European Asylum Law And International Law

Within recent years, the European Community has propagated a number of legal measures addressing the relationship between member states and persons in need of protection. Altogether, the Common European Asylum System covers qualification for protection, procedures for qualification, allocation and safe third country arrangements, and secondary rights. Battjes (constitutional and administrative law, Vrije U. Amsterdam, the Netherlands) describes and analyzes this system, focusing on its relationship with extant instruments of international law and approaching the topic from the point of view of the consequences for the individual in need of protection rather than the positions of the member states or the Community. His central question is the extent to which European asylum law is in conformity with international asylum law and he addresses this question in chapters dealing with qualification, procedures, allocation, and secondary rights individually. He follows these chapters with an analysis of the possibilities offered by Community law for the individual to effect claims under international law. Annotation c2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Hemme Battjes teaches Constitutional and Administrative Law at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and has published extensively on European migration law.