Study On The "Dublin System" Of Refugee Protection In The European Union

Refugee crisis exploded in Europe in 2015,which has brought great challenge to the Common European Asylum System,also called CEAS.The CEAS is a well-developed asylum system covering all the Member States of European Union and some other neighboring European Countries.The foundation of the system is consisted of several EU secondary legislation,including the Dublin Regulation,the Qualification Directive,the Reception Directive,and the Procedure Directive,which constitutes a concept as "Dublin System".These files are designed to guarantee the realization of the goals of CEAS,namely providing higher standards of protection for asylum seekers within the European Union,ensuring the efficiency and fairness of the system,and sharing the responsibility of refugee protection between Member States.The two sets of legislation under “Dublin System” presents two sets of paralleled solution to achieve the goals of CEAS.First of all,the Dublin Regulation provides for a transfer mechanism to redistribute refugees between Member States,which aims to streamline the examination of the applications submitted by asylum seekers and share responsibility of refugee protection between Member States.Meanwhile,the three Directives tries to provide premise for the legitimacy of Dublin Transfer Mechanism by providing for common standards of refugee protection,which is also expected to prevent asylum seekers from second movement between Member States by offering treatment of the same level to them within the European Union.However,from a historical view of the development of CEAS and the legislative background of“Dublin System”,the EU legislation and practice on refugee protection were influenced by two pairs of conflict from the start,which are sovereignty and human rights,and the interests of the Union and Member States.As a result,the refugee transfer mechanism provided in the Dublin Regulation is often used as a responsibility-shifting tool and the discretion conferred by the three Directives to Member States makes the standards of refugee protection hard to be unified.And all of these fundamental flaws of the “Dublin System” contributes to the infringement of refugee rights.In this situation,the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union have played an important role in protecting the rights of refugees by applying and explaining the European Convention on Human Rights and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights respectively.And the judgements of cases brought before the two courts has significantly shaped the “Dublin System” better.To optimize the CEAS,the EU has completed the revision of the “Dublin” files in 2013.The new generation of legislation has made some important progress in the Dublin transfer mechanism,the qualification,reception condition and examination procedures of protectionseekers.But it is also notably right that the “Dublin System” was in essence designed to redistribute the protection responsibility under refugee law but not to protect refugee rights.So when facing the mass flux of refugee,the operation of this system has more and more deviated from the rights-protection dimension which is the priority of refugee matter.In addition,the adverse effect of the system is also undermining the solidarity within the European Union.Therefore,the regional cooperation on refugee protection must envisage the vulnerability and distinctiveness of the refugee group and adopt a fairer,more practical and operational mode to build the responsibility-sharing mechanism.At present,the third round legislation of “Dublin system” has begun,upon which other regions around the world also should consider how to use regional mechanism to promote the development of international refugee protection both in law and in practice.