When asylum and human rights cases go to appeal, the judge will
often need to consider circumstances in a foreign country, usually
(though not necessarily) the appellant's country of origin.
When this is the case, it will generally assist the court to have
detailed factual evidence on that country. Appellants can of course
provide evidence of their own: when we are instructed to assist
with appeals, for example, we will often instruct experts to prepare reports for use in
court, or where appropriate we may also assist our clients in
sourcing other objective materials (from academic publications, to
journalistic sources, to reports by NGOs or charities).
In theory the Home Office may also rely on objective materials
from third parties, but most often it will rely on its own reports,
known as Country Policy and Information Notes ('CPINs'). In
this post, we will look at CPINs in more detail: what they contain,
how they are produced, how they are relied upon, and how
