European asylum law: A model for a more cosmopolitan international asylum law?

Abstract

The starting point of the EU’s common policy on asylum has been the restrictive and reductionist concept of refugee contained in the 1951 Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees. It is for this reason that the current migratory crisis resulting from displacement of persons from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan has generated so much indignation and impotence. However, the clause of positive sovereignty, the harmonization of procedures for awarding and withdrawing refugee status, the subsidiary protection and the model of temporary protection might prove to be useful in other regional contexts.