grants asylum to a couple of hundred elderly people from
Yugoslavia,
Poland,
Hungary and the
Baltic states. After the end of
World War II, these people stayed in camps in
Austria and
West Germany. (
Newsreel ) While the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights itself is seen generally as non-binding, the right of asylum as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is referenced in the
Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which most countries are parties of. Currently, in different countries there exist different legal statuses and legal definitions for asylum rights and refugees. Asylum is generally seen as a temporary form of refugee. The discretion due to the commonly encountered uncertainty about the credibility of the claims in the asylum application can be reduced with consistent local rules. When asylum claims are rejected,
non-refoulement applies according to the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees Article 33, which forbids deporting asylum seekers to any country where "life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion" with exceptions due to security and crime. The non-refoulement principle is generally seen as a
customary international law. Different
jurisprudence can be used to interpret the right of asylum, including
Critical legal studies and
Constitutionalism. Upon cessation of the right of asylum, such as when the condition in the country of origin have changed that there is no longer danger of persecution, voluntary expatriation according to non-refoulement or historically in some cases immediate
deportation can follow.
By country European Union ,
Tyrol Asylum in
European Union member states formed over a half-century by application of the
Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951 on the Status of Refugees. Common policies appeared in the 1990s in connection with the
Schengen Agreement (which suppressed internal borders) so that asylum seekers unsuccessful in one Member State would not reapply in another. The common policy began with the
Dublin Convention in 1990. It continued with the implementation of
Eurodac and the
Dublin Regulation in 2003, and the October 2009 adoption of two proposals by the
European Commission. However, until today, the member states principally stay in charge for granting and organizing asylum. War refugees are protected under the
subsidiary protection clause and the
Temporary Protection Directive. The European Union (EU+) received over 1.1 million asylum applications with a rate of granting refugee status or subsidiary protection at 43%.
France (France) France was the first country to establish a constitutional right to asylum, in Article 120 of the
Constitution of 1793, for "foreigners banished from their fatherland for the cause of liberty". This constitution, however, never entered into force. The Preamble of the
Constitution of 1946 similarly guaranteed the right of asylum to "anyone persecuted because of his activities in the cause of freedom". The modern French right of asylum is secured by the Preamble of the
Constitution of 1958, via a reference to the Preamble of the 1946 Constitution. In addition to the constitutional right to asylum, the modern French right to asylum (''droit d'asile'') is enshrined on a legal and regulatory basis in the
Code of Entry and Residence of Foreigners and of the Right to Asylum. France also adheres to international agreements which provide for application modalities for the right of asylum, such as the 1951
United Nations (UN)
Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (ratified in 1952), the additional 1967 protocol; articles K1 and K2 of the 1992
Maastricht Treaty as well as the 1985
Schengen Agreement, which defined EU
immigration policy. Finally, the right of asylum is defined by article 18 of the
Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Some of the criteria for which an asylum application can be rejected include: i) Passage via “safe" third country, ii) Safe Country of Origin (An asylum seeker can be a prior refused asylum if they are a national of a country considered to be "safe" by the French asylum authority OFPRA), iii) Safety Threat (serious threat to the public order), or iv) Fraudulent Application (abuse of the asylum procedure for other reasons). The 10 December 2003, law limited political asylum through two main restrictions: • The notion of "internal asylum": the request may be rejected if the foreigner may benefit from political asylum on a portion of the territory of their home country. • The
OFPRA (
Office français de protection des réfugiés et apatrides – French Office for the Protection of Refugees and
Stateless Persons) now makes a list of allegedly "safe countries" which respect
political rights and principles of
liberty. If the demander of asylum comes from such a country, the request is processed in 15 days, and receives no
social assistance protection. They may contest the decision, but this does not suspend any
deportation order. The first list, enacted in July 2005, included as "safe countries"
Benin,
Cape Verde,
Ghana,
Mali,
Mauritius Island,
India,
Senegal,
Mongolia,
Georgia,
Ukraine,
Bosnia and
Croatia. It reduced in six months by about 80% the number of applicants from these countries. The second list, passed in July 2006, included
Tanzania,
Madagascar,
Niger,
Albania and
Macedonia. While restricted, the right of political asylum has been conserved in France amid various anti-immigration laws. Some people claim that, apart from the purely judicial path, the
bureaucratic process is used to slow down and ultimately reject what might be considered as valid requests. According to
Le Figaro, France granted 7,000 people the status of political refugee in 2006, out of a total of 35,000 requests; in 2005, the OFPRA in charge of examining the legitimacy of such requests granted less than 10,000 from a total of 50,000 requests. Numerous exiles from South American dictatorships, particularly from
Augusto Pinochet's
Chile and the
Dirty War in
Argentina, were received in the 1970s-80s. During the
war in Afghanistan (2001–2021), tens of thousands of
Afghan refugees were granted asylum in France.
