Mobility and legal infrastructure for Ukrainian refugees
| Published date | 01 August 2022 |
| Author | Thomas Gammeltoft‐Hansen,Florian Hoffmann |
| Date | 01 August 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.13039 |
International Migration. 2022;60:213–216.
|
213
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/imig
Received: 19 June 20 22
|
Accepted: 19 June 2022
DOI: 10 .1111/imig .13039
COMMENTARY
Mobility and legal infrastructure for Ukrainian
refugees
Thomas Gammeltoft- Hansen1| Florian Hoffmann2
1University of C openhagen, iCo urts Centre of Exc ellence, Faculty of L aw, København, De nmark
2Pontificia Un iversidade Cato lica do Rio de Janeiro ( PUC- Rio), Department of L aw, Rio de Janeiro, Bra zil
Correspondence
Thomas Gamm eltoft- Hansen, iCour ts Centre of Excelle nce, Faculty of Law, Uni versity of Copen hagen, Københav n, Denmark.
Email: tgh@jur.ku.dk
Funding information
NordForsk.
The scale and speed of f orced displacement following the Russi an invasion on 24 Feb ruary 2022 has been stag-
gering. At the time of writ ing, an estimate d 7 million have b een internally an d displaced and more than 5 mill ion
have fled Ukraine for another country – making it the largest refugee crisis in European history since the Second
World War.1 The vast majority have arrived in neighbouring EU countries. In the course of 2 weeks, Poland alone
received more refugees than the European Union combined dur ing the pr evious peak year of 2015. But hardly
any European country has been left unaffected – from Portugal in the South to Finland in the North, emergency
measures have bee n put in place to receive and hos t new arrivals.
A key factor behind the pace and distribution of arrivals has been Ukrainian refuge es' unique access to mobility
into and through Europe . Across the European Unio n, the polit ical response to Ukrainian refugees has been al-
most unequivoc ally welcoming. Even countries such as Hun gary, Poland and Denmark – k nown for their hard- line
stances on asylum and immigrat ion issues – have opened their borders, mobilized public supp ort and adopted spe-
cial legislat ion to support refugee reception2 (see the comment ary by Pszczółkows ka, this issue fo r on overview
of the Polish case).
Most significantly, Eur ope's response to the Ukrainian refugees stands in stark contrast to the poli cies im-
plemented following the Syrian refugee crisis. Back in 2015, the arrival of 1.3 million a sylum seekers led States
to close internal Sche ngen borders, ramp up mi gration control and introduce broad suites of national measures
threatening to undercut b oth common EU rules and hum an rights st andards in this area (Gammeltof t- Hansen &
Feith Tan, 2021).
The reactions to the Ukrainian refugee crisis, in that sense, seems to challenge the long- standing “deterrence
paradigm” as the overarching fram ework guiding Western countries' refugee policy since the end of the Cold War3
(Gammeltoft- Hansen & Tan, 2017). As others have argued, the extrao rdinary response to the Ukrainian crisis more
closely resembles the previous Cold War policy paradigm (Stünzi,2022), during which examples of more generous
This is an open ac cess article und er the terms of the Crea tive Commons Attr ibution License, w hich permits use , distribution an d
reproduct ion in any medium, pro vided the origina l work is properly cit ed.
© 2022 The Auth ors. International Migration published by John W iley & Sons Ltd on behalf o f International Or ganization for
Migration.
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