Dublin IV and EXCOM: Aspirational Blunders and Illusive Solidarity

Abstract:

The Dublin IV proposal of 2016 was ostensibly made necessary by the lack of functional and effective burden-sharing between EU Member States. Dublin IV purports to ameliorate this inequality by instituting a series of mechanisms that would ensure that any increase in the rate of migration to the EU territory would be met with collective action. However, an analysis of the Dublin IV provisions reveals that in its operation it would do no such thing. Also in 2016, the Executive Committee of the UNHCR provided conclusions on burden-sharing and youth respectively. Though considered by some national judiciaries and human rights treaty bodies to be of significant value to the development of international refugee law, the conclusions of the Executive Committee on burden-sharing and youth are not reflective of EU State practice. Rather, EU State practice is revealed in the Dublin IV proposal and the inequality that it promotes.

This article comparatively analyses the 2016 EXCOM Conclusions and the Dublin IV proposal and makes the case that the conclusion of EXCOM are purely aspirational and lack substantive value, and that Dublin IV illustrates that lack of substantive value through the potential future operation of its provisions.