asylum, political

In international law, refuge granted in another country to a person who, for political reasons, cannot return to his or her own country without putting himself or herself in danger. A person seeking asylum is a type of refugee, someone who has fled their own country because of a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group, and who cannot or does not want to return.

UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) The UNHCR was established in 1951 to provide international protection to refugees and to seek durable solutions to their problems. Since its inception, it has helped more than 50 million people to start a new life by finding long-term solutions to their problems. The total number of people of concern to UNHCR rose from 17 million in 1991 to 27 million in 1995. In early 2007, it was around 21 million, including 8 million in Asia, 5 million in Africa, 4.7 million in Europe, and 3.2 million in the Americas. This included around 8.4 million refugees, 0.8 million asylum seekers, 6.6 million persons displaced within their own countries, 2.4 million stateless people, and 1.1 million returnees.

UNHCR statistics show that in 2005 more than 305,000 applications for asylum were made to industrialized countries under the 1951 convention. The industrialized countries that received most applicants were: the USA, 49,000; France, 49,000; UK, 31,000; Germany, 29,000; Austria 22,000; Canada, 20,000; Sweden, 18,000; Belgium, 16,000; the Netherlands, 12,000; Switzerland, 10,000; and Italy, 10.000.

The countries making the most applications for refugee status via UNHCR in 2005 were Serbia and Montenegro, 22,000; the Russian Federation, 22,000; China, 18,000; Iraq, 12,000; Turkey, 12,000; and Haiti, 11,000.

During the 1990s Balkan wars when millions of people fled their homes, UNHCR asylum applications threatened to overwhelm the assessment processes in receiving countries. UNHCR suggested a simpler and faster mechanism of offering the arrivals ‘temporary protection’ for a limited period of time. In all, around one quarter (24%) of the world's refugees were granted refugee status after going through an individual asylum processing system, whereas 64% were granted refugee status on a group basis. In early 2006, there were some 773,500 asylum seekers whose individual claims had not yet been adjudicated.