Crisis European Refugee Law Academic – Page 3

European External Migration Funds and Public Procurement Law (2019, with Elies Steyger)

Since 2014, the European Union has established three funds (for Africa, Syria, and refugees in Turkey) to implement its external migration policy. In this Article, we analyse whether these funds and their implementation are compatible with EU public procurement law. This leads to a mixed picture. The wholesale exemption of expenditure under the EU Trust Fund for Africa from public procurement is incompatible with EU law; the exemption is not motivated, and it is implausible that there is a crisis in all 26 African countries where the Trust Fund operates thorough the duration of the Trust Fund. However, some more limited exceptions may apply, allowing for exempting particular projects from public procurement. Whether or not public procurement has taken place is often not transparent. It is remarkable that the notion of emergency is used in a cursory manner. It is equally remarkable that European public procurement law is not well integrated in external migration policy.

European External Migration Funds and Public Procurement Law, in European Papers 4(2019):2, p. 493-521

Carl Hofer: Der Rufer (1935), Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal

The Regularisation of Illegal Immigrants in the Netherlands (2000)

This text describes the regularisations in Dutch migration policy in the period between 1975 and 1996 (as amended in 1999).

The Regularisation of Illegal Immigrants in the Netherlands, in Philippe De Bruycker (ed): Regularisations of Illegal Immigrants in the European Union, Bruylant, Brussels 2000, p. 233-249 Download

The Global Mobility Infrastructure: Reconceptualising the Externalisation of Migration Control (2018)

Constant: New Babylon (photo Sylvia Korving)

Since the end of the Cold War, migration law and policy of the global North has been characterised by externalisation, privatisation and securitisation. These developments
have been conceptualised as denying access to migrants and as politics of non-entrée. This article proposes to broaden the analysis, and to analyse unwanted migration as merely one form of international human mobility by relying on the concept of the global mobility infrastructure. The global mobility infrastructure consists of the physical structures, services and laws that enable some people to move across the globe with high speed, low risk, and at low cost. People who have no access to it travel slowly, with high risk and at high cost. Within the global mobility infrastructure, travellers benefit from advanced forms of international law. For the excluded, international law reflects and embodies their exclusion before, during and after their travel to the global North. Exclusion is based on nationality, race, class and gender. The notion of the global mobility infrastructure allows for questioning the way in which international law reproduces these forms of stratification.

The Global Mobility Infrastructure: Reconceptualising the Externalisation of Migration Control, European Journal of Migration and Law 20(2018), 452-469

Legitimatie van ontruimingen in het hedendaagse Europa en Zuid-Afrika onder Apartheid (2018)

Onder het Zuid-Afrikaanse Apartheidsregime werd, net als nu in Europa, een situatie geschapen waarin grote aantallen mensen als illegale vreemdelingen werden aangemerkt. Dit artikel brengt in kaart hoe, op basis van de status van illegale vreemdeling, mensen uit hun huizen konden en kunnen worden gezet omdat ze niet mogen wonen waar ze wonen. De hiervoor gegeven rechtvaardigingen worden gegroepeerd in enerzijds binnenlands ruimtelijk beleid (ruimtelijke ordening in het geval van Zuid-Afrika, openbare orde in het hedendaagse Europa), en anderzijds buitenlands ruimtelijk beleid, dat will zeggen migratierecht. Een laatste deel bespreekt waar de vergelijking tussen Zuid-Afrika onder Apartheid en het hedendaagse Europa zinvol is, en waar de parallel haar grenzen bereikt.

Legitimatie van ontruimingen in het hedendaagse Europa en Zuid-Afrika onder Apartheid, Nederlands Juristenblad 2018, p. 856-864

Legitimizing Evictions in Contemporary Europe and Apartheid South Africa (2017)

This paper undertakes to investigate parallels between evictions of irregularized persons in Apartheid South Africa and contemporary Europe. In both cases, people were denied the right to a home (or at least: to the home they were occupying at that moment) because they were considered to be illegal aliens. But how did this situation come about? How did these people become illegal aliens? And while it seems obvious that illegal aliens can be deported from the territory, how did their alien status come to justify the destruction of their homes? Pursuing the association means we will not only identify similarities, but also try to establish where the association meets it limits. The aim of pursuing a visual association across time and space is not primarily to draw exact parallels. In contemporary Europe, the use of violence of a “white” state in order to destroy the housing of “non-whites” is accepted as a normal element in the regulation of “non-white” populations. The association with Apartheid seeks to problematize this normality by pointing to the uneasy pedigree of such practices.

