Temporary Protection: Europe, Croatia and the UK;in EU Justice and Home Affairs Research Papers in the Context of Migration and Asylum LawINSPIRED - Innovative Solutions for Practicality and Impact in Refugee and Migration Orientated Education

The paper considers contemporary temporary protection in Europe using Croatia and the UK as case studies. Both countries are signatories to the 1951 Refugee convention and as member states of the EU are subject to EU law and the EU Temporary Protection directive (TPD). This paper looks at TP as a protection mechanism, the specific purposes of the TPD, its transposition into national law, and explores reasons why it has never been activated. While there are risks with a transposition stage, as a study of Croatia shows, this is not the explanation for failure to activate the TPD. One compelling perspective is that European countries, reflecting a political backlash to elevated numbers of asylum applications, the UK being but one, which is considered as in this paper, trust more national forms of temporary rights for asylum seekers than regional EU response. In considering the position of Croatia and the UK, this paper considers in the light of this perspective national law and practice on temporary rights for asylum seekers.