Temporariness of refugee protection: For what and in whose interest Cessation of status as related to revocation of residence permits
| Author | Vladislava Stoyanova |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1023263X221138957 |
| Published date | 01 October 2022 |
| Date | 01 October 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Temporariness of refugee
protection: For what and in
whose interest Cessation of
status as related to revocation
of residence permits
Vladislava Stoyanova
*
Abstract
Temporariness of refugee protection has started to emerge as a new standard in the policies of
European countries. Given this development, the article focuses on one specific issue related
to this temporariness: how refugee status intertwines with the conditions for the granting, revo-
cation and prolongation of national residence permits. What are the interconnections between
refugee status, including its cessation and revocation, on the one hand, and national residence per-
mits and their revocation and prolongation, on the other? How are these interconnections regu-
lated by international law, EU law and national law (with Sweden as an example)? Inaddition to the
detailed analysis of the relevant legal norms, the article situates the questions within a more gen-
eral discussion about residence in the national community. In this way, it is shown how tempor-
ariness creates tensions at national level where the refugee qua resident in the national
community, benefits from safeguards in favour of individual certainty. This explains why residence
permits, as opposed to refugee status, have central organizing role at national level.
Keywords
Refugee status, residence permit, cessation of refugee status, revocation of refugee status, renewal
of residence permits
*
Faculty of Law, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
Corresponding author:
Vladislava Stoyanova, Faculty of Law, Juridicum, Lund University, Box 207, Lund 221 00, Sweden.
Email: vladislava.stoyanova@jur.lu.se
Article
Maastricht Journal of European and
Comparative Law
2022, Vol. 29(5) 527–549
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1023263X221138957
maastrichtjournal.sagepub.com
1. Introduction
The protection granted by the Refugee Convention is not envisioned as having a permanent char-
acter.
1
Article 1(C) of the Convention, framed as a cessation clause, refers to circumstances when
the Convention ceases to apply to the person. In addition, pursuant to Article 33(2) of the
Convention a State can under certain circumstances refoule a refugee, in this way bringing the
him or her outside the state jurisdiction. As a consequence, the person cannot claim the protection
of the Convention against the specific State since the latter cannot anymore be formulated as a
bearer of obligations under the Convention in relation to this person.
2
Despite these two possibilities
allowed by the Refuge Convention that illustrate the temporariness of its protection regime,
Western European States have rarely formally assessed whether their obligations under the
Convention have ceased pursuant to its Article 1(C).
3
In addition, although these States are
allowed to refoule a person under the terms of Article 33(2) of the Convention, in this way also
ceasing their obligations under the Convention, other international law obligations might prevent
them from engaging in such a conduct,
4
or national laws might still allow the person to remain
on various grounds.
Overall, the temporariness of the application of the Refugee Convention has not had much trac-
tion since once a person is within the jurisdiction of the State and able to invoke rights against this
particular State, a whole gamut of other interrelated legal frameworks is triggered (e.g., human
rights law, EU law, national migration and administrative law). It is ultimately the national legal
order (as harmonized with the minimum standards originating from international law and EU
law) that directly governs the situation of the person. The temporary character of the protection
afforded at the level of international law, by the Refugee Convention, might be rendered irrelevant
by this legal order. From the perspective of the national legal order, temporariness can be even more
generally viewed as undesirable given all the resources devoted for the assessment of refugee status
with all the implied procedural guarantees and the administrative and financial burden that status
review and reassessment of decisions will incur. The assumption of permanence that has been
reflected in the actual practice of Western European States is also understandable, given all the
resources that these welfare States invest in integration so that refugees become productive
members of the community.
5
Even if we ignore resources specifically targeted at refugees, once
the refugee is a resident in the specific country, she has access to multiple resource demanding fra-
meworks (i.e., health care, schooling of the children) and it is not in the interest of the sustainability
of these frameworks to simply ‘lose’people who are supported and do not subsequently and con-
tinuously contribute back.
6
In sum, although fear of persecution was the basis for being allowed to
1. Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, 189 UNTS 150; J. Hathaway, The Rights of Refugees under International
Law (Cambridge University Press, 2021), p. 1128; M. Gil-Bazo, ‘Asylum as a General Principle of International Law’,
27 International Journal of Refugee Law (2015), p. 9.
2. J. Hathaway, The Rights of Refugees under International Law, p. 183.
3. See Evaluation of the Application of the Recast Qualification Directive (2011/95/EU) Final report (EU 2019), p. 12, 13
and 101: ‘[t]he cessation provisions seemed to be seldom applied by Member States.’
4. E.g. Articles 3 or 8 Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ETS No. 055) (ECHR).
5. J. Fitzpatrick, ‘The End of Protection: Legal Standards of Cessation of Refugee Status and Withdrawal of Temporary
Protection’13 Georgetown Immigration Law Journal (1999), p. 352.
6. For examination of the tension between immigration law and other areas of law such as labour and welfare laws, see
C. Costello and M. Freedland, Migrants at Work: Immigration and Vulnerability in Labour Law (Oxford University
Press, 2014); for an argument how the sustainability of welfare policies might be dependent on migrants, see
528 Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 29(5)
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