06 June 2025
“The Rule of Law Depends on Administration With Integrity”
Five Questions to Till Patrik Holterhus Continue reading >>
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06 June 2025
Migrant “Instrumentalisation” before the ICJ
On 19 May, Lithuania introduced proceedings against Belarus before the International Court of Justice for the alleged smuggling of migrants. Lithuania claims that Belarus violated provisions of the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, which supplements the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. This blog will detail several difficulties with Lithuania’s argument which seeks to collapse key differences between migrant smuggling and the practice of migrant “instrumentalisation”. Continue reading >>
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23 October 2024
Getting a Grip on Migration but Mind European Law!
On September 13, the new Dutch government led by Dick Schoof outlined its programme for the next years. Unsurprisingly, a major point of this programme regards asylum and migration, for which the greatest ambition is to install the strictest regime ever and to include the Netherlands within the category of Member States of the European Union with the strictest admission rules. This post reviews these proposals through the lens of European Law to challenge their legal feasibility and flag the potential incompatibility with Dutch obligations stemming from EU and international law. Continue reading >>
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18 October 2024
The Strictest Asylum Policy Ever?
On 13 September 2024, ahead of the presentation of the State Budget, the new Dutch coalition presented their finalized plan to implement what it has labelled as the strictest admission regime ever in the field of asylum law. To implement its Outline Agreement, titled ‘Hope, Courage and Pride,’ the government plans to rely on an derogation provision in the Dutch Aliens Act 2000. We argue that the provision does not apply to the current situation and that the Dutch government therefore does not have the jurisdiction to render parts of the Dutch Aliens Act 2000 inoperative. Continue reading >>
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18 October 2024
Taking Back Control?
This week, the Polish government unveiled its new migration strategy which lays out a proposal that, “in the event of a threat to destabilize the country by an influx of immigrants, it should be possible to temporarily and territorially suspend the right to accept asylum applications.” This blog argues that the proposal is not only unlawful but also poses a threat to the common European asylum system. This is so especially in light of the upcoming implementation of the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, a set of new rules managing migration and establishing a common asylum system at EU level. Continue reading >>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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