Papers by Ashley Binetti Armstrong
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2019
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Social Science Research Network, Aug 6, 2020
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SSRN Electronic Journal
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Recent developments in Hungary’s asylum law and policy demonstrate an extraordinary subversion of... more Recent developments in Hungary’s asylum law and policy demonstrate an extraordinary subversion of the refugee rights regime and serve as a case study of how a State can pervert its national laws to shirk its international and regional treaty obligations. This Article has two major goals. First, it traces the devolution of Hungarian asylum law from the height of the 2015 refugee crisis to July 2018 through a critical lens. Second, it argues that Hungary is in violation of its nonrefoulement obligations, which prohibits States from returning refugees to countries where they will likely face harm. This Article focuses its nonrefoulement analysis on Hungary’s designation of Serbia as a safe third country. However, in showing that Serbia is not safe for refugees, this Article concludes that Hungary’s entire “Chutes and Ladders” asylum system violates its nonrefoulement obligations, as Hungary expels or pushes back almost all asylum seekers to Serbia. The international community must stud...
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Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, 2021
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued an Order on March 26, 2020, under Title 42, Section ... more The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued an Order on March 26, 2020, under Title 42, Section 265 of the Public Health Service Act, in the name of combatting the spread of coronavirus. The Order has been called the “Asylum Ban” because it effectively has sealed the southern border to protection-seekers, resulting in the pushback of nearly 400,000 asylees and unaccompanied children. This Article argues that the Trump administration has contravened the rule of law by using the coronavirus pandemic as a convenient pretext to end asylum in the U.S., and by violating the rights of protection-seekers. In doing so, this Article makes four unique contributions, it: 1) provides a detailed account of the coronavirus-related travel restrictions and how they have imposed a wholesale ban on asylum in the United States; 2) contextualizes this harm within the Administration’s project to curtail protections for vulnerable persons fleeing persecution and torture; 3) challenges the proffered health justifications for the Asylum Ban as pandemic pretext; and 4) establishes that such measures violate the U.S.’s non-refoulement obligation by preventing all meaningful access to asylum.
While the CDC order is a temporary measure, born of the coronavirus pandemic and the U.S. government’s response to it, the concerns raised in this Article extend beyond this current political moment to the long-term implications of leveraging national laws and pretextual health concerns to close the U.S. border to protection-seekers.
*Drafted Summer 2020, published in 35 Geo. Imm. L. J. 361 (2021)
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Columbia Human Rights Law Review, 50.2, 2019
Recent developments in Hungary's asylum law and policy demonstrate an extraordinary subversion of... more Recent developments in Hungary's asylum law and policy demonstrate an extraordinary subversion of the refugee rights regime and serve as a case study of how a State can pervert its national laws to shirk its international and regional treaty obligations. This Article has two major goals. First, it traces the devolution of Hungarian asylum law from the height of the 2015 refugee crisis to July 2018 through a critical lens. Second, it argues that Hungary is in violation of its nonrefoulement obligations, which prohibits States from returning refugees to countries where they will likely face harm. This Article focuses its nonrefoulement analysis on Hungary's designation of Serbia as a safe third country. However, in showing that Serbia is not safe for refugees, this Article concludes that Hungary's entire "Chutes and Ladders" asylum system violates its nonrefoulement obligations, as Hungary expels or pushes back almost all asylum seekers to Serbia. The international community must study how countries like Hungary evade the global norm of responsibility-sharing, and devise solutions to hold rogue States accountable-particularly if there is any hope for coordinated efforts to manage refugee crises and uphold the rights of asylum seekers enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention and human rights treaties.
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Chicago Journal of International Law, Vol. 20, No. 2, 2020
This Article examines the recent proliferation of walls and fences in Europe, fueled by the Dubli... more This Article examines the recent proliferation of walls and fences in Europe, fueled by the Dublin Regulation’s failure to distribute responsibility for asylum seekers equitably among European states. Legal scholarship does not lack literature bemoaning the failures of the E.U.’s Dublin Regulation — which dictates, generally, that the country where an asylum seeker first enters the E.U. is responsible for processing his or her claim for protection. Yet scholarship on border walls and fences, and what induces European states to construct them, is not prominent in the literature. The critiques lodged against the Dublin Regulation have primarily focused on its futility and unworkability. This Article argues that Dublin has failed asylum seekers in a more insidious way — by catalyzing the construction of Fortress Europe. The actions of European states during the contemporary refugee “crisis” illustrate this phenomenon particularly well.
