Death by a Thousand Derogations: The Geneva Refugee Convention and the EU

Over the last ten years, well over a million people have taken the same step without suffering the same fate. In Greece, a gateway to the EU, those refugees and migrants that are stopped by the authorities tend to be funnelled into an overcrowded asylum system: to unsanitary camps, hostels, and purpose-built facilities. Their treatment is often described as inhumane by human rights bodies, yet it conforms with international refugee law in at least one respect: they can exercise the right to claim asylum in the EU while the Greek state fulfils a duty to house them, however inadequately. The state may not treat them well, but it stops short of labelling them criminals simply because they crossed the border without the right papers.

G. was stopped by the Greek authorities in March 2020, just after she crossed over from Turkey. She was taken to hospital and then to a local court, where she was prosecuted on a criminal charge of having illegally entered the country. The proceedings were apparently translated by an Afghan man who barely understood her. She was given conditional release last August, six months into her prison term, and her case was taken up by lawyers at the Greek Council of Refugees, GCR, an NGO. Under the conditions of her release, G. was required to present herself at a local police station twice a month and was banned from leaving the country. Chrysanthi Zaharof, a GCR lawyer who acted on her behalf, said the strict rules posed a judicial hurdle to her request to be reunited with her husband in Germany. "These terms tend to be imposed on people facing serious legal issues," she said.

The decision to treat G. as a criminal was taken by a Greek state that had temporarily stopped registering new asylum seekers - a duty enshrined in...

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