Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing humankind and its effects will hit the most vulnerable persons disproportionately hard. Several millions of people risk displacement due to environmental hazards, natural disasters and climate mediated conflicts, influencing migration patterns across the world. Without a strategy for protecting specifically climate refugees, States risk violating several human rights, which makes the issue highly relevant to the international community. Nevertheless, an intergovernmental strategy for addressing the challenges does not yet exist. This thesis focuses specifically on the European Union’s role in protecting climate refugees. It offers an analysis of the mechanical and attitudinal dimensions of refugee protection in the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) and uses post-colonial theory as a tool for interpreting its implementation. This thesis is written with the purpose of contributing to the discourse on how climate refugees can and should fit in under current EU legislative mechanisms.

This thesis aims at the development of the Czech asylum policy from the year 2000 to the year 2016. Asylum policy is an area that isn't in the center of the public concern for most of the time and only few actors take part in this policy. However, we can say that currently, because of the events such as the refugee crisis, the asylum policy is becoming a very ongoing topic and plays a crucial role in the public discourse. For this and other reason, in this thesis I am researching the development of asylum policy, explanation and description of changes that have happened. The development of asylum policy in the period is analyzed first the terms of practical changes, that are caused by the legislative or important events. This consists of the identification of particular periods, as well as their characteristic features. The analysis is also made in the theoretical perspective: Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET) and frame theory are used. The PET is suitable for explaining changes in the policy process, that can possibly occur after long periods of stability. Framing is an important feature of the PET. For the purpose of this thesis, framing is also used as a method of analysis of the negotiations in the parliamentary debates that concern the legislative of the asylum policy. The frames that are used...

Following the political changes induced by the fall of the Communist regimes across Eastern Europe, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland embarked on the road of economic liberalization and democratization. This process was formally concluded with the so-called Visegrád countries' accession to the EU in 2004. However, in relation to the refugee crisis the Visegrád countries emerged within the EU united in their opposition to comply with the so- called mandatory refugee relocation scheme. The position of the Visegrád countries evoked not only significant media attention but also academic inquiry on the securitization of asylum policies in the Visegrád region. This research analyses the Europeanisation of the asylum policies in the Visegrád countries in three periods: 1. the early years of democratic development 2. The harmonization of policies leading up to EU accession and 3. The development of related policies after EU accession. The Europeanisation of asylum policies coincide with the development of the Common European Asylum System and the deepening of EU legislative powers in the field of asylum policy. The author concluded that the field of integration policy where Member States retain significant authority has become a strict control mechanism of limiting displaced person access to...

Denna studie syftar till att undersöka hur personer som sökt asyl tillsammans med sina familjer har upplevt sin livssituation i väntan på uppehållstillstånd, där fokuset läggs på barnfamiljer. Studien bygger på en kvalitativ forskningsmetod och resultatet analyseras med hjälp av en innehållsanalys. Empirin är framtagen genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med män och kvinnor som sökte asyl i Sverige under den så kallade flyktingkrisen. Studiens teoretiska ramverk utgörs av teorin om känsla av sammanhang samt utgår från teoretiska begreppen liminalitet och resiliens. Resultatet visar att personer som söker asyl tillsammans med barn i familjen kan stå inför en rad olika påfrestningar under vänteperioden; nämligen ekonomiska svårigheter, otrygga boendeförhållanden, ovisshet inför framtiden och en dubbel orosbörda. Den ovissa framtiden gör det svårare att uppleva nuet som begripligt och hanterbart när man inte vet om man kommer få stanna i landet eller inte. Oron om barnets framtid och tankar om hur ett avslag kan påverka barnets liv präglar tillvaron i väntan. Men samtidigt är det barnen och familjen som ökar motivationen att fortsätta hålla ut. Studien lyfter också på vilket sätt det var möjligt för asylsökande att hantera sin situation. Resultatet visar att intervjupersoner har använt sig av olika resiliensstrategier och resurser för att känna sammanhang i sin tillvaro. Studien kommer slutligen fram till att en lång asylprocess påverkar asylsökande barnfamiljer på flera olika plan och för att individer i dessa familjer ska känna sig kunna hantera sin situation bör man satsa på att förstärka deras känsla av sammanhang.

