Wiggle room: Discretionary power and vulnerability

This doctoral dissertation examines how asylum decision-makers are able to operationalise the existing legal framework to control migration, by using their discretionary power, and what implications the use of discretionary power in the asylum procedure may have for applicants who are made vulnerable – in particular, for those applying for asylum on the grounds of sexual orientation. Street-level implementers, or public employees (e.g., caseworkers and judges) and the organisations that employ them, make decisions regarding access to asylum. The scale, complexity, and invisibility of street-level implementers’ discretionary power render it difficult to scrutinise. Yet, as this dissertation shows, this scrutiny is crucial, as the authorities’ interpretive shifts may risk protection for entire asylum applicant populations. Previous empirical research on discretion focuses largely on the output of the individual street-level bureaucrat. This dissertation contributes to knowledge on discretion by highlighting how street-level discretionary power in asylum decision-making may be collectivised, or used on a large scale to control migration, and some of it delegated to third parties, such as non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The dissertation finds that the asylum procedure is rendered difficult for asylum applicants to navigate especially when policies are shifty and opaque, when protection criteria are abstract and difficult to grasp, or when approaches are inconsistent from one level of asylum decision-making to the next. This dissertation argues for a novel way of framing vulnerability in the asylum procedure: vulnerability should not only be understood as an inherent characteristic or the circumstances of the individual claimant, but also as procedural vulnerability, or a set of structural risks for the claimant that relate, for instance, to the aforementioned shortcomings of the asylum procedure itself. The dissertation consists of this synthesis and three substudies. The data include asylum decisions concerning 18-34-year-old Iraqi applicants and interviews with legal actors, such as asylum decision-makers and NGO workers, working with asylum-seekers in Finland. Substudy I employed a mixed-method approach, combining both quantitative and qualitative analysis, and substudies II and III used qualitative approaches, such as thematic analysis and qualitative content analysis.--- Tässä väitöskirjassa selvitetään, kuinka turvapaikkapäätösten tekijät voivat hyödyntää olemassa olevaa lainsäädäntöä ja siihen perustuvaa harkintavaltaansa maahanmuuton kontrolloimiseksi, sekä sitä, millaisia seurauksia harkintavallan käytöllä turvapaikkaprosessissa voi olla haavoittuvaan asemaan joutuneille hakijoille – etenkin yksilöille, jotka hakevat turvapaikkaa seksuaalisen suuntautumisen perusteella. Ruohonjuuritason lainsoveltajat, yksittäiset julkisen vallan käyttäjät (esim. ylitarkastajat ja tuomarit) ja heidän edustamansa organisaatiot, tekevät päätöksiä turvapaikka-asioissa. Ruohonjuuritason lainsoveltajien harkintavallan käytön määrä, monimutkaisuus ja näkymättömyys tekevät siitä hankalan tutkimuskohteen. Tämä väitöskirja kuitenkin osoittaa, että tällainen tarkastelu on tärkeää, sillä viranomaisten harkintavallan käyttöön liittyvät muutokset voivat vaikuttaa kokonaisia hakijaryhmiä koskevaan kansainväliseen suojeluun. Aiempi harkintavaltaa koskeva empiirinen tutkimus keskittyy suurelta osin yksittäisten päätöksentekijöiden ratkaisuihin. Tämä väitöskirja laajentaa ymmärrystä harkintavallasta valottamalla, kuinka sitä voidaan turvapaikkapäätöksenteossa ruohonjuuritasolla käyttää kollektiivisesti, ts. laajassa mittakaavassa, ja kuinka sitä voidaan siirtää kolmansille osapuolille, kuten kansalaisjärjestöille. Väitöskirja osoittaa, kuinka turvapaikkaprosessista voi tulla hakijoille vaikeasti hahmotettava etenkin silloin, kun käytännöt muuttuvat tiheään ja läpinäkymättömästi, kun kansainvälistä suojelua koskevat kriteerit ovat abstrakteja ja vaikeasti ymmärrettäviä, tai kun lähestymistavat ovat epäyhtenäisiä turvapaikkapäätöksenteon eri tasoilla. Väitöskirja esittää uutta tapaa kehystää haavoittuvuus turvapaikkaprosessissa: haavoittuvuutta ei tule nähdä yksinomaan yksittäisen turvapaikanhakijan ominaisuutena tai olosuhteena, vaan myös prosessuaalisena haavoittuvuutena, joukkona rakenteellisia riskejä turvapaikanhakijalle, jotka liittyvät esimerkiksi mainittuihin turvapaikkaprosessin puutteisiin. Väitöskirja koostuu tästä yhteenveto-osuudesta ja kolmesta osatutkimuksesta. Aineistoon sisältyy 18–34 -vuotiaita irakilaisia hakijoita koskevia turvapaikkapäätöksiä sekä turvapaikanhakijoiden kanssa Suomessa työskentelevien oikeudellisten toimijoiden, kuten turvapaikkapäätösten tekijöiden ja järjestötoimijoiden, haastatteluja. Ensimmäisessä osatutkimuksessa hyödynnetään monimenetelmäistä lähestymistapaa, jossa on yhdistetty sekä määrällistä että laadullista analyysia. Toisessa ja kolmannessa osatutkimuksessa käytettiin laadullisia analyysimenetelmiä, kuten temaattista analyysia ja laadullista sisällönanalyysia

