Crisis European Refugee Law Academic

Asylum for Containment (2024)

EU arrangements for cooperation with third countries in the field of asylum and migration seek to contain refugees on territories outside the EU, at the same time the European Union undertakes action to support refugees in third countries and promotes the adoption of asylum legislation in third countries, as evident from fieldwork in Niger, Serbia, Tunisia and Türkiye. The European Union sees the policies aiming at containment and at improving the asylum systems in third countries as closely related. However, from the perspective of third countries, there is a tension between asylum and containment; they do want to improve their asylum system, but they do not want to be the place where refugees and asylum seekers are contained. This chapter offers an insight into EU migration cooperation with Niger, Serbia, Tunisia and Türkiye on the points of cooperation, democracy and rule of law, leading to the conclusion that refugee protection in third countries is less effective than it could be if promoting asylum were not to be part of European containment policies.

Asylum for Containment, in Sergio Carrera Nunez, Eleni Karageorgiou, Gamze Ovacik, Nikolas Feith Tan, (eds) Global Asylum Governance and the European Union’s Role, Springer, Cham, 167-179

Fransesco Sambiasi: Kunyu quanto (c.a 1645), world map with (on top) proof that the world is round (Universiteitsbibliotheek Universiteit Gent)

Global Migration Justice: Beyond conflicting approaches to migration in international human rights law MIGJUST (2024)

Copy from 1456 by ‘Alî ibn Hasan al-Hûfî al-Qâsimî’s of Muhammad al-Idrisi’s world map (1154).

The key hypothesis of the MIGJUST research project (which is funded by European Research Council grant ERC-AdG-2023- 101141743) is that there is a fundamental conflict in human rights case law on migration between the human rights approach, adopted by the Inter-American Court and Commission of Human Rights and the African Court and Commission of Human and Peoples’ Rights, and on the other hand the sovereignty approach of the European Court of Human Rights. The difference is also at work in the case law of the UN human rights bodies. The two approaches are reflected in, and are in turn reinforced by, political theory on migration justice. In academic studies, the conflict has not been noted because the case law of the European Court of Human Rights is considered to constitute the most developed version in international human rights law. The conflict between the two approaches is problematic because it goes against the international character of international law and hinders international cooperation. MIGJUST will address this problem by (a) analysing the under-studied case law of the Inter-American, African and UN human rights bodies; (b) carrying out a comparative analysis of the European, Inter-American, African and UN case law in the field of migration; (c) relating the varying positions to political theory on migration justice; and (d) developing methodologies to resolve the doctrinal conflict.

Global Migration Justice: Beyond conflicting approaches to migration in international human rights law (MIGJUST)

Introduction to the Special Issue Asylum for Containment: The Contradictions of European External Asylum Policy (2024, with Gamze Ovacık)

European policy interventions seek to improve asylum systems in neighbouring countries so as to enable containment of refugees and migrants outside Europe. While this is a consistent policy from a European perspective, from the perspective of third countries these two policy objectives are contradictory. On the one hand they would like to improve their asylum systems; on the other hand they find it unreasonable to bear even more of the brunt of migration issues that often are an effect of European foreign policy. This special issue of the European Journal of Migration and Law brings together analyses of this by researchers from Turkey (by Gamze Ovacık, Meltem Ineli-Ciger and Orçun Ulusoy), Tunisia (by Hiba Sha’ath and Fatma Raach), Serbia (by Rados Djurovic), Morocco (by Sara Benjelloun) and Egypt (by El-Sayed). All these articles are accessible (for the time being partly behind a paywall….) here.

Introduction to the Special Issue Asylum for Containment: The Contradictions of European External Asylum Policy, European Journal of Migration and Law 26(2024)2, 147-153

Kudzanai-Violet Hwami: Innnspirit-ed, 2021 (Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam)

Towards A Stylized Model of Dynamics on the Market for Smuggling Services (2023, with Gerard van der Meijden, Orçun Ulusoy & Erik Verhoef)

A key assumption of European policy makers is that the introduction of migration restrictions reduces the volume of irregular migration. Our analysis addresses this assumption by looking at the spike of irregular migration on the Aegean in 2015-2016 through a stylized model. Our stylized model does not pretend to fully capture the decision-making process of either people in need of international protection or of people considering to act as smugglers. We have abstracted from many aspects which are known to be relevant.

