Asylum Insights
Service 02 · Country Condition ReportsCountry condition reports for asylum appeals
A targeted report on conditions, used where the dispute is confined to what actually happens in the country: prevalence of a practice, reach of a security service, treatment of returnees at the point of entry.
- Typical length
- 10–25 pages
- Standard turnaround
- 2–3 weeks
- Best used for
- One contested issue
What the instruction produces
The contested proposition, isolated
Stated in the terms the refusal or the respondent’s evidence uses, so the tribunal can see exactly which finding is being tested.
Primary and in-country sourcing
Court records, local reporting in the original language, professional and academic networks, and where appropriate direct contact with people currently in the country.
Where official sources are wrong or silent
Policy notes are compiled from a finite set of English-language sources. The report identifies what was not available to the compilers and what has changed since.
Risk on the specific profile
Region, ethnicity, religion, gender, age, political history, and family situation applied to the documented behaviour of state and non-state actors.
Currency to the date of hearing
Conditions in high-volume countries move within weeks. The report states its cut-off date, and we will tell you when an addendum is needed.
Country information notes are not country evidence
A Country Policy and Information Note, and its equivalents in other jurisdictions, is a policy-facing digest assembled from published English-language material. It serves a real purpose, but it has three structural limits that matter in litigation. It is written about a country rather than about an applicant. Its silences are routinely read as evidence that a risk does not exist, when they usually reflect what was not reported in English. And the analytical summaries at the front are frequently cited for conclusions the sourced annexes behind them do not support. An expert report can demonstrate each of those things specifically, by reference to the note’s own footnotes.
Internal relocation and state protection are factual questions
Following Januzi v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2006] UKHL 5 and AH (Sudan) v SSHD [2007] UKHL 49, relocation must be both safe and reasonable — and reasonableness is assessed on the applicant’s actual circumstances, not on whether life elsewhere in the country is theoretically possible. That makes it an evidential question: can this person obtain residence registration, housing, and work in the proposed area without clan, family, or sectarian sponsorship? Sufficiency of protection is similar. The existence of a criminal statute establishes nothing about whether complaints are recorded, prosecuted, or survivable.
Country Condition Reports — common questions
- What should a country condition report contain?
- The instruction and the questions asked; the expert's qualifications and the basis of their knowledge; the sources relied on, with the limits of those sources stated; analysis of conditions for the applicant's specific profile rather than the country at large; treatment of state protection and internal relocation where they are live; a clear statement of what could not be established; and a declaration of duty to the tribunal with a statement of truth.
- Can an expert report be based only on published sources?
- It can, and it should say so plainly when that is the case. The stronger position is a specialist with direct and continuing engagement with the country — fieldwork, language, professional networks, and contact with people currently there — because that is what allows an expert to say why a source is wrong, incomplete, or no longer current. Where knowledge comes from confidential in-country contacts, the report explains the basis without exposing anyone to risk.
- How current does country evidence need to be?
- Current to the date of hearing, not the date of instruction. Conditions in the countries that generate the most claims can change materially within weeks. Where a hearing is adjourned or a matter is remitted, an addendum addressing developments since the original report is usually necessary, and we will flag when we think one is needed.
Send the decision letter and the hearing date. We will confirm scope and fee before doing anything else.
If a different instruction would serve you better, we will say so.
Every enquiry is confidential. Nothing is shared with immigration authorities or any government body.