UNHCR project statelessness in Uzbekistan
Katja Swider, Assistant Professor at the ACMRL, has conducted a study on compliance of the legislation of Uzbekistan with the international standards on statelessness, as well as developed and facilitated a two day interactive seminar on this topic for scholars and practitioners in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan hosts large numbers of stateless persons, most of whom are still stateless as a result of dissolution of the Soviet Union. This UNHCR funded project aims at preparing Uzbekistan for its planned accession to two main UN Statelessness Conventions this year.
Katja facilitated on 17-18 June a two-day training on statelessness (all in Russian!) for scholars, lawyers and policy-makers in Uzbekistan. The training had a hybrid format, the participants gathered in Tashkent, while Katja’s presentation was online.
Bahija Aarrass promoveerde op de rol van mensenrechten bij toelating en verblijf van migranten
In hoeverre kan een recht op toelating en verblijf van migranten voortvloeien uit mensenrechten? Bahija Aarrass, tegenwoordig universitair docent bestuursrecht bij de Open Universiteit, promoveerde op 15 juni 2021 met haar proefschrift ‘Migratie middels mensenrechten’ aan de Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Promotoren waren Ben Vermeulen en Hemme Battjes.
Bahija toont in haar promotieonderzoek aan dat recht op toelating en verblijf mogelijk voortvloeit uit veel meer mensenrechtennormen dan tot nu toe werd aangenomen. Zij komt met een nieuwe op mensenrechten gebaseerde aanpak voor het migratierecht, waarin zij rekening houdt met mensenrechtennormen als bindingsnormen en bodemnormen. Het begrip binding wil zeggen dat mensen op meerdere manieren, via netwerken, met elkaar en met één of meerdere staten, verbonden zijn. Relaties met familie in andere landen, vormen daar een voorbeeld van. Het begrip bodem omvat het idee dat (bepaalde) grondrechten een ondergrens hebben, die niet overschreden mag worden. Deze mensenrechten hebben al lang een plaats verworven in het migratie- en asielrecht.
Ook andere mensenrechten blijken tot een recht op toelating of verblijf te kunnen leiden. Zo kan het recht op respect voor privéleven de overheid tot een recht op verblijf verplichten als iemand bijvoorbeeld langdurig onrechtmatig heeft verbleven in die staat. Het recht op een eerlijk proces kan anderzijds leiden tot een verbod om iemand uit te zetten naar een land waar dat recht geschonden dreigt te worden.
Naast een nieuwe analyse van mensenrechten, biedt Bahija’s boek ook een zeer uitgebreide en minutieuze analyze van de jurisprudentie van verschillende mensenrechtennormen in het Europees Verdrag voor de Rechten van Mens, een boek dat dan ook voor zowel de wetenschap als de praktijkjurist valt aan te bevelen. ‘Migratie middels mensenrechten’ is uitgegeven door Boom.
Meer informatie over haar proefschrift is hier te vinden.
Voor een interview over haar proefschrift bij het programma ‘Spraakmakers’ op Radio 1, zie hier, of in het tijdschrift Mr, waar zij Mr. van de Week was
Polish entry ban in the Schengen Information System on Ukraine human rights activist
By Evelien Brouwer
Brouwer questions in her Verfassungsblog and in the interview with Die Welt the lawfulness and proportionality of a Polish entry ban issued to Mrs Kozlovska, president of the human rights organization Open Dialogue Foundation and which resulted in her immediate expulsion by the Belgian authorities to her country of nationality, Ukraine. This entry ban, reported in the Schengen Information System on the basis of classified information from the Polish security services, results in the denial of her right to enter and move within the whole Schengen area. As Mrs. Kozlovska was long term resident in Poland and is spouse of a EU citizen, Brouwer argues in ARD Europamagazine that both the Polish entry ban and the Belgian expulsion could be in violation of EU with.
‘The Other Traveller’
In this documentary by Pieter Boeles he asks the question why ‘we’ can travel everywhere and why ‘they’ or ‘the others’ can only reach Europe with danger to their own lives. Boeles observes that Europe is guarding its southern borders with violent means, accepting the loss of lives of ‘the others’ as collateral damage. Europe tries to hide the ugly face of the border by outsourcing the violence to neighbouring countries. The documentary ‘The Other Traveller’ is published on the website of the Dutch weekly De Groene. Watch the documentary here.
Identification of asylum seekers with special reception and procedural needs in the Dutch asylum procedure
This report addresses the way in which the IND and COA identify asylum seekers with special needs. Attention is paid to the Medical Advice Interviewing and Decision-making (FMMU-advies), the Forensic Medical Examination and the identification methods used by the Medical Service in the reception centres. Moreover, the report describes the system of medical care in the Netherlands and the way COA and the IND take into account special needs in the reception centres and the asylum procedure respectively. The research was funded by UNCHR. The report is published within the Migration Law Series: Identification of asylum seekers with special reception and procedural needs in the Dutch asylum procedure.
The Social Rights of Irregular Migrants. A Quiet Revolution in European Judicial Discourse
Lieneke Slingenberg is a fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS-KNAW) from February until June 2018. In her project, she investigates the legal reasoning employed by European courts and committees in cases about the social rights of irregular migrants. She will identify general trends, relevant factors for state responsibility and compare the argumentative techniques of the different bodies. In addition, she will analyse this case law from a political-philosophical angle.
See for more information the website of NIAS.
