The aim of “Towards Best Practices” is to offer a set of recommendations for best practices to be developed through policies and laws to guide actions with regard to unaccompanied migrant minors in each of the CON RED¹ member countries. In fact, the objective is to create and publish several documents describing the phenomenon of unaccompanied migrant minors (UMMs) in seven European countries² and two countries of origin³ so that, ultimately, we may bring knowledge and restore the lives of these children and young people⁴ .

This document is the second version of an initial “Best Practices Document” written during the course of CON RED I. This version has expanded on the information: on the one hand, contributions from Portugal and Italy have been included and, on the other, the information from Belgium, Denmark, France and Switzerland has been updated.

The guidelines followed for the presentation of the document adhered to the Declaration of Best Practices written in 1999 by the “Unaccompanied Children in Europe” Programme run jointly by some of the members of the Save the Children International Alliance in Europe and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. This model was chosen because it was felt that its wording was explanatory and accessible, making the material easy to understand.

In this document, there are 14 “core principles” with their corresponding recommendations to tackle questions regarding the effective protection by administrations and states to ensure that each and every one of the rights of the child are fulfilled.

Together with each of these principles is a set of specific recommendations inspired by this principle. In addition to this, there are the international and European regulations, along with the different national laws of each of the member countries that comprise the CON RED project. To this effect, all member countries will contribute a complete report on the phenomenon of UMMs, including the most relevant policies, laws and directives at international, national and local level.

The methodology followed in relation to the legal aspects has been to divide each of the 14 principles into 3 levels. For the third level, extracts have been taken from international, European and national laws.

Due to the fact that this document sets out to provide information aimed at the various sectors in society which have contact with the reality of the UMMs, the idea has not been to make a thorough collection of all laws, but only the more relevant ones which form the legal framework covering the childhood and teenage years and which are likely to be applied to UMMs.

In terms of the Convention on Refugee Status (1951), the Protocol on Refugee Status (1967), and the Convention on Stateless Status (1957), the Right to Asylum and the Status as Refugee Regulatory Law 5/1984, of 26 March 1984, and Royal Decree 203/1995, of 10 February 1995, by which the Regulation of Application of the Right to Asylum and the Status as Refugee Regulatory Law 5/1984 was passed, amended by Law 9/1984, have not been introduced specifically in any precise points, but remain latent throughout the above legal content.

The explanation in the paragraph above is connected directly to Article 6.2 of the Resolution of the Council of the European Union (97/C 221/03), of 26 June 1997, which establishes that the Member States may grant the unaccompanied minors the legal status that is deemed the most appropriate, and also to the provisions at Spanish level in the Resolution of 17 April 2001 of the Government Department for Aliens and Immigration which contains the Cabinet Agreement of 30 March 2001 approving the Global Regulation and Coordination Programme for Aliens and Immigration in its Article 4.1 the “need for unaccompanied minors to be able to enjoy the right to asylum”.

In a somewhat different, yet similar, vein it should be pointed out that throughout the document the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, New York, 10 December 1948, has always been taken into account, a declaration which, in fact, is included in each article that, based on it, has been developed so creating and leading to other conventions on specific issues.

With the publication of this paper, one of the aims of the CON RED project has materialised, namely the creation of a document which, in an organised and comprehensive way, establishes a series of core principles which will provide directives for the creation of a type of work and participation common to all the member countries of the project.

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1 The official name of the project is the ”CON RED II Project: a virtual community against violence towards immigrant children and teenagers without a social support network”
2 Belgium, Denmark, Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and Switzerland.
3 Morocco and Algeria.
4 For more information about this project, please go to www.peretarres.org/dapheconred.