The course aims to give a basic knowledge of the main features and challenges of contemporary migration governance, with a special focus on the issue of access to asylum. It covers the principles governing the management of the migratory phenomenon, highlighting its complexity and the multiplicity of interacting and often competing dynamics. It traces the foundations of the international cooperation on migration-related matters, focusing on todays’ mechanisms of multilateral collaboration put in place to ensure safe and legal access to protection for migrants and asylum seekers.
To this end, the course explores different legal and institutional frameworks, involving different international organisations: the United Nations, the Council of Europe and, most notably, the European Union. Following an overview of the most relevant legal tools governing migration management and migrants’ fundamental rights at the various levels, the course focuses on the multiplicity of actors and players involved on the international scene in the setting up of legal and protected pathways to asylum, such as resettlement and humanitarian visas. This includes UN bodies and agencies (e.g. UNHCR and IOM), as well as ad hoc figures activated within the Council of Europe and the EU. Finally, the course will discuss the relevant and recent migration-related case law of the two European courts: the EU Court of Justice and the European Court of human rights.

- Gil Loescher, Refugees. A very short introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2021.

- M.C. Foblets, L. Leboeuf (Eds), Humanitarian Admission to Europe, Nomos, Baden-Baden, 2020.

Additional study materials (e.g. documents, scientific articles, case-law, Power Point presentations, etc.) will be made available by the Professor during the course and will be accessible through the Moodle Platform.