Panel II – The Institutional, Legal and Normative Challenges of Europe’s Contemporary Migration Crisis

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"Normative (B)Orders. Migration and Citizenship in a Time of Crisis" - 9th International Annual Conference

Friday, November 25th 2016, 10 am - 12 am

Border-crossings of large groups of people have been a constitutive phenomenon of the international system ever since the formation of political communities separating richer and poorer societies as well as peoples fi ghting wars or living at peace. This is especially true for Europe with its rich history of warfare. What is today taken to be the most severe migration “crisis” in Europe’s history since the end of World War II has hit the continent at a time when its historically unprecedented levels of peace and economic wellbeing have come under pressure from within and without. This panel examines the reach, limits and deficiencies of the legal underpinnings of international and European refugee law as well as the lacking institutional and procedural context of joint European decision-making. It also illustrates the dramatic lack of inter-state cooperation among EU member states with a case study of the Greek Island of Chios in 2015 where international public and private actors largely replaced failing European states in managing an escalating crisis.

Chair: Prof. Dr. Gunther Hellmann (Professor of Political Science in the Department of Social Sciences at Goethe University and Principal Investigator in the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders“)

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Gunther Hellmann is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Social Sciences at Goethe University and Principal Investigator in the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders“. His research interests are in the fields of
social and international relations theory, foreign policy analysis, esp. German and EUropean foreign policy, and international security, esp. transatlantic and European security. He currently serves as Executive Secretary of the World International Studies Committee (WISC). He is one of the editors of Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen (ZIB) and a Member of the Board of the Aspen Institute Berlin. He held the Steven Muller Chair in German Studies at the SAIS Bologna Center of Johns Hopkins University and was Harris Distinguished Visiting Professor at Dartmouth College, Hannover, NH.

Lecture 1
Prof. Dr. Rainer Hofmann (Professor of Public Law, Public International Law and European Law at Frankfurt University and Co-Director of its Merton Centre for European Integration and international Economic Order)

Current Challenges to International Refugee Law

Abstract
The current ‘refugee crisis’ differs in a number of aspects from previous large-scale influxes of asylum-seekers: The – at least in a European context – unprecedented number of persons seeking refuge, the heterogeneity of root-causes for their trans-boundary movements and of their countries of origin, and the human hardship experienced by many during their flight to Europe and upon arrival in reception facilities constitute heavy material burdens on the receiving countries. This factual situation is aggravated by the fact that the presently applicable legal framework – neither the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention nor the applicable EU refugee law system – is not shaped so as to suffi ciently accommodate the needs of the persons concerned, and of the states of refuge. This paper seeks to provide normative answers to these challenges, ranging from the narrow scope of the refugee definition to procedural issues (“the failure of the Dublin system”) and the need for vigorously addressing root-causes of enforced migration and establishing a workable system of burden-sharing on a global and European level.

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Rainer Hofmann is Professor of Public Law, Public International Law and European Law at Frankfurt University and Co-Director of its Merton Centre for European Integration and international Economic Order. He is a member of the Advisory Council on Public International Law of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs and sits on the Executive and the Management Board of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency, representing the Council of Europe. He was member and President (1998-2004, 2008-2012) of the Advisory Committee on the Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. He has widely published on, inter alia, human rights issues with a focus on minority rights and refugee law.

Lecture 2
Prof. Dr. Nicole Deitelhoff (Director of the Leibniz-Institute Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) and Professor for International Relations and Theories of Global Order in the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders“) & Prof. Dr. Christopher Daase (Professor for International Organizations at Goethe University Frankfurt and Deputy Director of the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF))

The European Union and Refugees: Crisis Without Borders

Abstract
The current refugee flow into the European Union is not, or rather does not need to be a crisis. It is a challenge for the management capacity of EU member states on the one hand and a challenge for the policy capability of the European Union on the other. In principle, Member States could handle the number of refugees if they would agree to cooperate. The challenge has turned into a crisis because they refuse to do so and instead opt for national solutions. The conflictual dynamics lay bare the glaring weaknesses of the institutional design of the European Union as did the fi nancial crisis before. Thus, addressing this crisis in a sustainable way requires institutional reforms of decision-making in the Union. Our contribution analyzes the cooperation problems underlying the current crisis and delineates possible solutions.

