Migration cannot be stopped, without massively violating the human rights of the migrants. It may be deflected and rerouted, for a time. But European efforts to stop irregular migration will fail on a massive scale given the push and pull…
It was in the nineteenth century that a recognisably modern form of mass migration was made possible by new forms of transport, colonial settlement and the expansion of the United States (US). Between 1846 and 1914, over 30 million migrants…
Hundreds of thousands of refugees, and smaller numbers of economic migrants, are arriving on the shores of south and south-eastern Europe. Most of those arriving in Greece and Italy have no interest in staying in either of these two countries.…
International law maintains that status determination is declaratory, which means that status determination does not make one a refugee but declares one to be a refugee. It means that many of those now on the move are refugees, in spite…
By the end of August 2015, improvised camps had been set up all over Mytiline, the capital of Lesbos, and outside the two designated areas. This created a huge pressure for the local population and authorities, already low on resources…
That war creates refugees is nothing new. The Bosnian war of 1992-95 forced 2.2 million people to flee. What is new since then is European Union (EU) enlargement and the development of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). This imposes…
There are currently some 60 million people in the world who have been displaced by persecution, war, conflict or disaster – the most we have seen in the post-World War II era. However, whereas at that time weary and war-torn…
“No camp! No camp!” shouted the refugees who were on their way to Austria, refusing to get off the train after it was stopped by the Hungarian police at the town of Bicske, where one of the country’s main refugee…
The Brenner Pass on the border between Italy and Austria is the northernmost limit that migrants who cross the Mediterranean Sea to Italy are allowed to go, according to the Dublin Regulation. This is also an internal border of the…
In the absence of a consistent policy response implemented across all European Union (EU) Member States, the burden has largely fallen on states at Europe’s external borders to receive, screen and process the thousands of people arriving as well as…