Political-legal analysis of the compliance and enforcement of the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees on the case of the EU-Turkey statement

The purpose of this research is to investigate the EU-Turkey statement and to analyse whether the associated practices violate the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. If this is the case, further research will be carried out to determine what measures are taken by UNHCR to penalise misconduct and what enforcement instruments on international, European or national level are used to do so. This case study is based on the research question To what extent do the EU-Turkey statement and the practices emanating from it violate the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, and what are the consequences of such violations? following qualitative desk research of secondary data, including existing literature and the analysis of legal documents. For an appropriate answering of the research questions, three sub-questions are introduced. The findings of this research manifest themselves in the recognition that the EU-Turkey statement violates the Geneva Convention in numerous instances. Further, it emerged that there is the lack of enforcement mechanisms on behalf of the United Nations and therefore, no punishment for non-compliance vis-à-vis the signatory states, in this case, the EU and Turkey are applied.