Turkey as a safe third country? - A study on the safe third country concept and its compliance with non-refoulement

Sammanfattning: In 2016 the EU and Turkey reached an agreement with the goal to end “irregular migration” from Turkey to the EU. Under this agreement asylum seekers who have entered Greece via Turkey will have their asylum applications deemed as inadmissible on safe third country grounds and subsequently be returned to Turkey. The purpose of this essay is to broaden the understanding of some of the obligations of EU member states when engaging in safe third country practices. Thus, this essay examines the criteria for applying the safe third country concept under EU law and the limitations of its implementation due to international law. To this end, the essay primarily employs a legal dogmatic method. While most safe third country provisions in EU asylum policy are uncontroversial, some are shown to be quite unclear and potentially leave the member states with a rather wide scope of interpretation. Keeping this in mind, the essay analyzes to what extent the implementation of the safe third country concept on Turkey is compatible with non-refoulement under the 1951 Geneva Convention. The essay shows that the lack of a fair status determination in Turkey, potentially increases the risk for refoulement. However, asylum seekers returned from Greece to Turkey on safe third country grounds never get their asylum claims materially examined by Greek authorities. Therefore it is difficult to know how many asylum seekers Turkey has illegally expulsed to a country of persecution and to which extent Greece has been involved in indirect refoulement.