State authority and power have become diffused in an increasingly ­globalized world characterized by the freer trans-border movement of people, objects, and ideas. This has led some international law scholars, working from the American liberal tradition, to declare the emergence of a new world order based on a complex web of transgovernmental networks. The European Union (EU) is held as a prime example of this development, and indeed of the future trajectory of this world order. This volume explores the prospects for a transnational legal order in the context of refugee law in Europe. Asylum is a policy area that, by its very nature, demands inter-state cooperation and the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (Refugee Convention) is the basic instrument that provides for this. Within the EU, the imperative for deeper cooperation is present, given the provision for the free movement of persons within the Union. EU member states have committed themselves to greater harmonization of their national laws on asylum, but interpretation and application of these new EC laws depend to a large extent on national judiciaries. Thus, the success of the harmonization, as a tool for international protection in the EU, substantially depends on the development of common judicial understandings, principles and norms concerning refugee matters.