Inaugural lecture on 'The Right to Seek Asylum'

As the current holder of the Ganshof van der Meersch Chair at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Guy S. Goodwin-Gill, Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, gave the inaugural lecture on Wednesday on the highly topical subject of 'The Right to Seek Asylum: Interceptions at Sea and the Principle of Non-Refoulement'.

The right to seek asylum is continuously challenged by the fight against irregular migration. In particular, the European Union and its Member States take measures to intercept boats on the sea in order to prevent irregular migration: patrols at sea, treaties with countries of origin or transit to readmit the concerned persons, agreements regarding the place of disembarkation... The problem comes from the fact that asylum seekers are traveling together with undocumented migrants, what is called "mixed flows". Even if the applicability of the principle of non-refoulement is often reaffirmed, the way to implement it represents a real difficulty in such a context.

He will be giving a series of 6 further lectures in the weeks ahead.

The Wiener-Anspach foundation promotes links between the Universite Libre de Bruxelles and Oxford University.