Gatekeepers to International Refugee Law? The Role of Courts in Shaping Access to Asylum

Madalina Moraru (University of Bologna) present research findings from her ERC-funded project ACCESS on the role of courts in interpreting the right to asylum. The discussant will be Prof. Carmelo Danisi.

Talk Abstract

The number of asylum seekers is at a historical high and is likely to increase further over the next decade. Nevertheless, access to asylum is limited by similar barriers being developed by States and regional organisations across the globe, such as push and pull-backs, walls and fences, border detention centres and externalisation of asylum processing. This threatens the entire global refugee system, which cannot function in the absence of effective access to asylum. ACCESS seeks to understand if courts around the globe have systematically yielded similar or different interpretations on the compatibility of legal and physical barriers with the Refugee Convention. Taking a comparative socio-legal approach, ACCESS will analyse the role of courts in interpreting the right to asylum. The focus will be on identifying discernible patterns in the courts’ decisions related to barriers to asylum (whether judgments contribute to restricting or expanding access to asylum), the socio-legal factors influencing courts’ decision-making, and on how courts have developed international refugee law in response to these barriers. 

Speaker's Short Bio

Madalina Moraru is Associate Professor of EU Law in the Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Bologna. She is also an Asst. Prof. at the Centre for Judicial Cooperation of the European University Institute, where she coordinates the research and legal training on asylum, immigration and rule of law. She has been an EU citizenship expert for the European Commission; and a Visiting Fellow at the Court of Justice of the European Union, and invited expert for EJTN and EUAA. Her research focuses on EU citizenship, refugee and immigration law, judicial interactions in the field of fundamental rights and rule of law, the law of EU external relations, consular and diplomatic protection, and comparative judicial systems. As PI of the ERC-funded ACCESS project, she investigates how domestic and supranational courts across the world assess the compatibility of State developed barriers to accessing asylum with the Refugee Convention and other human rights instruments.