Country of origin information

COI stands for “country of origin information“ which is information about the country of origin of asylum seekers and foreigners who are about to be deported. As a specific support instrument of legal assistance to asylum seekers and foreigners under deportation proceedings, it contributes to effective protection of their rights, in-depth investigation of the state of facts and enhancement of the evidence provision process.

It plays a key role in:

·         a thorough examination of how well-founded the applicant’s fear of being persecuted is;

·         an adequate preparation for an interview with the applicant;

·         evaluation of the applicant’s credibility;

·         risks evaluation in case of a forced return to the country of origin or other country.

It provides answers to the questions of state employees – decision makers in the asylum and deportation proceedings, and legal representatives about political, social, cultural and economic situation of the applicants’ country of origin, and human rights situation in particular.

Credible, up to date, detailed and for the asylum proceeding relevant information contributes to a decent and objective examination of the state of the facts, and thus to the overall increase of the decision procedure‘s quality.

Human Rights League has been dealing with the research oncountry of origin information since 2006, after joining the transnational project COI Network III coordinated by the Austrian Red Cross and its section ACCORD (Austrian Centre for Country of Origin and Asylum Research and Documentation). In the period 2009 – 2012 the Human Rights League’s independent COI section provided information about countries of origin in the Slovak language for free to all lawyers of our organisation as well as other interested bodies active in the area of asylum and migration.

Since 2013, Human Rights League has not been implementing any project particularly focusing on COI research. COI reports and COI newsletters prepared and published within previous projects are available for download in the archive of our website.

Human Rights League is a member of the European COI Training Network and our lawyer Katarína Fajnorová is a certified trainer of the European Asylum Curriculum (EAC) COI Module.