25 June 2024
The Abrogation of Asylum
Migration and border control are amongst the most pressing topics throughout the regions in this global super-election year. How to tackle this issue seems to be the million-dollar question and the urgency of this topic seemingly has pushed President Joe Biden – who previously pledged to reverse restrictive migration policies – to drastic measures. After failed attempts to pass a bipartisan immigration deal earlier this year, Biden is now in a race with Republican candidate Donald Trump to show a “tough stand” on the matter while ignoring core refugee law principles and arguably with little lasting effects on numbers of arrivals at the southern border. Continue reading >>
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04 March 2024
The Place of Numbers in Migration Debates
The governance of migration, in particular of asylum migration, is caught in the contrast between the political relevance of numbers, and the individuum-based structure of the law. For politics, it matters how many persons arrive, require shelter, enter procedures. For the legal assessment, however, numbers mostly do not matter: The right not to be rejected at the border, the right to access an asylum procedure and to shelter during that procedure are individual rights that are independent from the overall number of arrivals. This contrast is visible in periodical debates about a maximum number of asylum seekers per year, or proposals to abolish the individual right to protection altogether. Such proposals disregard that individual rights to protection are enshrined not just in constitutional law, but also in European and international law, and for good reason. However, it is worth taking the perspective of numbers seriously – while respecting the individual right to protection. Continue reading >>
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27 February 2024
The EU’s Eastern Border and Inconvenient Truths
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, alongside with the EU’s confrontation with Russia’s ally Belarus, however, has deeply impacted the securitisation of migration within the EU. Highly politicised conflict-related securitisation narratives have rarely found their way so swiftly into Member States’ domestic migration and asylum laws, leading to open and far-reaching violations of EU and international human rights law. Hardly ever before have ill-defined concepts and indiscriminate assumptions been so broadly accepted and used to shift from an individual-focused approach to blanket measures stigmatising, dehumanising and excluding entire groups. And rarely before have radical changes of this kind received so little criticism - a deeply unsettling and dangerous trend. Continue reading >>
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05 February 2024
Heightening the Repressive Dynamic
The new French Immigration Act was promulgated and published on 26th January 2024, the day after the Conseil Constitutionnel decision which censored 35 provisions in one of its longest decisions to date. The Conseil chose to emphasize the Constitution’s procedural requirements, while largely avoiding substantive analysis of the Act’s drastic reduction of foreigners’ rights. Indeed, it asserted the constitutionality or remained silent on many provisions that undercut foreigner’s rights. The Act as promulgated thereby constitutes the most repressive text since 1945 and heightens a migration restrictive dynamic. Continue reading >>
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17 January 2024
Rule of Law Abnegated
This year is the second winter that thousands of asylum seekers will spend on the cold streets of Brussels. More than 2700 of them are still without any material assistance and shelter. 869 of them have a domestic court order recognising their right to reception, yet the Belgian government has consistently refused to implement them. This deliberate refusal to secure the human rights of migrants, especially where these are single males, is not only creating a humanitarian disaster in Belgium’s streets but also undermines the raison d’être of Belgian democracy. While the government’s actions have been condemned by human rights experts and courts alike, we argue it is arguably reflective of a worrying wider trend in the EU of the impotence of the law to secure human rights for migrants. Continue reading >>
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01 December 2023
A Borderline Case
On 28 November 2023, Finland decided to close all its land border crossing stations to Russia due to the latter's apparent instrumentalization of migrants. That a foreign power, which conducts war elsewhere in Europe, directly engages in unfriendly acts against the EU’s (as well as NATO’s) eastern flank highlights the issues of national security involved. The situation is part of a broader European dilemma but presents certain idiosyncracies. How is an EU Member State such as Finland, respectful of the rule of law, to respond to such unfriendly acts which intrumentalize the vulnerable position of asylum seekers whose rights must, in principle, be observed at all times? This brief post addresses some of the legal issues involved in the currently unfolding situation. Continue reading >>
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20 November 2023
Supreme Judgecraft
In R (on the application of AAA (Syria) and others) the UK Supreme Court held that the Secretary of State’s policy to remove protection seekers to Rwanda was unlawful. Rwanda is not, at present, a safe third country. There are, the Supreme Court found, “substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk that asylum claims will not be determined properly, and that asylum seekers will in consequence be at risk of being returned directly or indirectly to their country of origin.” Should this occur “refugees will face a real risk of ill-treatment in circumstances where they should not have been returned at all.” We argue that the Supreme Court’s legal reasoning and evidential assessment are both impeccable, applying legal principles that are well-embedded in international and domestic law to very clear evidence. However, the UK government’s responses are deeply troubling, from the perspectives of refugee protection, international legality, and the rule of law in the UK. Continue reading >>
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19 November 2023
Magical Thinking and Obsessive Desires
Two days before the UK Supreme Court declared the government’s Rwanda policy unlawful, PM Rishi Sunak rid himself of his Home Secretary, Suella Braverman. The sacking, the ruling, and the aftermath demonstrate both a key division in the Conservative Party and illustrate the choice it faces on the kind of politics it will promote after the next election: socially liberal technocratic nationalism (the Sunak option) or illiberal ‘culture war’ nationalism (the Braverman faction). The Supreme Court’s judgment raises the stakes in this conflict because its grounds for ruling the Rwanda Plan unlawful appear to provide ammunition for the radical illiberal wing of the Conservative Party. Continue reading >>
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17 November 2023
Defeat in the Supreme Court
On 15 November 2023, the UK Supreme Court (UKSC) unanimously declared the government’s policy of removing some asylum seekers to Rwanda to process their claims unlawful. Like the Court of Appeal, it found substantial grounds for believing that asylum seekers would face a real risk of ill-treatment because of insufficient guarantees against refoulement. This post explores the origin and significance of the UKSC judgment and the legal and policy implications of the UK government’s immediate response to it. Continue reading >>
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14 November 2023