Country of origin information is used in the refugee status determination process by asylum-seekers, as a means to help verify their claims, and by decision-makers, to better inform their assessment of asylum cases.
The EU has recently agreed on a "Common approach to the information used to make decisions (country of origin information): information will be shared and, in the long term, a common database will be developed."
A working party on country of origin information and country guidance was established in Feb. 2006 under the rubric of the International Association of Refugee Law Judges (IARLJ). The rapporteur, Hugo Storey, has issued an invitation to IARLJ members to join the working party, which references three papers that discuss how refugee law judges use COI and judicial criteria for assessing COI. (Access the invitation from the IARLJ home page.)
The UK Country of Origin Information Service (COI service) produces country analysis and reports; visit the site for Feb. updates. These reports in turn are periodically reviewed by the Advisory Panel on Country Information.
The European Country of Origin Information Network (ECOI.net) provides access to a wide variety of country information resources, including those produced by the UK COI service. Sign up for their alert service to be informed of new reports added to their database or search the site. A browse feature is available but limited to a handful of focus countries.
UNHCR has also produced a country of origin information database. It's available both on its web site and the REFWORLD cd-rom. While there is certainly source overlap between ECOI.net and UNHCR, the latter provides an opportunity to browse human rights and legal documents by all countries. This is helpful both for users who are less comfortable with searching and for those who wish to get an initial sense of the types of resources available.
A relatively new addition to the University of Minnesota Human Rights Library, Resources for Researching Country Conditions is structured to facilitate browsing. Unfortunately, it is not yet fully fleshed out, so the information provided is still fairly limited.
In the past, I produced a Guide to Country Research for Refugee Status Determination which provides more information on how to undertake COI research; please note, however, that the bibliography that accompanies the guide is in need of updating.
Posted in Publications and Web Sites/Tools.
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