When: Tuesday, 27th September 2022, 17:00 – 19.00 hrs

Where: Room 3.1, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University of London or online (register here)

The (B)OrderS: Centre for the Legal Study of Borders and Migration at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and the Centre for International Law at the University of Bristol invite you to a discussion on The Common European Asylum System and the UN Compacts on Refugees and for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration celebrating the launch of the related Handbook for Practitioners.

In 2018, through the UN General Assembly, the international community adopted two Global Compacts, one for refugees and the other for safe, orderly and regular migration. These Compacts followed two years of negotiations and are based on the good faith commitment of states to implement a wide range of commitments to improving global standards for refugee protection and the safety of migrants. The first international review of implementation of the Global Compact on Migration (GCM) is currently underway, following extensive regional reviews over the past 18 months. Yet what impact can the UN Global Compacts have on the rights of applicants and beneficiaries of international protection who seek asylum under the European Union’s Common European Asylum System?

In this discussion, the Handbook authors – Professor Elspeth Guild (QMUL), Dr Kathryn Allinson (University of Bristol), Dr Nicolette Busuttil (University of Westminster) and Dr Maja Grundler (Royal Holloway University of London) – will examine how EU Member states (and associated states) can apply the CEAS in a manner consistent with GCM and Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) commitments. This will be followed by responses from three leading experts in the field: Dr Madeline Garlick (UNCHR), Professor Violeta Moreno-Lax (QMUL) and Ms Catherine Woollard (ECRE). The discussion will explore the areas where the CEAS is coherent with commitments made in the Compacts, but also where there are tensions. In so doing, it will provide scholarly and policy perspectives on the ways in which practitioners and civil society actors, identified as key stakeholders in the GCM, can improve the CEAS’s consistency with the GCR and GCM and improve the enjoyment of rights in practice by refugees within the EU.

About the Handbook

This Handbook examines the interaction between EU asylum law and the Global Compacts (GCs) and draws on work conducted for the PROTECT Project, which studies the legal potential and impacts of the GCR and the GCM on the functioning of the international refugee protection system. The Handbook identifies the gaps and synergies between the two Compacts and the EU legal framework, primarily in the instruments forming the CEAS. It identifies CEAS provisions which fulfil the Compacts’ requirements as well as those that diverge therefrom. Through this exercise, the Handbook highlights how practitioners, including policymakers, can use the Compacts to augment the protective scope of corresponding CEAS provisions or pursue the required law or policy change to align law and practice with states’ commitments.

The authors are:

The discussants are:

  • – Dr Madeline Garlick (Chief of the Protection Policy & Legal Advice Section, Division of International Protection, UNHCR)

The event will be chaired by Professor Elspeth Guild.

**Please note that for those joining the event online, joining details will be sent the day before.

About the Organisers

(B)OrderS: Centre for the Legal Study of Borders and Migration, QMUL

Founded in 2022, the (B)Orders Centre focuses on the study of bordering, ordering and othering processes through law. It constitutes a hub for intellectual collaboration and evaluation of the role of law in the making and unmaking of borders and their impact on global (im)mobility. It connects scholars within and beyond Queen Mary Law School to harness existing inter- and multi-disciplinary research into law, borders and (im)mobility and shape future research agendas in response to global challenges.

Centre for International Law, University of Bristol

The Centre for International Law brings together one of the largest and most diverse communities of international lawyers in the UK. The Centre provides a platform for collaboration, engagement with external institutions, and the dissemination of internationally recognised research. The Centre is intellectually inclusive, embracing a diverse range of methodological approaches and seeking to foster an interdisciplinary ethos. Through the collaborative work of its members, it aims to tackle some of the most pressing international challenges of our time.