A critical perspective on the administrative approach to crime prevention: The case of labour trafficking

Building on empirical data from Finnish enforcement agencies, we reflect on the challenges of the administrative approach to crime prevention. At the operational level, we identify explicit legal and implicit extra-legal limitations for using the administrative approach, that we call (1) ‘tunnel view’, (2) ‘structural siloes’, (3) ‘double role’, and (4) ‘blurred lines’. At the conceptual level, we consider the challenges of using the administrative approach in the context of labour trafficking. We argue that the initial set-up of the administrative approach that stresses the serious and organised crime paradigm limits understanding of the habitual and pervasive nature of labour trafficking. Nevertheless, administrative cooperation has the potential to contribute to full ‘labour justice’ as a governance framework that coordinates the efforts of public authorities and their multidimensional strategies to account for the entire labour exploitation spectrum.</p

Collectivized Discretion: Seeking Explanations for Decreased Asylum Recognition Rates in Finland After Europe's 2015 “Refugee Crisis”

In 2015, during the so-called “refugee crisis” in Europe, Finland was among the European countries receiving exceptionally large numbers of asylum applications. As the volume of asylum applications surged, however, the percentage of positive asylum decisions in Finland declined substantially. In this article, we explore reasons for this dramatic drop in recognitions rates and examine Finnish immigration control authorities’ use of discretion in asylum credibility assessment. Our approach is unique in its application of mixed methods to examine asylum decisions in pre- and post-crisis situations. We found that asylum caseworkers’ inconsistent assessment of similar facts and lack of faith in the veracity of applicants’ claims were essential to the mass denial of young Iraqi asylum applicants in Finland. This finding is important because it illustrates how asylum officers are able to “shift the border,” or generate a shift in asylum decision-making on a grand scale, without meaningful changes in law. Asylum officers, we show, are able to bring about such a shift via what we call collectivized discretion, or large-scale use of discretion, in asylum status determinations to control migration. Prior research on discretion in asylum decision-making highlights the individual decision-maker. This article expands discretion research by offering new insights on large-scale, collective discretionary shifts in the application of asylum law. We conclude that it is crucial that asylum status determinations be anchored in the individual assessment of each applicant's case, as collectivized discretion can lead to arbitrary results in the application of asylum law, potentially forcing those in need of refugee protection to face deportation.</p

Kansainvälistä suojelua koskevat päätökset Maahanmuuttovirastossa 2015–2017. Pilottitutkimus 18–34‐vuotiaita Irakin kansalaisia koskevista myönteisistä ja kielteisistä päätöksistä