Estonia In September 2022, Estonian Prime Minister
Kaja Kallas announced that Estonia would not grant asylum to Russians fleeing
war mobilization, saying that "Every citizen is responsible for the actions of their state, and citizens of Russia are no exception. Therefore, we do not give asylum to Russian men who flee their country. They should oppose the war."
Latvia In April 2023, after an initial denial by an executive body, a Latvian court approved the asylum application of a Russian citizen, who was facing a forced draft into the
special military operation. He had previously been harassed by authorities for his support of Russian opposition figure
Alexei Navalny and for his public stand against the
Russian war against Ukraine.
Poland In February 2025, Polish Prime Minister
Donald Tusk told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that Poland would not implement the
EU Asylum and Migration Pact, i.e. the mandatory relocation of 30,000 asylum seekers to Poland or the payment of €600 million, and recalled that Poland had accepted a large number of
Ukrainian refugees. In March 2025, Poland suspended the right to apply for asylum at the
Belarus-Poland border, with the
European Commission supporting Poland's move.
United Kingdom of Saint
John of Beverley in the
East Riding of YorkshireIn the 19th century, the
United Kingdom accorded political asylum to various persecuted people, among whom were many members of the
socialist movement (including
Karl Marx). With the 1845 attempted
bombing of the
Greenwich Royal Observatory and the 1911
Siege of Sidney Street in the context of the
propaganda of the deed (
anarchist) actions, political asylum was restricted.
United States The
United States recognizes the right of asylum of individuals as specified by international and federal law. In accordance with international law, the United States considers asylum candidates on the basis of persecution or fear they will be persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, and/or membership in a particular social group or political opinion. Every year, the
President of the United States specifies a number of
legally defined refugees who are granted
refugee status outside the United States to be admitted to the country under . Of these, many are recommended for
firm resettlement by the offices of the
UNHCR around the world. The annual number of refugees admitted varies from year to year and is determined by a joint collaboration between the incumbent presidential administration and Congress. By contrast, the United States does not enforce any such quota for asylum seekers. Rather, the annual number of asylum grants is dependent upon a combination of how many individuals submit applications and how many individuals are able to successfully prove their asylum claim. According to US law, individuals are eligible for asylum status based on the following conditions: The majority of asylum claims fail or are rejected. Still, since World War II, more refugees have found homes in the United States than any other nation. "Since the passage of the
Refugee Act in 1980... the United States has admitted more than 3.1 million refugees." During much of the 1990s, the United States accepted over 100,000 refugees per year, though this figure has recently decreased to around 50,000 per year in the first decade of the 21st century, due to greater security concerns. As for asylum seekers, the latest statistics show that 86,400 persons sought sanctuary in the United States in 2001. Before the
September 11 attacks in 2001, individual asylum applicants were evaluated in private proceedings by officers of the former
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). In the aftermath of the attacks, the United States established three distinct organizations that each handle a different aspect of US immigration law, including the US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS), Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Customs & Border Protection (CFB). Asylum applications are handled by the USCIS. Despite this, concerns have been raised with the US asylum and refugee determination processes. A recent empirical analysis by three legal scholars described the US asylum process as a game of
refugee roulette; that is to say that the outcome of asylum determinations depends in large part on the personality of the particular adjudicator to whom an application is randomly assigned, rather than on the merits of the case. The very low numbers of Iraqi refugees accepted between 2003 and 2007 exemplifies concerns about the United States' refugee processes. The Foreign Policy Association reported that:Perhaps the most perplexing component of the Iraq refugee crisis... has been the inability for the US to absorb more Iraqis following the 2003 invasion of the country. To date, the US has granted fewer than 800 Iraqis refugee status, just 133 in 2007. By contrast, the US granted asylum to more than 100,000 Vietnamese refugees during the Vietnam War.Refugee and asylum policy advocates have called for a system based upon the "human interest approach" which seeks to allow asylum applicants be assessed on a case-by-case basis, as opposed to being assessed against other applicants. Under the US asylum structure, applicants' cases are often analyzed based on the strength of their educational/professional qualifications or on the level of danger they face in their country of origin. Amongst the academic community, such an approach is considered to be the narrative of the "gifted or traumatized" refugee. By contrast, the human-interest approach experts advocate for seeks to reframe the application process around the individual and focus on each applicant's unique story and experience. According to US Department of Justice in 2023 there were 478,885 asylum applications filed, 31,630 asylum applications granted, and 937,611 asylum applications pending. The US Department of Justice shows for 2023 a rate of granting asylum at 14.40%, denial rate at 15.67%, administrative closure at 8.98% and other at 60.95% ("decision of abandonment, not adjudicated, other or withdrawn").
People's Republic of China Paragraph 2 of Article 32 of the
Constitution of the People's Republic of China stipulates that China may grant asylum to foreigners who request it for political reasons. In 1979,
Hoàng Văn Hoan, the Vice Chairman of the
National Assembly of Vietnam, was the last foreigner to be granted political asylum by China. From 1980 to the present, no foreigner has been granted political asylum by China. All foreigners who have been granted political asylum in China are foreign pro-communist political leaders. ==History==