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The Convention on the Rights of the Child was incorporated into Swedish legislation in 2020 to strengthen the child's best interests and perspective in areas such as asylum law (UNICEFSweden, 2020a). The purpose of this essay is to examine how the individual asylum grounds of unaccompanied children are handled in the asylum process and in what way the child's best interests are actually considered in the asylum process before and after the incorporation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This essay will answer the following question:How has the application of the best interests of the child according to Article 3 in asylum cases for unaccompanied children changed before and after the incorporation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child into Swedish law based on the theory of the best interests of the child as an open concept? Through a qualitative content analysis of judgments, changes and deficiencies in the protection of the rights of unaccompanied children are identified. The study examines how the courts take into account the best interests of the childbased on Schiratzki's (2005) legal theory of the best interests of the child as an open concept.The results of the study have shown that before incorporation, the judgments extensively consider the best interests of the child according to Article 3 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by highlighting potential consequences upon return. However, after incorporation, the migration court fails in considering the best interests of the child. This is because the concept of 'the best interests of the child' is comprehensive, and the court does not assess this from a holistic perspective, which is important for a fair assessment according to Schiratzki (2005).

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The aim of this study was to examine normative conceptions based on sexuality, gender and western context in the Swedish migration office’s (Migrationsverket) documents concerning LGBT asylum seekers. The study is conducted by a norm-critical approach and intersectional perspectives. The study consists of a discourse analysis based on Judith Butler’s theory about the heterosexual matrix and performativity, as well as Stuart Hall’s theory about the West and the Rest. Our data consists of policy documents regarding LGBT asylum administration. When analysing the documents, we found that they are based on heteronormative assumptions and western perspectives. Besides being based on heteronormative assumptions and western perspectives, we found that the documents occasionally contains of a series of contradictive aspects on LGBT related asylum cases.

This thesis aims to improve historical knowledge of Australian refugee policy between 1976 and 1983, a unique and transitional moment in the nation’s history and in international refugee movements. The discussion will be based on original evidence drawn from archival records and oral history interviews, and informed by a broad literature which recognises that refugee policy is a product of varied political imperatives and historical context. First, Chapter Three reveals that because the Fraser government could not deport the Indochinese boatpeople who sailed to Australia, it sought to approve their refugee status in order to legitimate its announcements that only ‘genuine’ refugees were being admitted. In doing so, the Fraser government was required to defend the processing of boat arrivals to the public and within the bureaucracy. Chapter Four finds that historical and political considerations informed the Fraser government’s choice not to reject or detain boat arrivals but to instead introduce legislation against people smuggling. The chapter presents new evidence to disprove claims expressed in recent academic and media commentary that the government’s Immigration (Unauthorised Arrivals) Act 1980 (Cth) marked a particularly harsh stance and that passengers on the VT838 were deported without due process, and draws from ideas within the literature concerning the need for states to promote the integrity of the refugee concept. Chapter Five contributes to international literature on refugee status determination procedure by studying the Australian government’s assessment of non-Indochinese. Through a dataset created from UNHCR archives it is found that the quality of briefing material and political considerations could influence deliberations on individual cases. Chapter Six contributes to literature on in-country processing, revealing how Australia’s programme in Chile and El Salvador was a means of diversifying the refugee intake but caused tensions between the Department of Immigration and the Department of Foreign Affairs.

This thesis investigates asylum seekers/refugees’ orientations to belonging and identity. It is based on in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted among asylum seekers/refugees residing in Scotland between 2006 and 2008 and on a media monitoring of a number of UK newspapers. The interviews were analysed for interviewees’ orientations to feelings of belonging and identity with the UK, Scotland and homelands. They were also analysed for interviewees’ perceptions (beliefs and understandings) of newspapers’ reporting of asylum and importance to their sense of national belonging and national identity forming. The monitoring provided the context of newspapers’ reporting of asylum at the time of interviews. It enabled a small-scale examination of media content with reference to interviewees’ perceptions. The thesis explores two assumptions. Firstly, asylum seekers/refugees’ national belonging and national identity formations are complex and contingent upon their everyday ‘lived’ experiences. Secondly, asylum seekers/refugees’ belonging and identity formations, as social processes of citizenship, cannot be understood in isolation from the high visibility of the asylum issue in UK media. As an empirical study, therefore, its findings are deployed to critique policymaking, theoretical and media accounts of non-British citizens’ forms of belonging to, and identification with the British ‘nation’. It is suggested that, in addition to policymaking, there are other social circumstances that would facilitate ethnic minority migrants’ national belonging and national identity formations. These factors do not only account for the prioritising of Scottishness over Britishness, but also migrants’ ‘hyphenated’ identities. This thesis will therefore provide evidence suggesting that non-citizens (ethnic minorities), have their own meanings and agency of orientating to a feeling of national belonging and national identity that is nuanced and contingent on their experiences. The thesis does not aim to establish media causality. However, it highlights the fact that newspaper coverage can evoke responses from marginalised groups and provide the context from which identities are narrated and mobilised. The thesis will improve our understanding of the practices, meanings and contestations of belonging and identity that is grounded in the ‘lived’ experiences of noncitizens. This sociological dimension to ethnic minorities’ citizenship forming is not only poorly understood, but has been dominated by theoretical and policymaking accounts in the contemporary state.