Lisa Heschl, Protecting the Rights of Refugees beyond European Borders: Establishing Extraterritorial Legal Responsibilities
| Author | |
| DOI | 10.3366/elr.2019.0535 |
| Published date | 01 January 2019 |
| Pages | 137-138 |
| Date | 01 January 2019 |
The onset of the refugee crisis in 2015 has posed unprecedented challenges for European Union migration and asylum law and policy. Starting from the 1980s, the European Union (“EU”) has experienced increased pressure at its external borders. The completion of the project of the internal market and the abolition of internal frontiers has gone hand in hand with strengthening the outer boundaries of the Union territory. This has resulted in cooperation among member states at different levels, including the setting up of the controversial Dublin system. That framework, born at first as an international convention and now in its third phase of revision, establishes a mechanism of allocation of responsibility for the examination of asylum claims within the EU with,
To this end, Heschl's book must be hailed as a fresh and timely contribution to the discussion. The book is divided into five parts. The first chapter explains the background, objective and scope of the book. Chapter two introduces the external dimension of European migration and asylum policy. In particular, here the author highlights the tension between restrictive EU strategies, on the one hand, and its legal obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (“EUCFR”) and the Geneva Refugee Convention, on the other. The inter-institutional dialogue and the approach adopted by the different actors involved are explained through an overview of milestones such as the Seville and Thessaloniki Councils, culminating in the 2015 European Agenda on Migration. The author stresses the problematic nature of the preventative Union strategy, mainly based on cooperation with third countries and interception beyond European borders.
Chapter three deals with the extraterritorial immigration control measures by EU member states. The agreements signed between member states and third countries often lack adequate scrutiny and...
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