News: UNHCR RSD Projects

1. UNHCR RSD Procedures

UNHCR is undertaking a chapter-by-chapter revision of its manual, Procedural Standards for Refugee Status Determination under UNHCR's Mandate, which was published in 2003. To date, the following two updated sections have been released:

- Interpretation in UNHCR RSD Procedures [text]
- Legal Representation in UNHCR RSD Procedures [text]

The revision process will continue throughout 2016.  When all chapters have been reviewed and finalized, a new complete version of the manual will be issued.

Visit this Refworld page to keep track of new updates as they become available.

2. Quality in UK Asylum Decision-making

The UNHCR office in the UK has been working with the Home Office to improve the "quality of first instance asylum decision-making." During the initial Quality Initiative Project period, which ran from 2004-2009, "UNHCR issued six confidential reports to the UK Minister for Borders and Immigration setting out the Office’s findings and observations under the remit of the project as well as detailing specific recommendations." These have now been made public and can be accessed via the UNHCR UK web site, along with the UK government's responses to the reports. [Note: I'm not sure exactly when these became public but Refworld just posted them recently!]

The Quality Integration Project, "established in 2010 as a follow-on to the Quality Initiative Project, will work to implement existing recommendations and to engage in quality assurance matters across the UK asylum process." Its reports can also be accessed via the UNHCR UK web site.

3. Asylum Systems Quality Initiative in Eastern Europe and South Caucasus

The second phase of this project will run from 2015-2017 and "will focus on addressing outstanding gaps in refugee status determination procedures, as well as on improving access to asylum and the quality of judicial review."

You can read more about the first phase of this initiative on the UNHCR Ukraine web site.

Related posts:
- Promoting Quality in EU Asylum Procedures (26 Sept. 2011)
- Update re. EU Asylum Quality (30 Sept. 2011)

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