upon (a process that in some countries can take several years) will act as
an effective deterrence to those being in a position to choose in which
country to lodge their application. Again this will not only be true for those
applicants whose motives are primarily economic, but also for those who
are fleeing persecution.
One common problem behind the other three measures which might in
part explain their limited effectiveness, is clearly the issue of how much
knowledge about specific policy measures asylum seekers can be expected
to possess. In addition, there are a number of more specific problems with
such measures that will also contribute to their limited effectiveness. In
the case of safe third country provisions, problems arise as a state which
wants to send a potential actual asylum seeker back to another safe third
country can only do so if it can establish at least part of the migrant’s
transit route. Often this proves difficult as asylum seekers are either
unable or unwilling (having been instructed by their agents) to provide
such information. In particular with persons who apply for asylum only
once they are already inside a country, that country can only hope for the
cooperation of transit countries who might have already registered a
person. Judging on past experiences, this type of cooperation is often not
forthcoming. Despite efforts by the European Union to institutionalise
such cooperation with the Schengen and Dublin Agreements and the joint
EURODAC database, progress in this area has so far been limited (Noll
2000). Cooperation with countries outside the EU is even more difficult as
here the application of safe third country provisions requires special bi-
lateral or multi-lateral re-admission agreements. Therefore, the limited
effect that safe third country provisions have had so far should not come
as a surprise. Even in the case of the often quoted 71 percent drop in
asylum applications in Germany from 1992 to 1994, which have generally
been ascribed to the introduction of safe third country provisions with the
1993 changes to the German Basic Law, few observers appear to be aware
of the fact that this drop happened against a 53 percent drop in overall
30