Legitimizing Evictions in Contemporary Europe and Apartheid South Africa , 14 Ameriquests (2017) 1, p. 6-22

Bifurcation of Mobility, Bifurcation of Law. Externalization of migration policy before the EU Court of Justice (2018)

Barnett Newman: Catehdra (1951), Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

The externalization of European migration policy has resulted in a bifurcation of global human mobility, which is divided along a North/South axis. In two judgments, the EU Court of Justice was confronted with cases challenging the exclusion of Syrian refugees from Europe. These cases concern core elements of externalization, being third country agreements (the EU-Turkey Statement of March 2016) and visa requirements for refugees. This article seeks to analyze these judgments in the context of the broader developments in European migration law and policy. The core argument developed here is that the bifurcation of human mobility is reflected in a bifurcation of law. Excluded people are not merely to be excluded from European territory, but also from European law.

Bifurcation of people, bifurcation of law. Externalization of migration policy before the EU Court of Justice, Journal of Refugee Studies 31 (2018), p. 216-239

Got the picture? (2017)

On 5 August 2016, the UN News Centre published a picture captioned UN team in Jordan uses cranes to hoist aid to Syrian refugees at sealed border. The picture is taken from Jordanian territory. The low mud wall behind the trucks marks the Syrian border. At the time, Amnesty International reported that more than 75,000 Syrian refugees were living in the desert on the Syrian side. The text accompanying the picture reports that “life-saving food and other supplies from the United Nations” are being “hoisted by crane and monitored by drones across the closed frontier” in what is called “a unique operation.” The World Food Programme delivered food packages, the International Organization for Migration contributed bread, and the UN’s children fund UNICEF hygiene kits. This picture, as well as the perky accompanying press release, captures the outcome of international, and in particular of European policies vis-à-vis the Syrian refugee issue. In 2011, Syria had 23 million inhabitants. At present, some 11 million of them have been uprooted; 6.5 million of them are internally displaced (IDP’s, including the 75,000 people at the Jordanian border), and 4.9 million have sought refuge outside Syria.

For the full blogpost see Forced Migration Forum, February 7, 2017

Advice in CJEU Case C-638/16 PPU on prejudicial questions concerning humanitarian visas (2017, with Yussef Al Tamimi and Evelien Brouwer)

On 8 December 2016, the Belgian court submitted prejudicial questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) concerning the issuing of humanitarian visas to a Christian Syrian family. The central question is whether international treaties and European Union law can oblige consuls and embassies of EU Member States to issue a humanitarian visa. This document (written as an advice- written on a pro bono basis – for the benefit of the lawyer of the Syrians) will discuss developments in the European Union with regard to humanitarian visas, the interpretation of the Visa Code in light of the Schengen Borders Code, the entitlement of the Syrian family in this case to asylum protection, the conditions in Lebanon as a ‘safe third country’ and the argument that a positive judgment of the Court will open the ‘floodgates’. The Conclusion of Advocate General Mengozzi was published on 7 February. In the judgment of 7 March 2017, the Court ruled that the issue is not covered by European law, but merely by domestic law (which includes inetrnational human rights law) . This judgment is addressed in my Bifurcation paper.

Thomas Spijkerboer, Evelien Brouwer and Yussef Al Tamimi: Advice in Case C-638/16 PPU, January 5, 2017.

Fact Check: Did ‘Wir Schaffen Das’ Lead to Uncontrolled Mass Migration? (2016)

It is widely assumed that the German ‘decision to suspend Dublin and open the borders,’ epitomized by Angela Merkel’s ‘Wir schaffen das’, led to ‘uncontrolled mass migration’ in the summer and fall of 2015. This belief is not only held by media and politicians, but also by prominent academics like Ruud Koopmans. The empirical claim contained in this belief has two elements: one relating to the ‘suspension of Dublin’, and one relating to the ‘opening of the borders.’ Are these claims correct?

Read my blogpost on Border Criminologies.

Fact Check: Did the EU-Turkey Deal Bring Down the Number of Migrants and of Border Deaths? (2016)

On March 18th, 2016, the EU and Turkey agreed that all irregular migrants arriving on the Greek islands were to be returned to Turkey. It is generally believed that this agreement has led to a dramatic decrease of the number of irregular migrants, and hence of the number of border deaths. Exemplifying this idea is this quote from the second progress report of the European Commission on the implementation of the EU-Turkey Agreement: ‘The sharp decrease in the number of irregular migrants and asylum seekers crossing from Turkey to Greece is proof of the Statement’s effectiveness – and in particular, that the business model of smugglers can be broken. The clear message to migrants is that getting on a boat in Turkey, and endangering lives in the process, is not worth the risk given that there is a legal and safe pathway through resettlement.’ Are these claims correct?

See my blogpost on Border Criminologies