Coverage of Refugee and Immigration Issues

Germany – and Europe more broadly – are grappling with the refugee crisis, which poses political, social and legal challenges. The German Law Journal has published commentary and scholarship that helps illuminate the issues. In a contribution to the 2014 Special Section “Europe and the Lost Generation,” Daniela Caruso wrote movingly about the role European Union law has played in producing a generation of refugees and immigrants who have been “Lost at Sea” Caruso examined the way the law has both tolerated – and facilitated – circumstances in which many “have literally drowned in the waters of southern Europe in their quest for a better future.” Anticipating the present crisis, Caruso was concerned with “the relation between the increasing permeability of internal borders and the obstacles that third country nationals encounter at the EU’s external frontiers.”  In 2010, GLJ editorial board member Jürgen Bast, published the article “Of General Principles and Trojan Horses–Procedural Due Process in Immigration Proceedings under EU Law.” Bast, who has emerged as one of Germany’s leading scholars on refugee and asylum law, used immigration procedures to consider the “broader question of the role of the general principles of EU law in respect of administrative decision-making.” Bast was aware of the way European Unionadministrative law would come to significantly influence national law and policy. The current events vindicate his claims. In 2007 Hans-Christian Jasch (now the Director of the memorial installation at the Haus der Wansee-Konferenz), in an insightful article, examined “State-Dialogue with Muslim Communities” in Italy and Germany. The article usefully documents the demographics of Islam in Europe.  Jasch also paints a less-than-optimistic picture of the social forces and legal regimes that hinder integration in Italy and Germany.  Today’s refugee crisis makes Jasch’s commentary and concerns more relevant than ever.