Universal-MigrationHRlaw-PG-no-6-Publications-PractitionersGuide-2014-eng

66 | PRACTITIONERS GUIDE No. 6The UNHCR documents and the ExCom conclusions and recommendations,although they do carry binding force, provide the only comprehensiveand authoritative guidance on refugee status determination procedures(RSDPs), and have been followed in State practice and by nationalcourts, in particular considering that UNHCR has a duty to supervisethe application of the Geneva Refugee Convention under its Article 35. 95ii) Exclusion from refugee statusArticle 1F of the Geneva Refugee Convention lists grounds for automaticexclusion from recognition of refugee status. These occur when thereare serious reasons for considering that:• The person seeking refugee status has committed a crime againstpeace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity, as defined in theinternational instruments drawn up to make provision in respectof such crimes (Article 1F(a)); 96• He or she has committed a serious non-political crime outside thecountry of refuge prior to admission to that country as a refugee(Article 1F(b));• He or she has been guilty of acts contrary to the purposes andprinciples of the United Nations (Article 1F(c)). 97Although national practice increasingly tends to widen the circumstancesin which these criteria apply (a tendency strengthened in theEuropean Union (EU), for example, by Article 12.2 of the EU QualificationDirective 98 ; see, Box No. 3 below) it is well established in internationalstandards that the exclusion clauses must be applied “restrictively”. 9995 Cecilie Schjatvet, The making of UNHCR’s guidance and its implementation in the nationaljurisdiction of the United Kingdom, Norway and Sweden, Hestenes og Dramer & Co.,Research report for the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration, 2010, Chapter 3.96 See, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted on9 December 1948; the four 1949 Geneva Conventions for the Protection of Victims of Warand the two 1977 Additional Protocols; the Statutes of the International Criminal Tribunalsfor the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the 1945 Charter of the International Military Tribunal(the London Charter), and most recently the 1998 Statute of the International CriminalCourt which entered into force on 1 July 2002 (Rome Statute).97 The OAU Refugee Convention adds the exclusion clause of when “he has been guilty of actscontrary to the purposes and principles of the Organisation of African Unity” (Article 1.5(c)).98 Directive 2011/95/EC of 13 December 2011 on standards for the qualification of third countrynationals or stateless persons as beneficiaries of international protection, for a uniform statusfor refugees and for persons eligible for subsidiary protection, and for the content of the protectiongranted (recast), EU, Official Journal L 337/9, 20/12/2011 (“EU Qualification Directive”).99 UNHCR Handbook, op. cit., fn. 66, para. 149. See also, Guidelines on International Protection:Application of the Exclusion Clauses: Article 1F of the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to theStatus of Refugees, UNHCR, UN Doc. HCR/GIP/03/05, 4 September 2003 (UNHCR Guidelineson Application of the Exclusion Clauses), para. 2; Recommendation Rec(2005)6 of the Committeeof Ministers to Member States on exclusion from refugee status in the context of Article 1 Fof the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees of 28 July 1951, adopted by the CMCE on23 March 2005 at the 920 th meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies, paras.1 (a), (b) and (g), and 2.