(Avoiding) The End of Refugee Status Determination

Increasing backlogs are preventing individual refugee status determination systems from functioning, even in some of the most well developed asylum systems. This means that asylum seekers must spend the first, most vulnerable, years in their countries of refuge without having been individually adjudicated to meet the international refugee definition. Decline in individual refugee status determination hastens an overall decline in refugee rights. It is essential to find means of maintaining viable individual refugee status determination systems, even as large refugee movements seem to make this impractical.