Prosecuting Asylum Seekers Who cannot be Removed

Global turmoil, historically or at present, is the cause of major and repeated movements of asylum seekers. Countries who accepts asylum seekers are acutely aware that within these movements there are individuals, albeit very few, who have engaged or who might engage in serious criminal activities. The asylum systems in these countries have processes in place to seek out these undesirable persons and ensure that they will not obtain the benefits granted to refugees while also attempting to remove them from their territory. However, the removal of asylum seekers with a possible criminal background is complicated by the fact that international law does not allow such an approach if such a person will face serious human rights violations upon his return to the country of origin. As a result, countries with persons on their territory who face this legal dilemma have explored a number of legal devices to provide a satisfactory solution to this problem. This article examines one of these approaches, namely making such asylum seekers subject to a criminal trial for the commission of serious offences. As most of the offences were committed outside the country of refuge, only countries, which employ extra-territorial jurisdiction, namely in Europe and North America, have been given attention. The article comes to the conclusion that, as a result of the legal and factual complexity of these trials, this approach does not provide a feasible answer to the problem it seeks to address

Commission · Criminology · Dilemma · Face (sociological concept · Human rights · Jurisdiction · Political science · Refugee · Sociology · Subject (documents · European Criminal Justice and Data Protection · International Law and Human Rights · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Law

• Immigration trials and international crimes

  Open Access•Nicola Palmer•Theoretical Criminology•2021

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• International criminal law and border control

  Open Access•Nicola Palmer•Leiden Journal of International Law•2020

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