Materials collected in this folder concern the critical issues posed by migratory movements in terms of impact on personal and family status acquired by migrants in their home countries, frequently based on religious law, inspired to principles which raise issues of compatibility with the fundamental principles inspiring family law in European countries. The said problem has long since been identified by the French doctrine of private international law, which due to historical reasons has been called first to address this issue, as a phenomenon of "conflits de civilisations", or, in more neutral terms, "conflits de cultures".

• Corte di cassazione, sez. I civ., sentenza 7 agosto 2020, n. 16804, concerning the recognition of decisions of repudiation

  In this judgment, the Italian Court of Cassation declares that a decision of repudiation based on Islamic law, having been taken without the wife's having had the opportunity to present her views, is incompatible with Italian public policy, both in procedual terms, due to its irreconcilability with the duty to grant the adversarial nature of any court proceedings pursuant to Article 111 Italian Consitution, as well as Article 6 ECHR, and in substantive law terms, in consideration of the inherent breach of the principle of equality between men and women. (link to a note available on aldricus.giustizia.it)

This folder collects materials concerning the impact of the current COVID-19 pandemic on migration. In fact, the restrictions adopted in many countries around the world, including most of the EU Member States, in order to contain the spreading of the virus and ensure the ability of the national health services to cope with the difficult handling of the health emergency, are inevitably deemed to have an impact on the availability of those countries to receive migrants, including prospective applicants for international protection, both for fear of the presence among migrants of persons affected by the virus, whose arrival might further contribute to its spreading, and for reasons related to the difficulty of effectively handling new arrivals at a time when their health and police authorities are overburdened with the handling of the health emergency and relocations to other Member States, or even across different regions of the same country might find an obstacle in the restrictions to the movement of persons adopted for sanitary reasons. In this respect, an Inter-Ministerial Decree adopted in Italy on 7 April 2020 may be considered as an example of this state of affairs, raising the question of striking a proper balance between the imperative of the protection of public health and the respect for the international obligations of the country, with particular regard to the respect for the fundamental rights of migrants and for the principles embodied in the 1951 Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees.

• C. Hruschka, The Pandemic kills also the European solidarity

  Link to an article by a senior researcher of the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, Munich, published on eumigrationlawblog.eu (EU Immigration and Asylum Law and Policy blog) on 20 March 2020.

In this folder, we shall collect materials concerning the conclusion by the European Union of readmission agreements with third countries. As a preliminary remark, it shall be noted that in a first phase the European Community, as it then was, did not possess an autonomous competence to conclude such agreements with the third countries concerned. The solution prevailing at that stage consisted accordingly in a mere coordination of the external action of the Member States in that direction, notably by setting out a standard readmission agreement to be used by Member States when negotiating their own readmission agreements with third countries (see Council Recommendation of 30 November 1994, concerning a specimen bilateral agreement on readmission between a Member State and a third country, in OJ, C 274 of 19 September 1996, p. 20). From the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam (1st May 1999), following the so-called communitarization, among other policy areas, of the immigration and asylum policies, a competence of the then European Community to conclude readmission agreements was considered as based on the implied powers doctrine, and, accordingly, on a principle of parallelism between internal and external competences of the Community. It has then been for the Treaty of Lisbon to introduce an express legal basis. under Article 79, para. 3, TFEU, for the competence of the EU to conclude readmission agreements with third countries.

This folder collects materials on the external action of the European Union in the field of migration. In fact, the development of close relationships with the third countries of origin and transit of migratory fluxes is an essential asset in the development of an effective migration policy. Cooperation with third countries might take first the form of a political dialogue, which might involve the organization of conferences and summits involving the leaders or competent ministers from Member States, third countries and international organizations concerned, in order to discuss the causes of migratory fluxes and develop joint strategies to face the challenges they pose. Political dialogue might be carried on both on a regional level, based on a political declaration endorsed by the countries belonging to the regional area concerned, and on a bilateral level, heading to planning more specific joint initiatives. Bilateral dialogue might evolve into a Mobility Partnership (MP), representing the most sophisticated and long term form of dialogue and cooperation with a third country, aiming at containing on the one side irregular migratory fluxes and at promoting fair dealing with regular migration from the third country concerned, or into a Common Agenda on Migration and Mobility (CAMM), embodying a less evoluted form of cooperation. The said forms of political cooperation with third countries might prepare the ground for the conclusion of true international agreements, which might take the form either of partnership agreements, like the Partnership Agreement 2000/483/EC between the members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States of the one part, and the European Community and its Member States, of the other part, signed in Cotonou on 23 June 2000, or of other types of agreements, such as readmission agreements, agreements concerning the issuing of visas, or agreements concerning the status of migrants. Beneath the level of international agreements properly so called, operational understandings are frequently entered into between the competent bodies of the EU, such as the Frontex agency or the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) and the relevant authorities of the third countries concerned, providing for detailed arrangements as for the modes of implementation of the cooperation. These understandings, nonetheless, do not amount to binding agreements, and are accordingly deemed to apply until supported by the mutual consent of the parties.

This folder collects materials concerning the treatment of applicants for international protection, that is, either for the status of refugee or for subsidiary protection, in the EU Member States. Reference shall be made in this respect to Directive 2013/33/EU laying down standards for the reception of applicants for international protection (s.c. 'Reception Directive'). The guarantees contemplated under the Reception Directive shall be afforded to applicants not only by the Member State found as competent to examine their application for international protection under the rules set out under the Dublin III Regulation (above, in the previous folder), but equally at the preliminary stage of determining the Member State so competent. The cases collected in this folder will highlight some of the most significant criticalities revealed by the practice in this respect.