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Nicole Deitelhoff is Director of the Leibniz-Institute Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) and Professor for International Relations and Theories of Global Order in the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders“ at Goethe University in Frankfurt. She obtained an MA in Political Science from State University of New York (UB Buffalo) and a PhD from University of Technology Darmstadt. Among her previous positions was a project directorship at PRIF, and a research professorship at University Bremen. She was visiting professor to Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 2010 and visiting fellow to the Center for European Studies at Harvard University in 2011, to the department of Political Science at University of Hawaii at Manoa in 2012, and to the European University Institute in Florence in 2015. Her research and teaching focuses on international institutions and norms, the foundations of political rule and its legitimation beyond the national state, and forms of international resistance, opposition, and dissidence.

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Christopher Daase is Professor for International Organizations at Goethe University Frankfurt and Deputy Director of the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF). Previously he held the Chair in International Relations at the University of Munich and was Senior Lecturer at the University of Kent at Canterbury as well as Director of the Programme on International Confl ict Analysis at the Brussels School of International Studies. Educated at Universities in Hamburg, Freiburg and Berlin, he became SSRC-MacArthur Fellow in International Peace and Security and was Research Fellow at Harvard University and the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, CA. His research centres on theories of international relations, security issues and international institutions. As member of the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders” at the University of Frankfurt he currently works on changing patterns of legitimacy with regard to the use of force, rule and resistance in international politics, and the informalization of international relations.

Lecture 3
Nele Kortendiek (Doctoral Candidate at the Cluster “The Formation of Normative Orders” and the Institute of Political Science, TU Darmstadt in the working group "Transnational Governance")

Global Migration Governance at the European External Border – The Case of Chios

Abstract
The number of migrants trying to reach Europe’s shores drastically increased since the beginning of 2015. Given the high number of people crossing borders daily, the little degree of institutionalised cooperation between nation-states on the task of migration governance comes as a surprise. States largely resist giving up longstanding notions of border and population control and avoid delegating competences to global actors. However, the continuous global mobility of people challenges statist approaches to governing borders. Where national agencies are unwilling or unable to deal with the arrival of large numbers of migrants and refugees, international public and private actors step in. How do these international actors perform the task of global migration governance at the European external border? I will discuss examples from the Greek island of Chios where over 160,000 migrants entered Europe since the beginning of 2015, overwhelming the capacities of the Greek local authorities. How do international organisations like UNHCR, IOM, Frontex, EASO and humanitarian NGOs fill in the gaps in migration governance? How do they cooperate in border management practices like search and rescue missions, humanitarian assistance, registration and return in an environment of unclear competences and responsibilities?

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Nele Kortendiek is a doctoral candidate at the Cluster “The Formation of Normative Orders” and the Institute of Political Science, TU Darmstadt in the working group Transnational Governance. She studied political science and international relations theory at the universities of Bremen, Geneva and the London School of Economics and Political Science with a grant from the German National Academic Foundation. In 2016, she was a visiting research fellow at the Centre on Migration, Policy, and Society (COMPAS) at the University Oxford. Her research interests include the normative dimensions of global governance, international organisations, the role of transnational professionals and global migration management. She teaches on international political theory, global authority and legitimacy and global migration. In her current research project, she focuses on how global migration governance is made in and trough practice at the European external border. She spent two months as a volunteer on the Greek island of Chios to provide a political sociology of the public and private organisations which respond to the ongoing refugee emergency. Her forthcoming publications include works on borders and democracy as well as participatory governance.