UNHCR ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION NEEDS OF IRAQI ASYLUM-SEEKERS United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Geneva April 2009 NOTE UNHCR Eligibility Guidelines are issued by the Office to assist decision-makers, including UNHCR staff, Governments and private practitioners, in assessing the international protection needs of asylum-seekers from a given country. They are authoritative legal interpretations of the refugee criteria in respect of specific groups on the basis of objectively assessed social, political, economic, security, human rights, and humanitarian conditions in the country of origin concerned. The pertinent protection needs are analyzed in detail and recommendations made as to how the applications in question should be decided upon in line with the relevant principles and criteria of refugee law as per, notably, the 1951 Convention and its 1967 Protocol, the UNHCR Statute and relevant regional instruments such as the Cartagena Declaration, the 1969 OAU Convention and the EU Asylum Directives. The recommendations may also touch upon, as relevant, complementary or subsidiary protection regimes. UNHCR issues its Eligibility Guidelines pursuant to its responsibility to promote the accurate interpretation and application of the above-mentioned refugee criteria as envisaged by Article 8 of its Statute, Article 35 of the 1951 Convention and Article II of its 1967 Protocol and based on the expertise it has developed over several years in eligibility and refugee status determination matters. It is expected that the positions and guidance contained in the Guidelines should be weighed heavily by the relevant decision-making authorities in reaching a decision on the asylum applications concerned. The Guidelines are researched strictly and are written based on factual evidence provided by UNHCR’s global network of field offices and information from independent country specialists, researchers and other sources which is rigorously reviewed for reliability. The Guidelines are posted on UNHCR’s Refworld website at http://www.refworld.org. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS............................................................................................. 7 I. INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................... 10 II. SUMMARY OVERVIEW OF DEVELOPMENTS.............................................. 12 III. OVERALL APPROACH TO THE ASSESSMENT OF INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION NEEDS OF IRAQI ASYLUM- SEEKERS ................................................................................................................. 18 IV. DETAILED ANALYSIS AND GUIDANCE ON THE ELIGIBILITY FOR INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION OF IRAQI ASYLUM- SEEKERS ................................................................................................................. 22 A. Inclusion for refugee status under the 1951 Convention criteria...................... 22 1. Well-founded fear of persecution ...................................................................................22 2. Link with a 1951 Convention ground.............................................................................25 a. Race, religion, nationality and political opinion.................................................26 b. Membership of a particular social group............................................................27 B. Exclusion from international refugee protection .............................................. 28 1. Acts within the scope of Article 1F ................................................................................29 a. Before the fall of the former regime ....................................................................30 b. After the fall of the former regime.......................................................................31 2. Crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity (Article 1F[a]) ..............................................................................................................................31 a. Crimes against peace ..........................................................................................31 b. War crimes ..........................................................................................................32 i) International armed conflict..................................................................................32 ii) Non-international armed conflict ..........................................................................33 c. Crimes against humanity.....................................................................................34 3. Serious non-political crimes (Article 1F[b])...................................................................35 4. Acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations (Article 1F[c]) ..............................................................................................................................37 5. Individual responsibility .................................................................................................39 a. Basis for incurring individual responsibility.......................................................39 b. Grounds negating individual responsibility ........................................................41 c. Proportionality considerations............................................................................41 d. Consequences of exclusion..................................................................................42 C. Internal flight or relocation alternative (IFA/IRA)........................................... 42 1. IFA/IRA in the Central and Southern Governorates.......................................................43 a. Relevance analysis ..............................................................................................43 b. Reasonableness analysis .....................................................................................47 2. IFA/IRA in the three Northern Governorates of Dahuk, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah .................................................................................................................51 3 a. Relevance analysis ..............................................................................................52 i) Governorate of Dahuk ..........................................................................................53 ii) Governorate of Erbil .............................................................................................54 iii) Governorate of Sulaymaniyah ..............................................................................54 b. Reasonableness analysis .....................................................................................55 3. IFA/IRA within the three Northern Governorates for Iraqis who originate from these Governorates.................................................................................................60 D. Continued protection needs of formerly recognized refugees.......................... 61 V. RECENT POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN IRAQ ........................................ 62 A. Introduction ...................................................................................................... 62 B. Justice and Accountability Law........................................................................ 63 C. Provincial Powers Law and Amnesty Law....................................................... 64 D. Return of the Sunni Accordance Front ............................................................. 66 E. Local and national elections ............................................................................. 66 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................66 2. Provincial elections of 31 January 2009 .........................................................................66 F. Status-of-Forces Agreement (SOFA) ............................................................... 72 G. Political power struggles .................................................................................. 74 H. Pending key political decisions ........................................................................ 78 VI. RECENT SECURITY DEVELOPMENTS IN IRAQ.......................................... 81 A. Introduction ...................................................................................................... 81 B. Growing ability of the Iraqi Security Forces .................................................... 81 C. Current role of the MNF-I ................................................................................ 84 D. Role of the “Sons of Iraq” ................................................................................ 86 E. Shi’ite militias................................................................................................... 90 F. Sectarian violence and segregation................................................................... 91 G. Iranian and Turkish cross-border military operations ...................................... 93 H. Security in the Central Governorates................................................................ 95 1. Al-Anbar Governorate....................................................................................................95 2. Baghdad Governorate .....................................................................................................98 3. Diyala Governorate.......................................................................................................101