The Slovak Republic acceded to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol on 1 January 1993 after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia.

Further, Slovakia has acceded to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. Both Conventions entered into force in 2000. Slovakia has made only one reservation to Article 27 of the 1954 Convention which provides that 1954 Convention Travel Documents shall be issued by the Slovak Republic only to those stateless persons who have been granted permanent or long-term residence in Slovakia.

As a Member State of the Council of Europe, the Slovak Republic is party to the 1950 European Convention on Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms and its Protocols, and a signatory to many of the Council of Europe Conventions, including the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence.

As of January 2012, Act No. 404/2011 on Residence of Aliens came into an effect, replacing Act No.480/2002. Several improvements have been introduced with this new law, such as enhanced access to family reunification, effectiveness of judicial review of detention cases, better conditions in detention centres, new alternatives to detention and further safeguards in the administrative expulsion procedures, including providing persons with information about free legal representation.

Additionally, since 2009, the Government of the Slovak Republic, in partnership with UNHCR and IOM, put together their Emergency Resettlement framework. Since, Slovakia has participated and financially contributed to efforts to temporarily relocate persons needing emergency evacuation and other emergency resettlement processes. Under this initiative, the Slovak Republic opened the Emergency Transit Centre (ETC) in Humenne, Eastern Slovakia.

In regard to applying for asylum, one must sign a form called “Declaration of the Foreigner” in which you need to state that you wish to seek international protection and give reasons as to why you are seeking international protection.

Furthermore, Asylum cases are processed in alignment with the Dublin II procedure and the 2002 Asylum Act. As such, asylum-seekers returned to the Slovak Republic based on the Dublin II arrangement are automatically considered as asylum-seekers by the Slovak authorities, provided that their asylum procedure was previously terminated. In such cases they do not need to re-apply for asylum, even if they had previously sought protection in another EU Member State, and irrespective of the fact that they were transferred under the Dublin II Regulation.