The concept ‘voluntary return’ is a crucial but often poorly understood part of the procedure for the return of irregularly staying third-country nationals from EU member states, as set out in... Show moreThe concept ‘voluntary return’ is a crucial but often poorly understood part of the procedure for the return of irregularly staying third-country nationals from EU member states, as set out in Directive 2008/115 (the Returns Directive). Through this concept, member states allocate primary responsibility for the return process to individuals. This individual responsibility, however, is only vaguely defined in the Directive, creating the risk that it is used by member states in an almost entirely open-ended and limitless manner, with potentially far-reaching consequences for third-country nationals, including their fundamental rights. This dissertation seeks to clarify the limits of this individual responsibility arising out of the concept of voluntary return in the Directive. It does soby unpacking the two component parts of voluntary return: the obligation to return and the voluntary departure period. This analysis draws on a triangle model that brings into focus the three legal relationships thattogether determine the framework for voluntary return: the individual and the EU member state, the individual and the country of return, and the country of return and the EU member state. The analysis results in the identification of 25 guidelines setting out concrete limits on individual responsibility for voluntary return. Show less
There has never been a more pertinent time to discuss the accountability and the legal responsibility of Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, for fundamental rights violations. In a... Show moreThere has never been a more pertinent time to discuss the accountability and the legal responsibility of Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, for fundamental rights violations. In a period that hosts the first legal actions vis-à-vis the agency and a series of relevant non-judicial investigations, including by the European Parliament, this dissertation aims to address the main problem underlying these accountability efforts, namely the ‘problem of many hands’. As conceptualised by Dennis Thompson, this problem is where the multiplicity of the actors involved obscures the various responsibilities and creates gaps in accountability.To address it, this work contests the dominant ways of looking at the concepts of responsibility and accountability, and reimagines them for their optimal function.It adopts a holistic approach, taking into account not only judicial, but also other forms of accountability, studying not only EU liability law, but also other legal remedies before the CJEU, the ECtHR, and domestic courts, building bridges between international and EU law, and traveling from the empirical to the conceptual, to the normative, and from there to the applied.It creates the foundations for the accountability of the agency inside and outside courts, within the EU borders and beyond. Show less
Environmental degradation in combination with other factors, can lead to forced migration. This multi-causal and complex phenomenon is hard to capture under international law. The protection of... Show moreEnvironmental degradation in combination with other factors, can lead to forced migration. This multi-causal and complex phenomenon is hard to capture under international law. The protection of environmental refugees can be approached as a human rights, security and State responsibility issue. Each approach provides different legal protection regimes, which addresses different actors. The approaches also cover different periods in time and address different types of environmental refugees. In this thesis, current legal regimes are interpreted in the context of environmentally forced migration. Also new protection possibilities are identified through the combined application of international law regimes. Show less
This dissertation explores the relationship between autonomous weapon systems, the concept of human dignity, and international law. The thesis focuses on four branches of international law ... Show moreThis dissertation explores the relationship between autonomous weapon systems, the concept of human dignity, and international law. The thesis focuses on four branches of international law (international humanitarian law, human rights law, criminal law and the law of state reponsibility) and discusses whether autonomous weapon systems can be used in compliance with these bodies of law. The foundational notion of human dignity in international law provides a theoretical framework for the research and writing. The thesis argues that there are certain kinds of decision-making responsibilities that humans should not delegate to autonomous machines. More specifically, it argues that the transfer of decisions involving complex (and often contradictory) values to artificial intelligence software violates human dignity and, therefore, international law. Nevertheless, as the speed of autonomous weapon systems increases, the opportunities for human involvement and intervention in such decisions will inevitably decrease. Thus, to preserve the principle of human dignity (and ultimately international law), autonomous weapons should have a ‘co-active’ design that ensures teamwork and interdependence between humans and the computer software that directs these weapons. Show less