This folder will collect materials concerning the determination of the Member State possessing competence to examine an application for international protection, under the system first established by the Dublin Convention of 1990, concluded by the Member States of the then European Communities at a time when the latter did not possess legislative competence in respect of immigration and asylum matters, and further developed, after the s.c. 'communitarization' of this policy area, by Regulation (EU) 343/2003, s.c. Dublin II, and, later, by the current Regulation (EU) 604/2013, s.c. Dublin III. Reference will also be made to some heavily debated proposals for reform of the system embodied in the latter regulation, following the difficulties revealed by the practice of its implementation.

In this folder, materials concerning temporary protection under Directive 2001/55/EC, as well as other forms of humanitarian protection as provided for under Member States' laws are collected.

• Beyond closed ports: the new Italian Decree-Law on Immigration and Security

  Online article by Silvia Carta, published on eumigrationlawblog.eu, providing a concise analysis of the amendments to complementary humanitarian protection contemplated under Italian law, as introduced by Decree-law No. 113/2018 (s.c. Decreto sicurezza, also known as Decreto Salvini from the name of the then Italian MInister of home affairs having promoted its adoption). Please note that further amendments were later introduced by a Decree-law of 21 October 2020, No 130, loosening to some extent the rigidity of the requirements posed by the earlier decree in respect of the granting of permits of stay for special grounds.

In this folder, cases concerning the requirements for granting subsidiary protection, as contemplated by Article 2, lit. f), and Article 15, Directive 2011/95/EU (s.c. Qualification Directive) are collected.

This folder collects materials concerning the implementation of the EU asylum policy, based on Article 78 TFEU and bound to guarantee respect for the principles embodied in the Geneva Convention of 1951 on the status of refugees (above in the folder at the beginning pf the column of materials), with particular regard to the principle of non-refoulement under Article 33 of the Convention. Article 18 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union shall take effect as contemplated by the legal acts adopted by the EU institutions under the EU asylum policy: "The right to asylum shall be guaranteed with due respect for the rules of the Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951 and the Protocol of 31 January 1967 relating to the status of refugees and in accordance with the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (hereinafter referred to as 'the Treaties')."

This folder collects materials, including relevant international conventions and protocols, concerning the EU action for countering trafficking in human beings. Trafficking in human beings amounts to an international crime, since, differently from mere smuggling of migrants (in respect of which see above, the folder titled "The EU action concerning irregular migration - II") it implies the coercion and exploitation of people made subject to it, including women and children, for the purposes of providing irregular workforce, where not for involvement in drugs trafficking, sexual exploitation, and other unlawful activities.

In particular: the fight against migrants' smuggling, that is, the facilitation of unauthorised entry, transit and residence of migrants in the EU, and the need to ensure respect for the international obligations of Member States, especially as concerns search and rescue of migrants at sea.

• The Sea-Watch-3 case

  This case, heatedly discussed in the past months concerning the role of NGOs operating rescue vessels in the Mediterranean, gave rise to criminal proceedings being opened in Italy against the captain of a rescue vessel operated by a German NGO, who, after having rescued a group of migrants in distress in international waters off the coast of Lybia, and after having waited for many days out of the Italian port of Lampedusa, forced the entrance to the port in order to disembark the migrants notwithstanding the refusal by the Italian government to allow the disembarkment, based on the fact that the migrants concerned had been rescued in an area falling within the Lybian search-and-rescue (SAR) area. The captain of the vessel, who had been arrested as a consequence of her conduct, was eventually released, having the Tribunale di Agrigento (the competent Italian court) found, in an order of 2 July 2019, that she had acted under the fulfilment of a duty (see the enclosed link to a BBC News post, 6 July 2019), with particular regard to the duty to provide assistance at sea under Article 98 UNCLOS and to the duty to provide persons rescued at sea with a place of safety (POS) where they could be disembarked without running serious risks for their persons, as under the SAR Convention. Subsequently, the order having released the captain of the vessel was appealed by the Procuratore della Repubblica (public prosecutor) before the Italian Court of cassation, which, in a judgment by the Third criminal chamber of 16 January 2020 (filed on 20 February 2020), No. 6626, rejected the appeal, confirming that the captain of the vessel had acted in the fulfilment of a duty.

• The Malta Declaration on search & rescue, disembarkation and relocation: Much Ado about Nothing

  Article by Eleonora Frasca and Francesco Luigi Gatta, published on eumigrationlawblog.eu on 3 March 2020, commenting on the Malta Declaration (above in this folder).

Materials in this folder relate to the return of irregularly staying third country nationals.

• Proposal for a Recast of the Directive on Common Standards and Procedures in Memeber States for Returning Illegally Staying Third-Country Nationals

  In his 2017 State of the Union Letter of Intent, the Commission president Juncker announced that by the end of 2018 the Commission would present targeted measures to promote a more effective approach to returns. Consequently, on 12 September 2018, the Commission presented a proposal to recast the Directive on common standards and procedures in Member States for returning illegally staying third-country nationals (the Return Directive).

Including cases concerning Directive 2003/86/EC on family reunification.

• Is Processing Biometric Data of Turkish Nationals in a National Database Lawful under the EEC-Turkey Agreement? Reflections on the Judgment in A, B and P (C-70/18)

  By Niovi Vavoula (Queen Mary University of London), commenting on the CJEU judgment of 3 October 2019 in the case of A, B and P (see below), from the blog "EU Immigration and Asylum Law and Policy - Droit et politique de l'immigration et de l'asile de l'UE" (www.eumigrationlawblog.eu).