Forms of Protection Awarded to Asylum Seekers in Malta. An analysis of the legal framework, criteria, similarities and differences

Academic Paper from the year 2018 in the subject Politics - Topic: Public International Law and Human Rights, , language: English, abstract: The asylum procedure is a very complex thematic. The right to seek asylum, because a person is in need of protection, is settled down in the 1951 Refugee Convention. 147countries agreed that when a person's life is in danger because of persecution, he/she deserves protection. If a country is not able to protect its citizens, or maybe the government itself is the cause of persecution, then another country is supposed to help people who flee. The right to seek asylum is even mentioned in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Aim of this paper is to describe in detail the different forms of protection awarded to asylum seekers in Malta, including an analysis of the legal framework and a description of the similarities, differences and criteria, which must be fulfilled for each form of protection. In the first part, the focus will be on the legal framework these different regimes are based on. Before analysing the forms of protections, as it is important to have an idea about what it means to be an asylum seeker in Malta, we will here provide some data about applications in Malta. However, the main part of this paper will concentrate on the three protection forms granted to asylum seekers in Malta. There will be a discussion about the differences and similarities on these forms of protections before getting to a conclusion.