Horizon 2020 project: Ceaseval
Hemme Battjes, Evelien Brouwer and Hans van Oort participate in the Horizon 2020 project CEASEVAL. This project includes a comprehensive evaluation of the Common European Asylum System in a two-year research process, investigating regulation patterns and concrete practices regarding the reception of asylum seekers and the handling of their asylum request.
The project aims to achieve various objectives: Firstly, a new theoretical frame for the process of the Common European Asylum System’s “multilevel governance” will be developed and empirically tested; secondly, a critical evaluation of the Common European Asylum System will be carried out and discrepancies between EU standards of refugee reception and national legislations and their implementation will be identified and analyzed.
Another aim is the elaboration of new policies by constructing different alternatives of implementing a Common European Asylum System, subsequently resulting in a valid assessment which degree of harmonization (with regard to legislation and implementation) and solidarity is possible and necessary. Lead partner of this project is Chemnitz University of Technology (Jun. Prof. Birgit Glorius).’
Situation of Readmitted Migrants and Refugees from Greece to Turkey under the EU-Turkey Statement
After intensive negotiations between EU member states and Turkey between November 2015 and March 2016, EU and Turkey released a Statement on March 18, 2016 indicating their willingness to increase the cooperation to stop irregular migration to Europe. The EU-Turkey Statement and its nature is widely discussed among the general public as well as scholars and policy makers. Since the start of the implementation of the Statement provisions, several researches were conducted and reports were published on the conditions of migrants and refugees in Greece. However, little is known about the conditions of the migrants and refuges who were readmitted from Greece to Turkey after the EU-Turkey Statement. To fill this gap of knowledge from the field and have a better understanding of the effects of the Statement, Orcun Ulusoy from the Amsterdam Centre of Migration and Refugee Law of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam conducted a research in the field. The research was funded by the Dutch Refugee Council. The report, based on the findings of the research, is published within the Migration Law Series: Situation of Readmitted Migrants and Refugees from Greece to Turkey under the EU-Turkey Statement
Migration Law as a Family Matter
Besides controlling mobility, migration law also impacts on (transnational) family norms and obligations and raises policy issues regarding care, abuse, solidarity and neglect – both in migrants’ countries of origin and in their countries of destination. When regulating migration, EU member states must therefore take claims to family relations into account as well as individual freedoms and national interests. To resolve the resulting tensions, they must negotiate these not only on the national but also on a regional, international and even global level.
This project examines different facets of migration law – labour migration, family migration, asylum, and migration and development – through the lens of family relations. Aims are to:
- chart the tensions between individuals, families and states that arise in migration law
- assess how these tensions are negotiated in national, EU and international law
- place these processes in an historical and geographical context
- look for alternative solutions that may do better justice to all interests at stake.
More information
Time and Identity. The relation between time and identity in the context of family migration law
NWO Onderzoekstalent 2012 – Hemme Battjes, Martijn Stronks
What are the legal consequences if a migrant spends time in a country? Often s/he will receive stronger status, sometimes even if his residence was illegal. Why? Is this because her/his identity has changed and s/he now belongs to the country? Time is never the sole ground for stronger status, nowadays there are even integration tests testing the migrants changed identity. This research maps the complex role of time and its relation to identity in case of family reunification in migration law. It subsequently provides a structural analysis of this role on the basis of the philosophy of Ricoeur.
Human Costs of Border Control
On the basis of globalization theories, as well as on the basis of developments in European migration policies, we hypothesize that since 1990 migration law has witnessed a shift from migration control (reactive, focus on concrete individuals) to migration management (pro-active, focus on potential migrant populations). A second hypothesis is that the increased number of ‘irregular’ migrants dying on their way to Europe is an unintended side-effect of this shift. Thirdly, we propose that as a consequence of the shift to border management, the human rights protection previously available regarding migrant fatalities under border control, has become considerably less effective.
Our research will:
- examine the hypothesis that a shift from migration control to migration management has occurred;
- examine the hypothesis that an increased number of migrants have died on their way to Europe, and that this can be linked to changes in border policies;
- and develop an alternative human rights law approach. This alternative approach will be based on the presumption that innovations in the exercise of sovereignty should be matched by innovations in human rights law.
This research project is funded by NWO, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research by means of a grant for Thomas Spijkerboer.
Veni project (NWO) Mutual Trust in EU Migration Law and Legal Remedies
Between 2011 and 2015, Brouwer carried out her research on the role of national courts within the field of mutual recognition and mutual trust in EU migration law. For this project, she was awarded in 2010 a NWO-Veni grant (Dutch Organisation for Science). The outcome of this research project has been published in different articles and book chapters and presented during meetings and conferences.
Cross-Border Welfare State
The Cross-Border Welfare State research program started in 2006 and created a liaison between the law faculties of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the University of Groningen and University of Leuven. Regioplan and the Bureau Maatschappelijke Participatie offered contributions. The program studied the relation between immigration, integration and social security from a legal perspective. The program was funded by Instituut Gak.
ACMRL members Hemme Battjes, Lieneke Slingenberg, Thomas Spijkerboer, Karin de Vries and Sarah van Walsum participated in this project.
The results of the project are summarized in: G. Vonk (eds.) Cross-Border Welfare State. Immigration, Social Security and Integration, Intersentia 2012
See for more information: https://www.instituutgak.nl/research_programs/cross-border-welfare-state/
