Joint amicus, ‘Written submissions on behalf of the AIRE Centre, ECRE, HDT, ILGA- Europe and ICJ interveners pursuant to the Section Registrar’s notification of 7 December 2016’, 2017

Abstract

The AIRE Centre, ECRE, HDT, ILGA-EUROPE and the ICJ (hereafter, “the interveners”)The intervener submit that in interpreting the scope and content of the Contracting Parties’ obligations under the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (hereafter: “the Convention” or ECHR), this Court’s premise should be that relevant EU asylum law constitutes “national law” for the purposes of the Convention for those Contracting Parties that are EU Member States.1 The interveners also recall the role of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the supervision of the application of the Refugee Convention.2 In the exercise of its supervisory mandate, in 2012 the UNHCR published a set of Guidelines on claims to refugee status based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity under the Refugee Convention. 3
Furthermore, since pursuant to Article 78 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU the EU asylum policy “must be in accordance with the Refugee Convention”,4 and given the UNHCR’s role as the guardian of the Refugee Convention, the interveners submit that any applicable EU asylum law should, in turn, be interpreted in light of relevant UNHCR guidance, namely, in the context of this Court’s determination of the present case, the UNHCR SOGI Guidelines. Therefore, the interveners contend that the UNHCR SOGI Guidelines are highly pertinent to the interpretation of the obligations of the Contracting Parties under the Convention.