22 January 2026
Indigenous Self‑Determination and Greenland
Greenland’s predominantly Inuit population is recognized as an Indigenous People with a corresponding right to self‑determination under international law. Any external attempt to alter Greenland’s sovereignty – including annexation by the United States – would violate that right and therefore cannot be lawful without the freely expressed will of the Greenlandic people. Continue reading >>
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18 January 2026
Greenland and the Spectre of Dispossession
When it came to grabbing territory, the British had effective techniques by the 1960s. Morning-tea at Downing Street could accomplish what a U.S President’s incontinent media posts have been threatening to do with much froth and fury since 2019: The dispossession of the Chagossians was sealed during one morning in 1965, and should now serve as a cautionary tale for Greenland. Like the Chagos Archipelago, Greenland might find itself dismembered and carved up to serve the security interests of Europe. The path to dispossession is being built on the fallacy that the Arctic zone presents a security threat to the U.S and Europe. The true peril, however, comes from the interconnected vulnerabilities of climate destruction and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Continue reading >>
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15 January 2026
“It’s Geoeconomics, Stupid”
“It’s the economy, stupid”, the famous catchphrase in the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign, emphasized the importance of economic growth and stability for US voters. The economic argument was also decisive for Trump’s second win. While he promised the return of a US golden age, the US economy has so far been riding on a rollercoaster. As world economies remain interconnected – even in a postliberal view – the Greenland crisis puts geoeconomics centre stage, with the United States using economic and coercive instruments to achieve strategic geopolitical goals. Continue reading >>
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24 October 2025
Ethnically Stratified Citizenship
The upcoming ECJ judgment in Slagelse Almennyttige Boligselskab – the so-called Danish Ghetto Area case – could reshape the boundaries of EU equality law. At issue is whether Denmark’s policy targeting neighborhoods with more than 50% “non-western immigrants and their descendants” amounts to discrimination based on race or ethnic origin. While Advocate General Ćapeta framed the case around ethnic discrimination, the deeper question is one of EU citizenship: can EU law accept stratification of EU citizenship along ethnic lines? Continue reading >>
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02 June 2025
What Are Human Rights For?
The Danish-Italian public letter to the European Court of Human Rights from 22 May 2025 must be understood in the context of two decades of “crises” in the European human rights regime. None of it is new or unprecedented. What makes it truly troubling, however, is the changed geopolitical context and the focus on migrants and asylum seekers as the most vulnerable. Continue reading >>
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10 March 2025
They Not Like Us
On 13 February 2025, AG Ćapeta delivered a milestone opinion on racial discrimination and migration in the EU when she found the Danish ‘Ghetto Law’ in violation of the Race and Ethnic Equality Directive. She determined that the differentiation between “Western” and “non-Western” immigrants and their descendants in the Danish legislation creates a perceived “ethnic ‘Other’” vis-à-vis the majority population that falls under the anti-discrimination ground of “ethnic origin”. I will explain how her opinion challenges this form of legalized ‘othering’ in migration law, based on the underlying sentiment of ‘us’ vs. ‘them’, as it goes against Art. 2 TEU and the vision of a democratic, tolerant, and anti-racist European society. Continue reading >>23 February 2023
Departing from Hostile Refugee Landscapes
In December 2022, the Swedish Migration Agency estimated that the Taliban’s conquest of Afghanistan has made the lives of Afghan women and girls so difficult that it counts as persecution based on gender. Against this background, the Migration Agency announced that all women and girls from Afghanistan are eligible to refugee status and a three-year residence permit in Sweden. These policies represent a major departure from the wide range of restrictive amendments that Denmark and Sweden, over the past decades, have introduced to their asylum laws with the aim of becoming less attractive target countries for asylum seekers. Continue reading >>
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26 October 2022
Fighting for a Cause
On 18 October 2022, the European Court of Human Rights handed down its judgement in the case of Mørck Jensen v. Denmark, upholding the applicant’s conviction under Danish law of breaching the prohibition on entry into and stay in a conflict zone in order to participate in armed hostilities on the side of one party to an ongoing armed conflict. In its judgment, the Court consciously opted to take an objective or neutral stance towards the question of whether there may exist ‘right’ reasons to travel to a hot conflict zone in order to actively participate in armed activities. Continue reading >>
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22 March 2021
The Eternal Emergency? Denmark’s Legal Response to COVID-19 in Review
On 11th March 2020 the Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen found herself in a historic moment. The infection numbers in Denmark had dramatically increased within the last 24 hours - from just 157 infected in total on the 10th of March to 514 on March 11th – and a, now well-documented, disagreement between the health authorities and the government on the overall strategy had forced the hand of the Prime Minister to take decisive action. Dressed all in black, the prime minister ceremonially opened the press conference with the, now famous, words: “What I will tell you tonight, will have major implications for all Danes”. Indeed, almost one year from the Prime minister’s public prophecy, we can conclude - it did. Continue reading >>
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03 March 2021