Our model does allow us to examine the impact of restrictive migration policies. While policy makers and much of the academic literature assume that restrictive policies reduce the flow of migrants, our analysis shows that the restrictive measures which migrants and smugglers expect considerably increase the flow before the introduction of restrictive policy measures, while resulting in a reduction only after their enforcement. In other words, restrictive migration policies have ambiguous effects. On the one hand they result in spikes (perceived in 2015-2016 as a migration crisis), while on the other hand restrictive migration policies may contribute to a lower aggregate volume of migration in the long run.

This means that the peaking number of asylum seekers in Europe in 2015-2016 (resulting in the perceived migration crisis) were an unintended effect of restrictive European migration policies. If people in need of international protection would not have had reason to expect restrictive policy measures any moment, the peak of people crossing the Aegean would, according to our stylized model, have been at 70.000 people in the spring of 2016, instead of the 212.168 people who actually crossed in October 2015. This is an unintended effect of restrictive policy; this effect has been a key ingredient of the perceived migration crisis in 2015-2016.

According to our stylized model, if people in need of international protection would not have had reason to expect restrictive policies, the total number of people crossing the Aegean over the period 2015-2020 may have been up to 20 percent higher. However, this possibly larger number of people would have arrived more gradually, which would have been more manageable in terms of reception of asylum seekers, asylum procedures, and security checks.

And finally, according to our model, financially supporting hosting countries for providing humanitarian and socio-economical aid to refugees has reduced the number of people who were willing to pay a smuggler in order to travel to Europe. In other words, the effects of providing funding for refugees in Turkey has had unambiguous, positive effects on reducing the volume of irregular migration towards Europe and deaths at the borders.

Gerard van der Meijden, Orçun Ulusoy, Erik Verhoef & Thomas Spijkerboer: Towards A Stylized Model of Dynamics on the Market for Smuggling Services, Brussels: Centre for European policy Studies (CEPS), December 2023

Asylum for Containment / L’endiguement par l’asile (2023, with Bachirou Ayouba Tinni and 8 others)

Since 2015, Europe has intensified its cooperation with third countries in the field of asylum and migration. This report synthesises four country studies concerning European political, legal and financial instruments in this field in Niger, Serbia, Tunisia and Turkey. These very different case studies allow for the identification of fundamental challenges of European external asylum and migration policy (i.e. challenges which are not specific to just one third country).

Depuis 2015, l’Europe a intensifié sa coopération avec les pays tiers dans le domaine de l’asile et de la migration. Ce rapport synthétise quatre études de pays concernant les instruments politiques, juridiques et financiers européens dans ce domaine au Niger, en Serbie, en Tunisie et en Turquie. Ces études de cas très différentes permettent d’identifier les défis fondamentaux de la politique extérieure européenne en matière d’asile et de migration (c’est-à-dire les défis qui ne sont pas spécifiques à un seul pays tiers).

Bachirou Ayouba Tinni; Olga Djurovic; Rados Djurovic; Abdoulaye Hamadou; Meltem Ineli-Ciger; Gamze Ovacık; Fatma Raach; Hiba Sha’ath; Thomas Spijkerboer and Orçun Ulusoy: Asylum for Containment / L’endiguement par l’asile. EU arrangements with Niger, Serbia, Tunisia and Turkey / Dispositifs de l’UE avec le Niger, la Serbie, la Tunisie et la Turquie, Brussels: CEPS 2023

Iba N’diaye: Rhamb (1979), private collection

Country reports ASILE project concerning Niger, Serbia, Tunisia and Turkey (2022)

As part of the EU funded ASILE project about the role of the EU in the implementation of the Global Compact on Refugees, I co-authored reports about the implementation of EU migration instruments in Niger, Serbia, Tunisia and Turkey. These reports provide the material for a comparative report to be published in 2023.

Bachirou Ayouba Tinni , Abdoulaye Hamadou , Thomas Spijkerboer: Rapport de pays Niger

Olga Djurovic, Rados Djurovic, Thomas Spijkerboer: Country report Serbia

Fatma Raach, Hiba Sha’at, Thomas Spijkerboer: Country report Tunisia

Gamze Ovacık, Meltem Ineli-Ciger, Orçun Ulusoy, Thomas Spijkerboer: Country report Turkey

Muhammad al-Idrisi: World map (1154), copy from 1456 by Alî ibn Hasan al-Hûfî al-Qâsimî

De falende evacuatie uit Kabul was een voortzetting van het asielbeleid (met Fadi Fahad, 2022)

