Authors: Antonella Patteri and Witold Klaus (Institute of Law Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences). Authors of Country analyses: Annex I: Georgia — Nino Tartarashvili; Annex II: Iraq — Abdullah Omar Yassen; Annex III: Nigeria — Ngozi L. Uzomah
This report examines whether and how human rights are protected after return from the EU and assesses the current absence of systematic, legally grounded post-return human rights monitoring. It responds to growing concerns that, while return procedures are increasingly regulated and operationalised within the EU, the human rights situation of returnees after arrival in countries of return remains largely unaccounted for. The overall analysis shows that existing approaches primarily focus on reintegration monitoring and programme performance, rather than on the independent assessment of returnees’ human rights conditions and their access to complaint mechanisms post-return, which is critical for assessing “fairness” and rights compliance. Building on desk research and legal and policy analysis, the report identifies concrete pathways for establishing post-return monitoring frameworks, including an expansion of legal mandates, structured institutional cooperation, and the involvement of multiple actors – from local stakeholders to independent national human rights institutions in both the EU and countries of return. The report concludes with three country annexes on Georgia, Iraq, and Nigeria, drawing on qualitative fieldwork (33 stakeholder interviews across the three countries and two additional interviews at EU level), legal analysis, and stakeholder perspectives to examine the practical relevance, opportunities, and challenges of post-return monitoring. Together, these case studies demonstrate why post-return rights-monitoring matters for accountability and the prevention of risks and violations, and thus provides fact-checking guidance on the implementation of EU return policies.