Introduction

As it will appear from this chapter, decisions on asylum applications in Denmark are generally made without references to foreign law. The absence of such references is probably not merely an expression of the lack of influence of foreign law on Danish asylum practices, but can be seen as an indication of a more general tendency towards the exclusion of transnational law, whether foreign or international, as a source of asylum law. Thus, while the central international legal instruments concerning refugee protection – in particular the UN Refugee Convention, the UN Convention Against Torture and the European Convention on Human Rights – are binding on Denmark and even formally incorporated into Danish law, the past few years have seen quite significant examples of asylum applications being turned down on the basis of interpretation and application of these treaties that could be, and indeed have been, considered questionable.

The analysis here is mainly based on publicly accessible decisions of the Danish Refugee Appeals Board, a quasi-judicial body with specialized competence to review negative asylum decisions. Since the Board is in practice the only body reviewing asylum decisions in substance, judicial case law from the ordinary courts cannot add anything to the picture in this regard. The decisions of the Danish Immigration Service, examining asylum applications in the first instance, are not accessible, but there is no reason to believe that the first instance administrative practices would disclose deviation from the precedents of the Refugee Appeals Board.