Danish desires to export asylum responsibility to camps outside Europe: AMIS Seminar Report

This report is the result of a collaborative effort based on the seminar convened at the Centre for Advanced Migration Studies ́ (AMIS), the University of Copenhagen on Friday February 26th, 2021, entitled Danish desires to export asylum responsibility to camps outside Europe: A research-based discussion.The starting-point for the seminar was the ambition to shine a research-based, multidisciplinary and critical discussion on the Danish government’s legislative proposal to externalize Danish asylum processing and refugee responsibilities away from Danish territory, and through this, to inspire and impact the ongoing legislative hearing process. The seminar gathered four researchers, Ahlam Chemlali, Zachary Whyte, Nikolas Feith Tan and Martin Lemberg-Pedersen, who through their individual research were well positioned to engage with the proposal based on their in-depth knowledge of Danish and international asylum and migration policy. Scientifically, their backgrounds span the disciplines of sociology and political economy, ethnography and anthropology, law and international relations. In the seminar and now in this AMIS report, the presentations engaged with the proposal through discussions of the evolution of externalization in Danish and international contexts, of the intertwined dynamics of externalization, control and smuggling, with European-North African relations, of Danish asylum and integration policies involving camps, and of the international legal regimes concerning transnational asylum and border control. Each of these presentations has subsequently been converted into stand-alone, but complementary, written interventions designed to inform the public and political debate following the proposal. I would like to express my gratitude to the speakers, the participating audience, the AMIS team, and Marie Sandberg, director of AMIS, for hosting the event.