Fences, Fiction, and the Magic Mountain

Abstract

How to allocate responsibility for refugee protection between states forms a salient question in international refugee law. Explicit principles are lacking, yet there is a growing consensus that the issue of responsibility-sharing relates to the system’s most salient deficiencies. Within Europe, the sharing of responsibility for refugees is equally contested. Explicit legal rules exist within the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) of the EU on the one hand, and the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) on the other. The chapter explores the schemes of responsibility-sharing that underlie these two frameworks, the scheme of layered responsibility under the ECHR, and the scheme of alternative responsibility under the Dublin legislation of the CEAS. It discusses the respective implications for the regulation of borders and safeguarding of rights. It points to the role of individual procedural rights arguing that lessons can be learned from the European case which can also apply to the international level.