Access to Asylum: International Refugee Law and the Globalization of Migration Control. Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen.

Abstract

Access to Asylum deals with the reach of international human rights and refugee law in a globalized world, facing the issue of extraterritorial, and sometimes also delegated, migration controls that states implement through carrier sanctions, immigration liaison officers, maritime interdiction, and cooperation with third countries, among other measures. The author asks a series of questions, which he addresses through a mixed methodology, combining legal analysis with a political science approach. The key point is to elucidate whether the de facto de-localization of controls has translated into an equal de jure extension of the scope of application of international protection obligations. The reasoning proceeds in consecutive steps. It first enquires into the extraterritorial applicability of international human rights and refugee law norms, to then examine the issue of attribution of conduct and the possibility of legal responsibility being engaged in circumstances in which states delegate authority to private actors. Finally, the extent of positive obligations in scenarios of ‘offshore’ and ‘outsourced’ controls is also explored.