Waar de regering stelt dat de snelle machtsovername door de Taliban de oorzaak is van het falen van de evacuatie, wordt in dit artikel betoogd dat dit een uitvloeisel is van de relativering van de risico’s voor Afghaanse medewerkers die al jaren de basis vormde van het Nederlandse asielbeleid. Er was al sprake van een jarenlange opstapeling van ondubbelzinnige informatie die wees op de kwetsbaarheid van lokaal Afghaans personeel. Pas in juli 2019 leidde dit ertoe dat Afghanen die voor de internationale strijdkrachten hadden gewerkt als risicogroep werden aangemerkt, terwijl is gebleken dat de Nederlandse regering al sinds 2009 de bedreigende veiligheidsrisico’s voor deze groep structureel heeft erkend. Uit rechterlijke uitspraken blijkt echter dat het risicogroepbeleid in de beoordeling van asielaanvragen regelmatig niet werd uitgevoerd. In combinatie met de onderschatting van de gevolgen van de terugtrekking van de internationale troepenmacht heeft dit geleid tot het te laat intreden van het besef van de ernst van de situatie en de falende evacuatie

De falende evacuatie uit Kabul was een voortzetting van het asielbeleid, Nederlands Juristenblad 2022, 1762-1770

Coloniality and Recent European Migration Case Law (2022)

This article interrogates European law as actively contributing to the undermining of migrants’ rights, since its inception. It claims that European case law in the area of migration is a continuation of a pre-existing characteristic: the tendency to privilege the interests of European states over those of migrants and of Europeans with transnational ties. The chapter thus examines the hypothesis that current-day migrants, being people from former European colonies, are subjected to a split form of legality that was perfected at the end of the colonial era. The legal system maintains the pretence of equality before the law while at the same time relegating colonial subjects to sub-standard legal protection by either excluding them from the application of human rights standards altogether or by lowering these standards. In addition to these two elements, a third legal governance technique with its origins in colonialism is the use of emergency powers themselves. Coloniality thus remains a structuring element of human rights law as it responds to migration. Naming and exposing this colonial structure may be helpful to the extent that it makes a legal and political critique possible, in addition to helping actors to navigate the field.

Coloniality and Recent European Migration Case Law, in Vladislava Stoyanova and Stijn Smets (eds), Migrants’ Rights, Populism and Legal Resilience in Europe, Cambridge University Press 2022, 117-138

Wissem Ben Hassin: Untitled (2018). Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain, Tunis; Collection of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs

Ik zie ik zie wat ik niet zie: Etnisch profileren en structurele rassendiscriminatie in het migratierecht (met Karin de Vries, 2022)

Hoewel de KMar inmiddels heeft laten weten niet door te zullen gaan met etnisch profileren in het kader van MTV-controles, is zulk profileren volgens de Nederlandse rechter niet in strijd met internationale discriminatieverboden. Dat strookt echter niet met de rechtspraak van het EHRM: als huidskleur, ook al is dat in een optelsom van criteria, beslissend is voor de vraag of iemand wordt staande gehouden is er steeds sprake van een onderscheid in strijd met artikel 1 Protocol 12 EVRM. Tegelijkertijd valt niet te ontkennen dat ras historisch steeds in grote mate bepalend is geweest, en nog steeds is, voor het antwoord op de vraag wie zich relatief vrij over de wereld kan bewegen, en wie niet. Die ongelijke toegang tot legale migratie komt voort uit het koloniale verleden en heeft tot gevolg dat mensen zonder rechtmatig verblijf vooral mensen van kleur zijn. Het verbod om expliciet onderscheid te maken op grond van ras maakt het echter onmogelijk om het structurele verband tussen huidskleur en verblijfsstatus juridisch te erkennen

Ik zie ik zie wat ik niet zie: Etnisch profileren en structurele rassendiscriminatie in het migratierecht, Nederlands Juristenblad 25 februari 2022, 549-555

Migration management clientelism: Europe’s migration funds as a global political project (2022)

In response to the 2015 migration ‘crisis’, the European Union intensified the externalisation of its migration policies, in particular through the EU Trust Funds for Syria and Africa, and the Facility for Refugees in Turkey. The legal construction of these financial measures is such that in many projects, normal implementation and public procurement procedures are not applied. This creates opportunities for clientelism. A limited number of actors (Europe’s ‘clients’) has emerged to implement European policies in third countries. This way of implementing externalisation projects will first be analysed in functionalist terms and in terms of path dependency. The paper will conclude by arguing that, in addition to such analyses, this way of implementing externalisation is to be understood as (a) expanding the scope of legitimate action of European states outside their territory; and (b) setting norms for international actors such as non-European states, international organisations and corporations.

Migration Management Clientelism. Europe’s migration funds as a global political project, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 48(2022)12, 2892-2907