsibility for processing asylum seekers and responsibility for refugees. The Chapter I introduction brings together the discussion by the authors from these perspectives. In addition, it also addresses and analyses the recent developments under ECHR, focusing on the recent cases pending and decided by the European Court of Human Rights in relation to the CEAS. It is analysed how in order to achieve a properly functioning CEAS, thas is a CEAS that is fully in compliance with the international refugee obligations, also other than normative or legislative means need to be employed. This can be done by strengthening the operation of the European Asylum Support Office, for instance