ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the evolution of refugee policy externalisation in the European Union. It identifies the drivers of this evolution, and discusses its implications for the international refugee regime. The political dynamic aims for efficacy, and demands an ever-wider geographical territorial outreach towards countries of transit and origin of migrants. The normative dynamic is driven by the concern for the legality and legitimacy of the policies, and spurs a kind of ‘cat and mouse’ game with the political dynamic. While the political dynamic incites actors to overstep human rights and refugee law constraints, the normative dynamic compels them to avoid open violations that would incur reputational costs. Retracing the evolution of externalisation policies by Europe from the 1980s until today, this chapter shows how instruments and mechanisms of externalisation have evolved in response to these two pressures. This evolution has two dimensions. The first is territorial-geographical, and the second dimension is the jurisdictional scope of the exercise of authority. Normative safeguards have been diffused to third countries which did not previously participate in the international refugee regime. Simultaneously, normative standards have been diluted below those which characterised post-Second World War liberal democratic normative order.
