The ANU Centre for European Studies is delighted to invite you to a seminar on ‘Instrumentalisation’ of migration and its impact on asylum protection in the European Union: norm contestation perspective, by Professor Dorota Heidrich from the University of Warsaw.

The summer of 2021 in the European Union (EU) marked a turning point in what quickly became known – first in journalistic commentary, then in political discourse – as the ‘instrumentalisation’ of migration. Indications that states might manipulate population movements for strategic ends were becoming more frequent. Cases included Turkey’s decision to push more than 13,000 migrants toward the Greek border, Morocco’s release of around 10,000 people into Ceuta, as well as Belarus and Russia pushing migrants through the Eastern borders of the EU. The presentation will examine how the EU and its member states have responded to the ‘instrumentalisation’ of migration by reframing core asylum norms within both the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) and national legislation. The reforms introduced at EU and domestic levels will be conceptualised through the norm contestation perspective. Drawing on this theoretical framework and introducing the concept of ‘strategic normative triaging’, the presentation will argue that legal adaptation introduced as a reaction to ‘instrumentalisation’ of migration has contributed to a gradual weakening of asylum protections across Europe and, most notably, to the incremental erosion of the non-refoulement principle.

Dorota Heidrich is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Warsaw (Department of Diplomacy and International Institutions). Earned her PhD in Political Science in 2004 from University of Warsaw. Awarded Habilitation in Political Science and Administration, subfield: International Relations in 2020. Former Deputy Director of the Institute of International Relations at the University of Warsaw and Faculty Dean’s Representative for the Development of Study Programmes in English. Guest Professor at Sichuan University of Chengdu, China and Ruhr Bochum University, Germany. Main research and teaching areas comprise normative and institutional aspects of international relations and the contemporary challenges of the international rules-based order, including protection of forced migrants (asylum-seekers and IDPs), international organisations (governmental and non–governmental), international criminal courts, the use of force in international relations and other aspects of post conflict and post human-rights abuses justice. 

In-person participation: ANU Research School of Social Sciences, 146 Ellery Crescent, Room 2.56

Online participation via MS Teams

Please RSVP at europe@anu.edu.au