The subject matter of my thesis is the Dublin system which includes the Council Regulation (EC) No 343/2003 of 18. February 2003 establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an asylum application lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national and the Council Regulation (EC) No 2725/2000 of 11 December 2000 concerning the establishment of 'Eurodac' for the comparison of fingerprints for the effective application of the Dublin Convention. The aim of this thesis is to acquaint its readers, point out the shortcomings and benefits of the existing regulation and evaluate the application of both regulations. I was trying to explain the functioning of this system with the help of the cases of ECHR and CJEU. My thesis is divided into five chapters. In the first chapter, I focused on the development of a common European asylum system before the adoption of the Regulation and then also at the Regulation itself and the objectives it observes. The second chapter is devoted to the principles and criteria for determining the responsibility of the Member State to examine an asylum application. After I mentioned the general principles set out in the Regulation, I have dealt with the actual procedure of determining the Member State. There is also...

This thesis explores the impact of the Syrian refugee crisis on the Common European Asylum System. It evaluates the extent to which the European Union was able to implement a common asylum system, identifies discrepancies between different European countries, primarily Germany and Hungary, and briefly examines the roots of these differences. To this end, the structure of the international refugee protection regime and the German and Hungarian asylum systems are analyzed. Furthermore, the thesis explores how the governments of the two countries perceive the rights of refugees and how their views have affected their handling of the crisis. The case studies of Germany and Hungary have revealed that the treatment of Syrian refugees varies enormously within the EU. Hence, the implementation of the Common European Asylum System has not been achieved, which can be attributed to the deficiencies within the system and the growing ideological rifts within the EU.

Governments around the world use immigration detention to detain and deport irregular immigrants, which negatively affects their health. The aim of this thesis was to explore, describe and identify factors that could mitigate the effect of immigration detention on the health of detainees. This was a mixed method study using qualitative methods (Papers I and II), quantitative methods (Paper III) and descriptive case comparison (Paper IV) comparing the Swedish system to the system in the Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg). The study design was strengthened by triangulation of methods and data sources. Detainees experienced lack of control over their own lives due to lack of information in a language they can understand, inadequate responses from detention staff and restrictions within detention centers further limiting their liberty. Duration of detention was negatively associated with satisfaction of services provided in detention and the detainees’ Quality of Life (QOL). Detainees had low QOL domain scores with the psychological domain having the lowest score (41.9/100). The most significant factor positively associated with the QOL of detainees was the support received from detention staff. A sense of fear was present among detainees and staff. Detainees’ fear was due to their inadequate interaction with authorities, perceiving it as threatening, and due to their worry of facing repercussions of being involved in incidents caused by others. The potential for physical threat from detainees created a sense of fear among the staff. The detention staff expressed the need for more support to manage their emotional dilemma and role conflict of being a civil servant, simultaneously enabling the deportation process while providing humane care to detainees as fellow human beings. Detention centers in the Benelux countries had more categories of staff providing different services to detainees. Compared to the Benelux countries, healthcare services at the Swedish detention centers were limited. Detainees were offered no medical screening on arrival and no regular access to mental healthcare professionals. Detaining authorities have the obligation to safeguard the health of detainees. Challenges faced by the detention staff and detainees must be addressed to create a supportive environment and fulfill that obligation.

The aim of the thesis is to analyse asylum law of the European Union with focus on the changes, which introduced the Treaty of Lisbon. The paper describes development of the EU asylum law, establishing of the Common European Asylum System (CAES) and changes that Lisbon Treaty introduced in comparison with the former regulation. The text also deals with the right to asylum, which is established in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU. The thesis is divided into 7 chapters. In the first part of the paper the author follows historical development of the asylum law of the European Union and beginning of the harmonization until adoption of the Amsterdam Treaty. The second chapter is dedicated to the establishment of the CAES, which more than 10 years ago became main priority of the asylum policy of the EU and which aims to harmonize asylum laws of the Member States and therefore ensure a unified application not only of international, but also of European legislation from this area. Recent major changes in the structure and functioning of the European Union, which were introduced by the Lisbon Treaty, are in general outlined in the third chapter of this paper. Detailed description of changes is presented in the next chapter, which is divided into section according to the institutions. Each...

