ICON S Conference 17 – 19 June 2016 Humboldt University Berlin

95 LAW(S) OF REFUGEES II
Panel formed with individual proposals.
Participants Sieglinde E. Pommer
Reuven Ziegler
Mirjam Streng
Tally Kritzman-Amir
Marie Walter
Name of Chair Reuven Ziegler
Room BE2 140/142
Sieglinde E. Pommer: The Refugee Crisis: International
and Comparative Legal Aspects
With thousands of migrants fleeing from war, persecution,
and oppression, all of a sudden the EU finds
itself in the middle of an escalating refugee crisis which
captures the world’s attention. Governments struggle
to meet their international obligations and uphold the
human rights guarantees despite a deeply controversial
public opinion. Conceptualizing the international
legal response to this global crisis, we discuss the limits
of national sovereignty, the new relevance of borders
and international cooperation and the challenges it
presents to comparative public law.
Reuven Ziegler: Condoning permanent
transience? “Prevention of settlement” of
asylum seekers
In three subsequent judgments, HCJ 7146/12,
HCJ 8425/13, and HCJ 8665/14, the Israelis Supreme
Court held legislation authorising lengthy detention of
non-deportable ‘infiltrators’ (as defined by Israeli law
notwithstanding oft-pending asylum applications), to
be unconstitutional, violating the constitutional rights
to human dignity and to liberty, The state’s explicit
legislative aim for detaining such persons away from
population centres was to ‘prevent’ their ‘settlement’
in Israel, notwithstanding the passage of time and
their established ties. The paper critically appraises
the permissibility of such aims under International
Refugee Law.
Mirjam Streng: Normative perspectives on the
right to education of asylum seekers
This paper examines whether an Asylum State may
morally distinguish between citizens and asylum seekers
in the realm of education once asylum seekers are
territorially present and if so on what basis. In the first
part, I examine the rich literature on the aims of education
in the field of education philosophy. I then examine
to what extent these aims of individual human flourishing
and the creation of ‘good’ members or citizens
of society are relevant for an Asylum State’s asylum
seeker population. I suggest that their relevance partly
depends on conceptions of alienage, societal membership
and citizenship, which I explore in the second
part. In the third part, I conclude to what extent these
Concurring panels 139
moral perspectives on membership can support the
aims of education and the International Human Rights
Law principles of equality and non-discrimination in
education, which have come under pressure in our
era of greater movement across borders.
Tally Kritzman-Amir: Mass Influx
International forced migration in 2015-16 is a
concern of massive dimensions. Persecution, conflict,
generalized violence, or human rights violations
have caused the forced displacement of dozens of
millions of persons worldwide. It was frequently referred
to as a “mass influx”, though there is no formal
definition of “mass influx”, and term absent from legal
documents. It is frequently used as a catchphrase
to explain their reluctance to provide responses to
the crisis – when rejecting migrants at the borders;
refraining from determining status; failing to provide
economic assistance etc.
The paper deconstructs the concept of mass influx.
To the extent the quantity and density of forced
migration matters, an agreed-upon definition for
mass influx should be made, and clear, transparent
procedures for its application should be formed.
The consequences of a mass influx on the rights of
asylum seekers and duties of states should be determined
and monitored. Without these measures,
“mass influx” arguments should merely be treated
as evasion techniques, used by states reluctant to
shoulder the burden of the growing international
problem of refugees.
Marie Walter: The Europeanisation of Asylum
law: A rights-enhancing process? National Detention
Practices under the Multilayered Governance
of Asylum
Ongoing civil wars have spurred a new wave of
forced migration towards the EU Member States. Is
the human right to asylum effectively protected under
the EU asylum legal framework? What is the impact
of European integration on the rights of asylum-seekers?
The prevalent discourse in academia has been
to consider European asylum policy as a set of legal
principles which provide the necessary instruments to
secure the primacy of State interests over the human
rights of asylum-seekers and refugees. My research
confronts the existing literature with new data in order
to provide a more accurate account of European integration
in asylum law. In this paper, I compare how EU
Member States have implemented into their national
regulation the new provisions of EU law concerning
administrative detention. The paper compares the
domestic reform processes and resulting degree of
compliance with EU law to account for varieties of
implementation.