Report on the Colloquium co-hosted by UNHCR and the Council of Europe on the Role of Regional Human Rights Courts in Interpreting and Enforcing Legal Standards for the Protection of Forcibly Displaced Persons which was held in Strasbourg on 15-16 June 2011, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.

Through the following link you can access the report which contains speeches/written contributions by the participants, summaries of discussions that took place at the Colloquium, in addition to annexes such as a background note on the Council of Europe's system for the protection of the human rights of forcibly displaced persons.

http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4ee0bb942.html

From the Helsinki Hungarian Committee

Country Information in Asylum Procedures – Quality as a Legal Requirement in the EU

In recent years, country information (COI) has become one of the main issues on the European asylum agenda, partly as a result of the spectacular advancement of information technologies.

Click here to go the website

Translations in the following 7 languages are available: German , French , Italian , Spanish , Czech , Hungarian  and Polish

From the Helsinki/Hungarian Committie:

Structural differences and access to country information (COI) at European courts dealing with asylum

A significant part of asylum claims in the EU are decided upon in judicial review procedures and a large number of protection statuses are granted by courts every year. Yet, common EU regulation on asylum hardly puts forward any specific rule regarding this stage of the asylum proceedings, and relevant procedural frameworks are largely divergent in different member states. Country information (COI) is widely considered as determinant evidence in most asylum cases, but national courts' practices relating to the access to COI and its judicial interpretation are also divergent. The present study – as a pioneering initiative – summarises the main findings of a mapping exercise focusing on these two issues and covering all EU member states and Switzerland.

Downloadable here in English, French and German.

The study was realised in the framework of the "COI in Judicial Practice" project, co-funded by the European Commission