War crimes and breaches of human rights law

Article 1F of the Refugee Convention is part of the so-called exclusion clauses of the Refugee Convention. The article states that refugees who fear persecution in the country of origin are not entitled to refugee protection if they have committed war crimes or violated human rights in the country of origin.

Criminal offences

An asylum application may be rejected if a refugee has been convicted of a particularly serious crime and constitutes a danger to the community. The policy of the INS provides that the criteria 'danger to the community' is assessed on an individual basis and on the basis of all relevant factual and legal data.

The INS may assume a danger to the community in all of the following cases:

• drug crimes, vice and acts of violence;
• arson;
• human trafficking;
• illegal trade in arms, munitions and explosives; and
• illegal trafficking in human organs and tissues.

The policy is based on a sliding scale, which means that the longer a person stays in the Netherlands, the higher the penalty should be before an asylum permit is refused or withdrawn. You can find more information about this on our page: withdrawal of the residence permit.

The rules for rejecting an asylum permit because the asylum seeker committed one or more criminal offences are different for every ground for admission and are very complex.

If you receive a preliminary decision from the INS to reject your application or an preliminary decision stating that the INS wants to withdraw your asylum permit, please contact us immediately. Our office is familiar with these kind of situations and has been successful a couple of times in convincing the INS to change her preliminary decision.