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.

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...

This thesis deals with the issue of solidarity and burden-sharing (responsibility-sharing respectively) in the EU Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. Its primary aim is to apply the theory of burden-sharing to the case of the EU asylum policy and in particular, to verify or falsify Olson's free-riding hypothesis on the exploitation of the great by the small (meaning of the rich by the poor). This hypothesis will be tested using a mixed research method which combines qualitative and quantitative elements. The qualitative part will focus on the analysis of the so-called Dublin Regulation (Dublin II and III) and its criteria and mechanisms of determining the responsible Member State for examining an asylum application. Applying Moravcsik's liberal intergovernmentalism, a special emphasis will be placed on the proces of negotiating the Regulation (Dublin II) in an attempt to identify and clarify dominant Member States' positions and their influence on the final wording. Consequently, the level of burden- sharing will be illustrated on the example of interstate transfers of asylum seekers (so-called physical burden-sharing). This type of burden-sharing will be also demonstrated qualitatively by means of statistical data available for the period of 2008-2013 which will be interpreted in relation to...

The history of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) is often considered to be tightly intertwined to that of European security, and late developments in European cooperation indeed seem to demonstrate that asylum has become first and foremost a matter of security in Europe. Yet, this tightening of policies contrasts with the flourishing of proposals claiming to mainstream equality throughout European legislation. This dissertation examines the way a politicized issue in the field of equality—LGBTI rights—has become incorporated into a cooperation mechanism that is itself divisive among Member States, the CEAS. It answers the following question: what does the European LGBTI asylum debate demonstrate about the role played by politicization in shaping the meaning and form taken by equality in European policies? Through a qualitative inquiry, it shows that while the CEAS has been a key space of renegotiation of LGBTI equality in Europe, this deepening came at the cost of the disarticulation of LGBTI emancipation from migrants’ rights. Contrarily to what has been assumed by the literature on homonationalism, this disarticulation was not strategically constructed by LGBTI activists. It rather originated from the predominance of the paradigm of “migration governance”, which depoliticizes exclusions and divides causes to better manage populations. Consequently, even though politicization is often perceived as a negative phenomenon by policymakers, this dissertation shows that what is needed to make the CEAS hold its promises of protection is not less, but more political debate. Only through this re-politicization will new and collective forms of equality emerge. / Le Régime d’Asile Européen Commun (RAEC) est souvent critiqué pour la vision sécuritaire de l’asile qu’il incarne. Il est vrai que son histoire reste marquée par la volonté des Etats-Membres de contrôler la mobilité humaine sur le sol européen. Toutefois, bien que les récents durcissements des politiques communautaires semblent confirmer cette sécuritisation du droit d’asile, ceux-ci contrastent avec l’affirmation croissante de la nécessité de « mainstreamer » le principe d’égalité au sein du droit européen. Prenant cette contradiction pour point de départ, cette thèse examine la manière dont un enjeu controversé au sein du champ de l’égalité – les droits LGBTI – fut incorporé au sein d’un mécanisme de coopération lui-même conflictuel pour les Etats-Membres, le RAEC. Elle répond à la question suivante : en quoi le débat européen sur l’asile LGBTI interroge-t-il le rôle joué par la politisation dans la redéfinition des politiques d’égalité en Europe ? A partir d’une enquête qualitative, cette thèse montre que si le RAEC fut un espace-clé de l’approfondissement de l’égalité LGBTI en Europe, ce fut au prix de la construction des droits LGBTI et des droits des migrants comme deux enjeux distincts. Cette division, toutefois, prend sa source non pas dans une instrumentalisation homonationaliste, mais plutôt dans les dispositifs dépolitisants de gouvernance et de triage des populations qui prédominent désormais au sein des politiques européennes, dépolitisant les exclusions et fragmentant les causes. Face à cette logique individualisante, seule la repolitisation du débat permettra d’inventer de nouvelles formes de politiques d’égalité porteuses d’émancipation collective.

