Adopted in June 2013, Protocol No. 15 to the European Convention on Human Rights will enter into force on 1 August 2021. Its entry into force will reduce the application period to four months and also introduce other changes to the right to submit applications to the European Court of Human Rights. The shorter application period is, however, subject to a transition period, which ends on 1 February 2022.

On 13 July 2021, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued a decision, which annuls the Court’s previous judgment concerning Finland in the case of N.A. v. Finland relating to the return of an asylum-seeker to Iraq in its entirety.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) deemed on 27 May 2021 the complaint made against Finland to be manifestly ill-founded and decided to not investigate it.

On 4 February 2021, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child adopted its Views on the primacy of the best interests of the child in a matter concerning asylum. The Committee found that there had been violation of Articles 3 (primacy of the best interests of the child), 19 (protection of the child from violence) and 22 (right of the child to protection and humanitarian assistance; refugees and asylum seekers) of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).