European Court of Justice Rules on EU Refugee Standards for Palestinians with UNRWA Status (July 25, 2018) [1]
On July 25, 2018, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled [3] that a Palestinian with refugee status from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) cannot obtain EU refugee status while receiving protection or assistance from UNRWA. The Court also laid out the specific criteria by which Palestinians may apply for and receive asylum and subsidiary protection, and reiterated “that an individual may obtain asylum in the EU only if he or she are in a position in which his or her personal safety is at serious risk, has unsuccessfully sought assistance from UNRWA and has been driven to leave the UNRWA area of operations owing to circumstances beyond his or her control.” As stated in the press release [4], the Court held that if a Palestinian registered with UNRWA leaves the Gaza Strip for another state, such as Jordan in the present case, before traveling to the EU in order to apply for international protection, the bodies in that state designated to decide on that application must examine whether that person received effective protection or assistance from UNRWA in Jordan. If so, “that person may not obtain asylum in the EU. Nor may that person obtain subsidiary protection in the EU if it has not been established that his or her personal safety is at serious risk in the territory of his or her place of residence (in the present case, the Gaza Strip) or, otherwise, if Jordan is prepared to readmit that individual to its territory and grant him or her the right to stay in dignified living conditions for as long as necessary in view of the risks in the Gaza Strip.”