The Pact on Migration and Asylum as a Stress Test for EU Fundamental Rights Architecture

Short description of what will be presented during the seminar:

This seminar examines how the Pact on Migration and Asylum reshapes human rights protection at the EU’s external border. The Pact is a new regulatory package that replaces fragmented rules with a unified system built around mandatory border procedures, coordinated responsibility sharing and tighter return pathways. The Pact is also relevant to coastal regions because it applies at the EU’s maritime border, where migration pressures intersect with how communities inhabit and govern coastal space. It is relevant because it alters how quickly migrants are screened, how long they can be held at the border, how responsibility for asylum claims is assigned and how states must cooperate in situations of high pressure. These changes in EU migration policy create new legal obligations and new exposure to rights risks for frontline states.

The seminar explains how accelerated screening, border procedures and expanded return architecture generate structural pressure on authorities that must process high volumes while still identifying vulnerabilities, ensuring procedural guarantees and preventing refoulement. It shows how frontline environments, limited infrastructure and volatile cross-border dynamics shape the actual level of rights protection. In addition, it clarifies what border administrations need to make Pact implementation lawful and workable and identifies recurring risks such as inadequate vulnerability assessment, excessive deprivation of liberty and gaps in access to legal assistance.

The topic is of strong interest to the academic community because it provides a live test case for understanding how legal design, administrative capacity and fundamental rights interact under real-world constraints.

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