Negotiating asylum: The EU acquis, extraterritorial protection and the common market of deflection

Book abstract:

The increasingly large number of people seeking asylum in EU countries has put the issue high on the agenda of many European governments as they seek to tackle the problem at the start of the 21st Century. This book examines how access to asylum and other forms of extraterritorial protection is regulated in the European, how the EU acquis conforms with international law and what law is capable of bridging the foundational oppositions embeddded in migration and asylum issues.

The book uses a clear structure to tackle the issue. The first part of the book identifies the problem and the relevant international and EU law, examines the argument of universalism versus particularism, and looks at the issue from both the perspective of the state and the protection seeker. The next three parts each seek to respond to one of three questions:

How is access to extraterritorial protection regulated in the European Union? Can both questions be answered in a determinate manner? Is the EU acquis in conformity with International Law?

The final part of the book discusses the issues connected with demos and justification and provides some summary observations on how asylum might be negotiated.

Gregor Noll is a researcher in international law at the Faculty of Law, University of Lund, Sweden.