From March 2017 until July 2017 the students of the Migration Law Clinic work on two projects.
Responsibility for the consequences of the EU-Turkey Deal
On 18 May 2016 the European Union and Turkey agreed to a so-called ‘migration deal’, which provided inter alia for the return of irregular migrants from Greece to Turkey in exchange for the resettlement of refugees from Turkey. The deal was closed when the European Council was headed by the Netherlands, which also played a leading role in the preparation of the deal. In this project students of the Migration Law Clinic examine whether the EU and/or the Netherlands can be held liable for damages suffered by migrants as a result of the migration deal.
The project is supervised by Thomas Spijkerboer, Orcun Ulusoy, Lamin Khadar and Frank van de Wakker.
A prohibition of refoulement under the right to liberty?
The project concerns the extradition from Switzerland to Spain of a woman who is convicted in Spain to a prison sentence for collaboration with the Basque ETA. The woman claims that this conviction is based on evidence acquired by torture. The question addressed in the research of the Migration Law Clinic is whether Article 5 of the European Convention of Human Rights and/or Article 15 of the Convention against Torture prohibits her extradition to Spain.
The project is supervised by Bahija Aarrass, Marcelle Reneman, Tom Hautvast and Laurien Montagne.
Finalised projects year 2016-2017
From October 2016 until February/March 2017 the students of the Migration Law Clinic worked on two projects concerning the right to reunification of refugees and persons with a subisidiary protection status with their family members.
Unaccompanied minors
Unaccompanied minors who receive an asylum status have the right to reunification with their parents. Some asylum applicants arrive in the Netherlands and apply for asylum when they are a minor, but turn eighteen during the asylum procedure. In such cases they are not granted the right to family reunification anymore. In this project the students will research which date should be decisive under EU law to determine the right to family reunification: the date of the asylum application, the date of entry of the asylum permit or the date on which the asylum status is granted.
This project was supervised by Martijn Stronks, Lieneke Slingenberg and Jaap Lameijer.
Evidentiary issues
Refugees and persons with a subsidiary protection status need to prove their family ties with their family members who are still living in their country of origin. the Dutch authorities only accept official documents for that purpose. The question addressed in this project is whether this evidentiary requirement is allowed under EU law.
This project was supervised by Pieter Boeles, Evelien Brouwer and Sophie Gilliam.
If you have suggestions for cases or topics for the Migration Law Clinic, you can contact the Clinic coordinator (migrationlawclinic@vu.nl). See also under ‘For Clients’.
