94 research outputs found
Setting up a Common European Asylum System : Report on the application of existing instruments and proposals for the new system
The study assesses firstly the evaluation process of the first generation of asylum instruments while underlining the possibilities to improve it. It analyses secondly the asylum "acquis" regarding distribution of refugees between Member States, the eligibility for protection, the status of protected persons regarding detention and vulnerability, asylum procedures and the external dimension by formulating short-term recommendations of each area. Its last part is devoted to the long term evolution of the Common European Asylum System regarding the legal context including the accession of the EU to the Geneva Convention, the institutional perspectives including the new European Support Office, the jurisdictional perspective, the substantive perspective, the distributive perspective and the external perspective
Much ado about not-very-much? Assessing ten years of German citizenship reform
This article examines the development and impact of German citizenship policy over the past decade. As its point of departure, it takes the 2000 Citizenship Law, which sought to undertake a full-scale reform and liberalisation of access to German membership. The article discusses this law’s content and subsequent amendments, focusing particularly on its quantitative impact, asking why the number of naturalisations has been lower than originally expected. The article outlines current challenges to the law’s structure operation and identifies potential trajectories for its future development
The Influence of International Law on the International Movement of Persons
Many migration theories identify ‘the law’ as a significant constraint on the international
movement of persons. While this constraint often operates through national migration
legislation, this study examines the influence of international law in shaping contemporary
patterns in the international movement of persons at the macro level. The analysis begins with an
examination of the long-established power of a State to regulate cross-border movement of
persons as an inherent attribute of State sovereignty, together with the accepted limitations on a
State’s power to control entry and exit. Yet, international law reaches well beyond the movement
of people across borders. The development of international human rights law has been a key
constraint on state action in the United Nations era by also regulating the treatment of migrants
within a State’s borders. The study considers how international law has responded to current
migration issues, including: protection of migrant women and children; suppression of
smuggling and trafficking of people; labour migration; and environmental migration. As in other
areas of international society, there has been a proliferation of institutions through which
international migration law is made and enforced. The most prominent among them are the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization
for Migration (IOM), but the establishment of other entities with overlapping mandates has given
rise to calls for a new international migration regime based on streamlined institutional
arrangements. The study concludes that international law is an imperfect framework for
regulating the international movement of persons because it has developed in a piecemeal
fashion over a long time to deal with issues of concern at particular points in human history. Yet,
despite its shortfalls, international law and its associated institutions unquestionably play a most
important role in constraining and channeling state authority over the international movement of
persons
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