The so-called refugee crisis has triggered a broad and divisive political discussion about overrun national borders, crumbling state sovereignty, and the disintegration of democratic governance resulting from an alleged disregard for the law by the German Federal Government. Many critics have advanced arguments that are nothing more than hot-tempered polemics based on blunt legal or theoretical misconceptions. Nonetheless, it is obvious that external boundaries played—and will continue to play—a pivotal role in managing the inflow of migrants into the European Union, which is surrounded by areas of political instability, authoritarianism, poverty, civil war, and religious extremism. This Article addresses the function of territorial borders for a liberal democracy from the perspective of constitutional theory. It demonstrates that effectively controlled outer boundaries are an adequate democratic answer to an instable, fragmented, and fragile world, while avoiding the pitfalls of defining political and social membership by substantive and inescapable criteria, such as ethnicity.

The European Union (EU) Member States have experienced the recent refugee protection crisis in the EU as a de-facto loss of control over their borders. They find themselves unable to subject entry into their territory to a sovereign decision. In response, the Member States have sought to regain full sovereignty over matters of forced migration, both unilaterally and cooperatively, seeking to govern a phenomenon—forced migration—that by definition defies governance. Unilateral measures include forced migration caps and a search for ways to circumvent responsibility under the Dublin system. Cooperative efforts by EU Member States include the search for ways to more effectively govern forced migration at the EU level and beyond. Supranational EU efforts include the introduction of an internal relocation scheme and support for Italy and Greece in processing asylum claims in so-called “hotspots.” Beyond the EU, Member States are seeking to externalize protection responsibility to third world countries under international agreements, in particular, by returning asylum seekers to Turkey. This Article outlines the unilateral and cooperative governance efforts undertaken and shows that states' sovereign decisions over migration are significantly limited in the case of forced migrants, both by EU law and by international law.

The Austrian asylum policy is shifting from a showcase of support to asylum seekers to one of the most restrictive in Europe. Recent amendments to the asylum law are due to the massive influx of asylum seekers in 2015/2016 as a result of which Austria has accepted the second largest number of asylum seekers per capita in Europe. The Austrian government first responded by setting an upper limit of asylum applications from 2016 and then by creating the possibility of suspending its obligations under international and European asylum law. Both measures are legally doubtful and based on the assumption that if the upper limit is met this may threaten the maintenance of public order and the protection of internal security, which is not possible to prove. The contribution provides a legal analysis of the recent legal developments in Austrian asylum law, which are reviewed from the perspective of international and European asylum law as well as human rights. It concludes that the Austrian measures are part of a race to the bottom of European countries with the purpose of keeping refugees away. They cannot be justified from a legal perspective and create a threat to the respect for the rule of law.

This Article aims at presenting and clarifying the Polish perspective towards the Mediterranean refugee crisis. Poland has not been directly affected by this crisis so far and this makes the Polish case significantly different from the European Union Member States that are directly affected by a large influx of people seeking protection. This Article briefly presents the Polish legal framework and its origins and analyzes the particular governmental (in)actions towards the Mediterranean refugee crisis, including references to the politicized debate on the issue. Also, the specific context of a potential future Ukrainian crisis is addressed. The Article finishes with concluding remarks and suggestions to employ temporary legal measures to address large movements of refugees and migrants, as such measures deal with the specificity of such movements in the best way that can be achieved.

Since 2014, the refugee crisis has determined a sharp increase in the number of unauthorized arrivals on the Italian shores. However, contrary to what happened in other less affected European Union countries, the Italian government has not reacted with an antiimmigration policy. Rather, it has tried to reconcile the overarching imperative of a full compliance with EU norms regulating external border controls with the observance of the most compelling humanitarian obligations. The results have been mixed. Both the functionalist bias that is inherent in the administrative action and the legislative inertia during the crisis have produced a detrimental impact on the fundamental freedoms of the migrants. The Article addresses four main constitutional challenges: (1) The lack of legislative authorization for the imposition of coercive means in the context of the “hotspot approach”; (2) the deficiencies of the Italian system for the reception of asylum seekers and refugees, which became a source of destabilization of the Dublin system and the Schengen area; (3) the low level of due process protection that is guaranteed to migrants that are subject to return procedures; and (4) the problematic need to cooperate with third countries that do not adequately protect human rights. The Italian case illustrates a distinctive, yet more general trend. For member states who are geographically exposed to migration flows and whose borders overlap with the external borders of the Schengen area, developing an antiimmigration or anti-EU policy would be short-sighted and self-defeating. Those states need more—rather than less—Europe because they cannot stop the migration inflow. And they need to effectively manage it because it is the only way to keep the Schengen area alive—and not to be excluded from it.

While the Dublin System was meant to create a clear and fair division of responsibilities for the examination of applications for international protection, the recent refugee crisis highlighted the extent to which normative aspirations and political realities can diverge. That said, the Dublin System does allow for a certain degree of flexibility: By exercising the discretionary right to assume responsibility under the so-called “sovereignty clause” of Article 17, paragraph 1 of the Dublin III Regulation, Member States can examine asylum applications even when they would not formally have jurisdiction for doing so according to the criteria established by the Dublin System. Germany has relied upon this right extensively during the refugee crisis. Against this backdrop, the following contribution analyzes the reasons for, and limits of, multilevel administrative discretion in the Common European Asylum System. It argues that when a Member State exercises the right to assume responsibility in a sweeping manner, i.e. in hundreds of thousands of cases, it runs the risk of overstretching the legal limits of its discretionary powers. National administrative bodies can only invoke the right to assume responsibility insofar as this does not amount to game-changing decisions by the executive or unilateral decision-making without transnational coordination – particularly when such decisions have severe transnational consequences.

The study describes Hungary's policy towards asylum seekers and refugees in the tense period of 2015–2016 before and after the erection of fences at its southern borders of Hungary. It offers a theoretical explanation of the legal measures and practical actions. After briefly reviewing the factual basis, that is the magnitude of the movements and the number of decisions taken in the EU and in Hungary and the pertinent legal changes in 2015–2016 it elaborates the theoretical fundaments. Securitization majority identitarian populism and crimmigration are invoked as explanatory frames. The paper then reassembles the factual elements under six headings showing them in a new light. These are: denial, deterrence, obstruction, punishment, free riding constituting lack of solidarity and breaching the law (international, European, domestic). Finally the question is raised if all these moves are compatible with the duty of loyal cooperation of Member States with each-other and the EU as prescribed by article Article 4 (3) TEU.