It is the ambition of this paper to explain both the unevenness in the distribution of refugees in the European Union and the spiral of restrictions that have hardened the member states' asylum policies during the last fifteen years. Traditionally refugee and asylum legislation have been analysed in terms of public good. Nevertheless recent studies question this approach and emphasize the existence of private effects of asylum policies (security and altruism). They build upon a joint product model and advocate a decentralized asylum policy. This paper aims at complementing those studies and suggests that a common pool approach can best help to explain why EU national legislation has become restrictive from the mid-80's onwards. Indeed, in accordance with common pool models, the benefits of asylum policy are to be considered non excludable and rival. Therefore, when the number of protection seekers and the costs they represent reached a certain level, a process of inter-jurisdictional competition emerged among EU member states. States have started enacting convergent strategic regulations preventing asylum seekers from gaining access to their territories. But, as the paper shows, the set of procedures developed through competition has been excessively costly for states. A race to the bottom is observable that calls upon collective action at the centralized level.