Section II of this Article examines the contours of the international principle of responsibility-sharing; a principle that is supported throughout the history of refugee law as an ideal modality for managing refugee flows. Section III provides an overview of the Dublin Regulation and how it distorts the international responsibility-sharing principle and violates E.U. law requiring “solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility” among member states. Section IV traces the proliferation of border walls and fences in Europe around the height of the recent refugee crisis, arguing that the Dublin Regulation’s failure fueled European states to erect physical border barriers. It also explores the formidable combination of physical and legal barriers and how these mechanisms violate member states’ non-refoulement obligation. Section V analyzes proposals for improving Dublin, including efforts to better protect refugee rights and achieve a more equitable sharing of responsibility for protection seekers. This Article concludes by questioning how the E.U. can move forward and uphold the right of all persons fleeing persecution to seek and enjoy asylum in Europe.
Keywords: border wall, border fence, 1951 convention, 1951 refugee convention, asylum seeker, european union, eu law, nonrefoulement, border walls, dublin regulation, international responsibility-sharing, refugee law
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Papers by Ashley Binetti Armstrong
While the CDC order is a temporary measure, born of the coronavirus pandemic and the U.S. government’s response to it, the concerns raised in this Article extend beyond this current political moment to the long-term implications of leveraging national laws and pretextual health concerns to close the U.S. border to protection-seekers.
*Drafted Summer 2020, published in 35 Geo. Imm. L. J. 361 (2021)
Section II of this Article examines the contours of the international principle of responsibility-sharing; a principle that is supported throughout the history of refugee law as an ideal modality for managing refugee flows. Section III provides an overview of the Dublin Regulation and how it distorts the international responsibility-sharing principle and violates E.U. law requiring “solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility” among member states. Section IV traces the proliferation of border walls and fences in Europe around the height of the recent refugee crisis, arguing that the Dublin Regulation’s failure fueled European states to erect physical border barriers. It also explores the formidable combination of physical and legal barriers and how these mechanisms violate member states’ non-refoulement obligation. Section V analyzes proposals for improving Dublin, including efforts to better protect refugee rights and achieve a more equitable sharing of responsibility for protection seekers. This Article concludes by questioning how the E.U. can move forward and uphold the right of all persons fleeing persecution to seek and enjoy asylum in Europe.
Keywords: border wall, border fence, 1951 convention, 1951 refugee convention, asylum seeker, european union, eu law, nonrefoulement, border walls, dublin regulation, international responsibility-sharing, refugee law
While the CDC order is a temporary measure, born of the coronavirus pandemic and the U.S. government’s response to it, the concerns raised in this Article extend beyond this current political moment to the long-term implications of leveraging national laws and pretextual health concerns to close the U.S. border to protection-seekers.
*Drafted Summer 2020, published in 35 Geo. Imm. L. J. 361 (2021)
Section II of this Article examines the contours of the international principle of responsibility-sharing; a principle that is supported throughout the history of refugee law as an ideal modality for managing refugee flows. Section III provides an overview of the Dublin Regulation and how it distorts the international responsibility-sharing principle and violates E.U. law requiring “solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility” among member states. Section IV traces the proliferation of border walls and fences in Europe around the height of the recent refugee crisis, arguing that the Dublin Regulation’s failure fueled European states to erect physical border barriers. It also explores the formidable combination of physical and legal barriers and how these mechanisms violate member states’ non-refoulement obligation. Section V analyzes proposals for improving Dublin, including efforts to better protect refugee rights and achieve a more equitable sharing of responsibility for protection seekers. This Article concludes by questioning how the E.U. can move forward and uphold the right of all persons fleeing persecution to seek and enjoy asylum in Europe.
Keywords: border wall, border fence, 1951 convention, 1951 refugee convention, asylum seeker, european union, eu law, nonrefoulement, border walls, dublin regulation, international responsibility-sharing, refugee law