The EU Migration System and Global Justice: An Assessment

The response of the European Union Migration System of Governance (EUMSG) to the so called migration crisis of 2015-6 has been characterised by practices of paralysis, bordering and externalization. Though not new to the functioning of the EUMSG such practices have been enhanced and stabilised, as a result of the peculiar governance of the system. Leader states, frontliners and periferic countries have all given their contribution not only to the substantive governance of the system, but also to a shift towards a westphalian understanding of justice which gives priority to state sovereignty over the protection of human and specific needs. Trapped between EU level, national and human rights concerns, the EU and state actors in the system have produced results which have been detrimental to the EU’s international credibility as a right-based global actor.