Humanising Solidarity in European Refugee Law: The Promise of Mutual Recognition

Abstract

The article will put forward a proposal for a paradigmatic change that aims to ‘humanize’ solidarity by moving away from a concept of state-centred solidarity to a concept of solidarity centred on the individual. It will demonstrate how the application of the principle of mutual recognition in the field of positive asylum decisions – accompanied by full equality and access to the labour market for refugees across the European Union – can play a key role in achieving this paradigmatic change. The relationship between solidarity and mutual recognition will be analysed in four steps: by exploring the parameters of the principle of solidarity as currently expressed in European refugee law; by examining the development of state-centred solidarity in secondary European refugee law as articulated by the Dublin system; by critically evaluating attempts to contain state-centred solidarity in the Dublin system via imposing fundamental rights limits to automatic mutual recognition; and by examining ways in which the recognition of positive asylum decisions throughout the European Union can act as a catalyst for a paradigmatic change leading to a model of solidarity that is centred on the refugee.