Article 14 – Asylum

What does this right mean?

Article 14 gives people the right to seek protection and shelter (asylum) in other countries if they are being persecuted in the places where they live. For instance, for who they are or because they expressed a particular opinion. This right only applies to people who cross a border between countries and are not fleeing within a country. It also only protects people who are being persecuted, for instance by the government of their country or by a terrorist or criminal group.

The second part of the article means that people cannot request asylum to prevent prosecution for regular crimes such as theft or murder. And anyone acting against the goals of the United Nations, such as international peace and security, cannot either. For instance, war criminals are not eligible for asylum.

Thanks to the Convention Relating To The Status Of Refugees, millions of lives were saved. It's of crucial importance that the international community defends its principles.

What is the history of this right?

Because of the First and Second World Wars, many people had fled. In the Second World War, many countries had stopped Jews, Roma and others who tried to escape the Nazi regime at the border. For a long time, there were also no international rules protecting refugees. So, whether or not fled people were sheltered and how was always a political choice made separately by each country and not a right for the ones fleeing. This is exactly why Article 14 was included in the Universal Declaration. This way, the member states of the United Nations hoped to start protecting refugees much better.

By only providing protection to people seeking asylum from persecution, other groups of people were excluded from the right to asylum. Think along the lines of people fleeing from violence or war in their countries of origin, without being individual targets of persecution themselves. People who were fleeing from unsafe places to safe ones within their countries (‘internally displaced’) were not covered under this right either.

Where and how is this right documented?

It quickly turned out that solemnly documenting a right in the Universal Declaration was not sufficient. This is why the UN Convention Relating To The Status Of Refugees was drafted not long after the Universal Declaration. This Convention from 1951 documented who could be recognised as a refugee and which rights refugees have. Still, this treaty did not protect all refugees. It only recognised refugees who had left an area which was already designated as a conflict region before 1951 and only covered refugees in Europe. One year earlier, the United Nations had even already founded a special commission led by a UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the UNHCR.

In 1967, the UN Convention Relating To The Status Of Refugees was altered. The new version, which is currently still in effect, states it is possible to request asylum in most states, also for people who do not come from Europe AND for people who did not already flee before 1951. It is important to understand that the convention is only about the right to request asylum and not about the right to actually receive it too. So, states themselves decide whether or not they consider someone a refugee. Only if a state sees someone as a refugee, additional protection is provided.  

The right to asylum is not documented separately in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and not in the Constitution of the Netherlands either. Articles 2 and 3 of the ECHR do provide strong protection to people who are about to be sent or returned to countries where they are at risk of being murdered or tortured, whether they are refugees or not. In such situations, they are not allowed to be sent across the border.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union does have an article on asylum law: Article 18 indicates that the right to asylum is guaranteed and refers to the UN Convention Relating To The Status Of Refugees in the process. Within the European Union, there is a Common European Asylum System (CEAS for short). That means there are a number of guidelines on the asylum policy of the European Union all member states have to meet. In these guidelines, not everything about asylum has been arranged yet, because the European countries disagree on very many matters. Many countries have their own rules on top of that, too, for instance on people who are not personally being persecuted but are escaping a dangerous situation like a war.

How topical is this human right?

These days, there are people in the Netherlands who, among other things, have fled the wars in Syria and Afghanistan, do not feel safe in Iraq because of their beliefs in Iraq and people who are conscientious objectors against being conscripted in Türkiye or Eritrea. Since the war in Ukraine, the Netherlands also protect people who fled from there.

At a local level, the sheltering of refugees within the Netherlands is taking place in practice. In Utrecht, for instance, the foundation Dutch Council for Refugees ('VluchtelingenWerk') and the initiative Welkom in Utrecht Foundation are among the organisations actively supporting asylum seekers.

Both in the Netherlands and Europe, there is much discussion on who should and should not be recognised as a refugee and sheltered. An example of a worldwide current discussion is whether or not people trying to escape extreme consequences of climate change, such as drought, floods or other natural disasters, should be seen as refugees (‘climate refugees’). There are also more and more initiatives to better protect people who flee within countries, and thus do not cross any borders.

Both nationally and internationally, we can see that the right to asylum is far from always being put into practice well. For instance, the past years saw many refugees die at sea during their journeys to the coasts of Europe. And dozens of people who wanted to request asylum at the Dutch application centre in Ter Apel have had to sleep outside on the ground in the autumn of 2022. These examples show that guaranteeing a right to asylum is still not to be taken for granted.