About the Seminar
In 2021, targeted actions by Belarusian authorities led to an increase in irregular border crossings into Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, widely described as the “instrumentalization of migration.” This framing has since entered EU legal discourse, most notably in the 2024 EU Crisis Regulation.
The affected states responded with exceptional measures, including pushbacks and restricted access to asylum, arguing these were necessary to counter a geopolitical threat. The EU largely supported these measures, though the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice clarified that Lithuania could not derogate from core asylum obligations. Although the overall number of crossings was not exceptionally high, many continued traveling within the EU, prompting reintroduced internal border controls and Germany’s refusal of entry to asylum seekers from Poland. Thus, the instrumentalization of migration influenced practices both at EU external and internal borders.
Several individuals filed complaints before the ECtHR, raising that Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland have violated their human rights. In the ongoing proceedings the respondent states—supported by numerous intervening governments—have argued that instrumentalization constitutes an “entirely new situation” requiring a fresh reading of the ECHR.
The Grand Chamber’s decision to take the cases signals that they raise questions of exceptional importance and opens the possibility for doctrinal change, even though similar uses of migration as leverage have occurred in the past. This framing has also shaped the procedural and discursive context: the ECtHR scheduled all three cases for the same day and allowed Finland to intervene orally in each, reinforcing the perception of a shared geopolitical challenge. Judges’ questions largely presupposed instrumentalization as the relevant frame, focusing on its consequences rather than disputing its validity.
Grażyna Baranowska
Grażyna Baranowska is a Professor of Migration Law and Human Rights at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg and Vice-Chair of the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances. Prior to her current positions, she was a senior researcher at Hertie School's Centre for Fundamental Rights, leading a project on missing migrants funded by the EU’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, and worked as an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. In the past she also worked for the Volkswagen Stiftung funded MEMOCRACY project (2021-2024), which scrutinizes the intersection of memory laws and democracy in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the EU-funded project on Memory Laws in European and Comparative Perspective (2016-2019). Next to her academic work, she worked as policy advisor at the German Institute for Human Rights and was involved in the process of drafting the General Comment on enforced disappearances and migration for the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances.
Programme
- 13:00-13:20: Presentation by Grażyna Baranowska
- 13:20-13:30: Comments from the discussant
- 13:30-14:15: Open group discussion and Q&A
Practical Information
This seminar will be held in English. We kindly ask that participants register in advance. The event is held on the 7th floor of Domus Juridica. If you do not have an access card, please reach out to dila.yesil@nchr.uio.no when outside.