Speaker Profiles

Catherine Woollard

Catherine Woollard took up the position of Director of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) in 2016. ECRE is a pan-European alliance of 108 NGOs in 39 European countries working to defend the rights of refugees and displaced persons in Europe and in Europe’s external policies. ECRE’s work covers litigation, advocacy and communications. From 2008 to 2015, she was the Executive Director of EPLO, the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office, a Brussels-based network working on peace and security. Previously, she managed international programmes and advocacy at Conciliation Resources, Minority Rights Group International and Transparency International. She has also worked for the UK civil service, as a lecturer in political science, and as a consultant advising governments, international organisations and NGOs. She holds undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in law and political science.

Professor Violeta Moreno-Lax

Violeta Moreno-Lax is full professor of Law, specialising in international and EU law at the intersection with migration, border violence, and security at the Queen Mary University of London. She is the founder of the Immigration Law programme, the Centre for the Study of Borders, Migration and Law: (B)OrderS, and the founder and coordinator of the SAROBMED: The Search and Rescue Observatory for the Mediterranean, a multi-disciplinary consortium documenting and analysing human rights violations at sea occurring during interdiction/rescue operations. She is also visiting professor at the College of Europe, and she has previously held academic positions at the universities of Oxford and Liverpool and obtained research fellowships at various universities. She has published widely in the areas of international and European refugee and migration law, including her monograph: Accessing Asylum Europe: Extraterritorial Border Controls and Refugee Rights Under EU Law (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Dr Madeline Garlick

Dr Madeline Garlick is Chief of the Protection Policy and Legal Advice Section in the Division of International Protection at UNHCR in Geneva. In early 2018, she was Assistant Representative for Protection for UNHCR in Iraq. She was previously responsible for UNHCR’s liaison to the EU Institutions from 2004-2013. She has served with the UN in Cyprus, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She teaches on an occasional basis at Sciences Po, Paris, and the Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford University. She holds a doctorate in law cum laude from Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, for which she won the Max van der Stoel Human Rights Award in 2017. She also has a Master of Laws degree in law from Cambridge University, UK, and Arts and Laws (Hons) degrees from Monash University, Australia. She is qualified as a barrister and solicitor in Victoria, Australia.

Professor Elspeth Guild

Elspeth Guild is Jean Monnet Professor ad personam at the Queen Mary University of London and Emeritus Professor at the Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands. Her research interests and expertise lie primarily in the area of EU law, in particular EU Justice and Home Affairs, including immigration, asylum, border controls, criminal law, and police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters. She also researches EU privacy and data protection law and the nexus with human rights. Professor Guild provides regular advice to the European Parliament, the European Commission, the Council of Europe, and other European and international organizations, such as the UNHCR, on the free movement of persons, migration, and asylum.

Dr Kathryn Allinson

Kathryn Allinson is a legal scholar researching in the field of state responsibility, human rights and migration. Her PhD on ‘Establishing responsibility for causing displacement: An inquiry into the role of ‘Displacing Third States’’ was awarded in January 2021 from Queen Mary University of London. She is a Lecturer in Law and Co-Director of the Centre for International law at the University of Bristol and a Researcher on the Horizon 2020 PROTECT project. In this role she has contributed to a number of commentaries on the Global Compact on Migration, as well as publishing widely on the topic and producing a handbook for legal practitioners working in the UK. She is also the Managing Editor of the peer-reviewed journal The International Community Law Review.

Dr Maja Grundler

Dr Maja Grundler is a Lecturer in Law at Royal Holloway, University of London and a postdoctoral researcher for the ‘PROTECT Project’ at QMUL. Her research focuses on the intersection of refugee law and irregular migration, human trafficking and migrant smuggling. Maja is also a research affiliate at the Refugee Law Initiative and co-chairs the Human Trafficking Research Network.

Dr Nicolette Busuttil

Nicolette Busuttil is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Westminster and Centre Coordinator of the (B)OrderS Centre within the School of Law at Queen Mary University of London. Nicolette’s research explores the implication of international human rights law for migrants and refugees with disabilities within the EU, particularly in the context of non-refoulement. As a researcher on the Horizon 2020 PROTECT project, she has researched and published on the impact of the Global Compact on Refugees and for Safe, Orderly and Legal Migration on the right to international protection.