This study offers a comprehensive comparative analysis of labour market integration policies for refugees in Sweden and Germany following the 2015 refugee crisis. Adapting an institutional approach that includes new historical institutionalism, rational choice institutionalism and sociological institutionalism, this study analyses the policy changes in both countries. The research design is a most similar design to compare and find differences and similarities in both countries, and the methodology is a qualitative comparative analysis. The research concentrates on the elements of policy change – displacement, layering, conversion and drift- to explain the modifications in response to the crisis. The study reveals significant similarities and differences between the two countries. Both Sweden and Germany implemented strategies to support refugee integration into the labour market, although with different approaches. The historical legacies, societal perspectives, and institutional frameworks of each country influenced the execution of these policies.

La crise du droit d’asile au sein de l’Union Européenne fait aujourd’hui l’objet de préoccupations récurrentes. En plus de celle-ci, les personnes qui recherchent une protection dans l’ « espace de liberté, de sécurité et de justice » de l’Union, se trouvent face à une autre crise, celle du droit à l’asile. A partir de ce constat, il est apparu pertinent de s’interroger sur les droits des demandeurs d’asile dans le cadre du régime d’asile européen commun (RAEC). Plus précisément, il s’agit de l’étude de l’effectivité des droits confrontés aux obstacles d’accès à l’Union Européenne et aux procédures d’asile de ses Etats membres, des droits liés à la procédure d’examen des demandes d’asile et des droits dont les personnes disposent pendant cet examen. La protection de ces droits, en plus du problème traditionnel de la mise en oeuvre des engagements internationaux au niveau national, a été confrontée à un nouveau régime régional ainsi qu’à une harmonisation ambiguë. A travers l’étude des droits, cette recherche vise à démontrer les causes de la crise et à proposer éventuellement des solutions orientées vers le respect du Droit International pour sortir de celle-ci, afin de contribuer à l’amélioration de la condition des demandeurs d’asile dans l’espace européen. A cet effet, notre approche est également comparatiste car l’examen des deux exemples concrets sert d’outil d’analyse, de réflexion et enfin d’évaluation du RAEC, qui a commencé à répartir les charges au sein de l’Union Européenne par le mécanisme de Dublin avant que les procédures d’examen des demandes d’asile ainsi que les conditions d’accueil dans les Etats membres aient été harmonisées. Une analyse de droit comparé entre deux Etats membres, en l’espèce la France et la Grèce, nous semble en effet s’imposer, afin de démontrer les enjeux actuels de l’harmonisation européenne en matière d’asile et d’éclairer les défis de la protection des droits. / The crisis of asylum law within the European Union is currently the subject of recurring concerns. In addition to that, people who seek protection in the "area of freedom, security and justice" of the European Union, face another crisis, that of the right to asylum. Following this observation, it seems relevant to consider the rights of asylum seekers under the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). More specifically, we study the effectiveness of rights before the obstacles of access to the European Union and its Member States’ asylum procedures, the rights related to the procedure for examining asylum applications and the rights accorded during this examination. The protection of these rights, in addition to the traditional problem of the implementation of international commitments at national level, was faced with a new regional system as well as an ambiguous harmonization. Through the study of human rights, this research aims to demonstrate the causes of the crisis, to propose possible solutions oriented to the respect of international law and contribute to the improvement of the status of asylum seekers in the European space. To this end, our approach is also comparative because the examination of two concrete examples is useful for analysis, reflection and finally evaluation of the CEAS, which began to distribute the burden in the European Union by the Dublin mechanism before the examination procedures and reception conditions in the member states have been harmonized. A comparative law analysis between two member states, France and Greece, it seems to be necessary in order to demonstrate the current challenges of European harmonization on asylum and illuminate the challenges of rights’ protection.Keywords :