Researchers from the Faculty of Law of the University of Turku, The Institute for Human Rights of Åbo Akademi University, and the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman conducted an empirical study on the changes that have taken place in the decisions regarding international protection. In the internationally unique study, the researchers compared the decisions of the Finnish Immigration Service on asylum seekers in 2015 and 2017.</p

Laboratorial approach in the diagnosis of food allergy

OBJCTIVE: Review the available laboratory tests used to assist in the diagnosis of IgE-mediated and non-IgE-mediated food allergy. DATA SOURCES: Papers in English and Portuguese published in PubMed and Embase, in the last ten years. Terms searched were food allergy, diagnose and laboratory, isolated and/or associated. DATA SYNTHESIS: The diagnostic approach to food allergy reactions includes a good medical history, laboratory studies, elimination diets and blinded food challenges. More recently, the use of a quantitative measurement of food-specific IgE antibodies has been shown to be more predictive of symptomatic IgE-mediated food allergy. Food-specific IgE serum levels exceeding the diagnostic values indicate that the patient is greater than 95% likely to experience an allergic reaction if he/she ingests the specific food. Such decision point values have been defined just for some foods and inconsistent results were obtained when allergy to the same food was studied in different centers. Food challenges, in particular the double-blind placebo-controlled food challenge (DBPCFC), represent the most reliable way to establish or rule out food hypersensitivity. CONCLUSIONS: A number of recent developments are improving the predictive value of some laboratory tests for the diagnosis of food allergies. However, to date, no in-vitro or in-vivo test shows full correlation with clinical food allergy and the DBPCFC remains the gold standard for the definitive diagnosis of specific food allergies. There is an urgent need for new and fundamentally improved diagnostic approaches, which must be validated in patients with food allergy confirmed by a positive DBPCFC.OBJETIVO: Revisar os exames laboratoriais disponíveis utilizados no diagnóstico da alergia alimentar mediada ou não por IgE. FONTES DE DADOS: Artigos publicados em base de dados PubMed e Embase (língua inglesa e portuguesa) nos últimos dez anos. As palavras-chave utilizadas como fonte de busca foram alergia alimentar, diagnóstico e laboratório, isolados e/ou associados. SÍNTESE DOS DADOS: A abordagem diagnóstica das reações alérgicas a alimentos inclui história clínica completa, estudos laboratoriais, dietas de eliminação e desencadeamentos cegos com alimentos. Recentemente, a medida quantitativa de anticorpos IgE específicos a alimentos tem mostrado ser mais preditiva de alergia alimentar sintomática mediada por IgE. Níveis séricos de IgE específica a alimento que excedam os valores diagnósticos indicam que o paciente tem chance maior que 95% de apresentar uma reação alérgica se ingerir o alimento em questão. Estes valores de decisão foram definidos para alguns alimentos e resultados inconsistentes são obtidos ao se estudar diferentes populações. Os desencadeamentos com alimento, especialmente o duplo-cego controlado por placebo (DADCCP), representa a maneira mais confiável de estabelecer ou descartar o diagnóstico de hipersensibilidade alimentar. CONCLUSÕES: Número crescente de aquisições tem melhorado o valor preditivo de alguns testes laboratoriais empregados no diagnóstico de alergias alimentares. Entretanto, até hoje, não há teste in vitro ou in vivo que mostre correlação completa com a clínica da alergia alimentar. O DADCCP continua sendo o padrão-ouro no diagnóstico definitivo de alergia alimentar específica. São necessárias, urgentemente, novas abordagens diagnósticas válidadas em pacientes com alergia alimentar confirmada por DADCCP positivo.Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP) Escola Paulista de Medicina Departamento de PediatriaUNIFESP-EPM Departamento de PediatriaUniversidade de São Paulo Faculdade de Medicina Departamento de PediatriaUniversidade Federal da Bahia Departamento de PediatriaUNIFESP-EPMUniversidade Federal do Paraná Departamento de PediatriaUNIFESP, EPM, Depto. de PediatriaUNIFESP, EPM Depto. de PediatriaUNIFESP, EPMSciEL