(Re-)Inventing the Dublin System: Addressing Uniformity and Harmonization Through Non-Refoulement Obligations

Abstract

Recent events unfolding in the European Union have taught us that responsibility-sharing under the current Dublin Convention and Regulations (the “Dublin System”), has long failed its lofty goals. To adequately address the ongoing needs of massive influx of asylum claimants into EU member states, a centralized system processing these claims is necessary, instead of allowing individual member states to interpret their own compliance with non-refoulement obligations. A larger role should be played by the European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”) and Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) in order to curtail EU member state sovereignty to champion the rights of individual asylum claimants. Now more than ever, the right against refoulement must be safeguarded amidst internal strife on the political front. In order to achieve true uniformity and harmonization by adhering to non-refoulement obligations, the Dublin System as it is must be reformed to include a forum for the individual asylum claimants to be heard, an enlarged role of the ECtHR and CJEU in the adjudication of cases involving state discretion, as well as a centralized distribution system that processes asylum applications through a pooling of resources from EU member states.