Iraqi girl seeking asylum in Sweden, March 2007. Photo: UNHCR/Roger Vikström

Nordic Baltic Consultative Committee meeting 26 April 2007

The ninth annual Nordic Baltic Consultative Committee meeting was held in Stockholm on 26 April, 2007. The meeting, hosted by the UNHCR Regional Office, brought together 33 government officials and NGO representatives from seven countries in the region plus some ten UNHCR staff.

Two topics were on the agenda of this year’s NBCC meeting. The first topic addressed the nature and legal authority of UNHCR return advisories, eligibility guidelines and positions. The second topic dealt with the preparation of UNHCR country of origin information.

The first topic was introduced by Wei-Meng Lim-Kabaa, Chief of Section of the Protection Operations and Legal Advice Section at UNHCR´s Division of International Protection Services in Geneva. The second one was presented by Jerome Sabety, Senior Information Officer in the Status Determination & Protection Information Section at the same Division. Each presentation was followed by a question and answering session.

Topic 1:

Nature and Legal Authority of UNHCR Return Advisories, Eligibility Guidelines and Positions In the discussion following the presentation, it was concluded that although there has been disagreements on the part of governments regarding UNHCR guidelines and positions, severe criticism has not occurred. However, the problem seems to be that UNHCR position papers do not fit into national legislation and that they are too broad and generalized. Adjudicators find it difficult to apply them in individual cases. When focusing on the risk factor for individuals, UNHCR has a low threshold while governments usually have a higher threshold. Also, lawyers and authorities sometimes differ in their interpretations of the guidelines. Finally, UNHCR does not support the tailoring of positions to match different legal systems. It is for the states to bring the papers to their national systems.

Topic 2:

Preparation of UNHCR Country of Origin Information In the ensuing discussion, a question was raised as to what extent UNHCR constitutes the primary source of its papers. UNHCR responded that its papers are composed by UNHCR sources and public domain sources. Depending on the issue at stake UNHCR based sources would be used more or less extensively (e.g. UNHCR sources are important when determining groups at risk, but less important when dealing with general country information).

UNHCR generally regards information from the field as given facts unless there exists inconsistencies. UNHCR will always check the facts, but not necessarily by going to the country. Based on UNHCR’s position on generalized violence in Southern and Central Iraq, a question was raised as to how UNHCR reached its conclusion. The response was that according to UNHCR’s mandate the threshold of risk has to be set low enough to ensure the effective international protection for persons of concern to UNHCR, while recognizing that governments may view the risks differently.