Refugee protection and burden-sharing in the European Union

Abstract

This article starts with discussing principles for a globally just system of refugee protection to which states contribute either by admitting refugees for resettlement or by supporting refugee integration in other states. Such a system requires relatively strong assurances of compliance by the states involved, which are absent in the international arena. In the European Union, however, the Member States form a predetermined set with prior commitments and supranational institutions that facilitate effective burden sharing. The article traces the failure of the EU’s relocation scheme to meet this expectation to misconceptions how to determine fair shares, to incomplete prior harmonization of normative standards, and to contradictions between the Dublin Regulation’s principle of assigning responsibility to first countries of entry, on the one hand, and the Schengen principle of open internal borders, on the other hand.