EU Migration and Asylum Law

• Analysis of the institutional, legal and policy framework of the visas and external borders policies, of the immigration policy (admission for different purposes and status of immigrants, integration policy, fight against illegal migration and return) and of the asylum policy (rules of content and of procedures) as well as of the external dimension of those policies.

• For each issue, the main legal instruments (including the case law of the Courts of Luxembourg and Strasbourg) and policy documents (conclusions of the (European) Council, communications from the Commission,...) are put at the disposal of the students on the virtual university.

• The course is up-to-date and the more recent legal and policy developments are covered, including pending proposals for legislation.

• Understanding of the general content, main orientations, and trends of the European migration (including visas and external borders) and Asylum policies in the framework of the distribution of competences between the EU and its Member States, including the policy methods used by the EU (approximation of legislation, mutual recognition, open coordination, etc).

Connaissances et compétences pré-requises ou co-requises

• General capacity to make and follow a legal reasoning. Normally not a problem for students in law, but a reasonable challenge for other students who will have to do an effort to understand and write texts with a precise and logical line of argument based on legal and factual elements. Failure at exams is often linked to the incapacity of students to make a legal reasoning independently of the details of course.

• GENERAL (not in-depth) knowledge AND understanding of EU INSTITUTIONAL law (composition, role and interaction of EU institutions) and EU legal order, NOT of detailed EU policies other than migration and asylum. Basics of EU law will not be explained during the courses. If you did not follow a course on EU law , you have to learn this by yourself in the books of Schutze or Dony mentioned below.

• Oral courses based on power presentations made available with documents on the virtual university.
• Presence during the courses is indispensable to understand the issues and learn progressively the content. Simply read the notes taken by somebody else may lead to a failure at the exam. There is NO need to read the documents made available on the virtual university BEFORE the course.  
• ADVISE: check carefully your personal understanding of the subject AFTER each of the lectures on basis of your personal notes taken during the classes in liaison with the documents from the virtual university that you should consult. This personal work is indispensable for presenting successfully the exam! Needless to say that being present at all courses is recommended.

Références, bibliographie et lectures recommandées

The companion book for the course is the Research hanbook on EU migration and asylum law published by Tsourdi & De Bruycker by Elgar in 2022 that will be updated during the classes in liaison with the recent important changes linked to the instruments of Pact on Migration and Asylum adopted in 2024 : https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/research-handbook-on-eu-migration-and-asylum-law-9781786439628.html The structure of the course follows more or less the one of the book. Students can buy it at the price of 50 Euros. I strongly advise to buy this book and to read the relevant chapters after each class to check your understanding of the subject.
The Odysseus blog where I publish regularly a post from colleagues or myself: http://eumigrationlawblog.eu

European Journal of Migration and Law: the only periodical accessible on line especially devoted to EU migration and asylum law!

SCHUTZE, R, An Introduction to EU law, OUP, 4th edition: https://global.oup.com/ukhe/product/an-introduction-to-european-law-9780197902578?cc=be&lang=en
Pay attention to buy this book of 400 pages and not the big one of more than 1000 Pages. The easiest is to buy it through Amazon.

DONY, M. Droit de l'Union européenne, Bruxelles, PUB, pay attention to take the most recent edition of 2026. This book in French has the merit of being complete, short and up-to-date.

CORTEN, O. Bruxelles, PUB, 2024: an excellent short and simple book in French on legal methodology.

Support(s) de cours

• Université virtuelle

Informations complémentaires

The purpose of the course is to be legally oriented and to learn about legal technical issues that will be at the core of the courses. Be aware of this and do not expect anything else!

All students will be evaluated at the exam in the same way, including students without a legal background as the purpose of this course is precisely to learn about legal reasoning. Think of this before choosing this course to avoid surprises and do not complain afterwards regarding this point!

 

Contacts

• Philippe De Bruycker is normally available during 30 minutes after each of his courses without appointment.

• All information are available on the virtual university that students should consult regularly, in particular just before each course. Philippe DE BRUYCKER will post news and sometimes send an email to all students through the virtual university (for instance if a course has exceptionnaly to be cancelled). Students not registered on the virtual university should take care of this.

Campus

Solbosch

Méthode(s) d'évaluation

• Examen écrit

Examen écrit

• Examen à livre ouvert

• Question ouverte à réponse courte

The exam is open-book, you can bring with you ALL documents that you want and they can be annotated or underlined. Of course you should therefore not expect questions of pure knowledge and answering by simply repeating or copying the content of the power points presentations will lead to failure at the exam.

One question will be about a general issue and another one a simple practical case to solve. A coherent reasoning on technical legal points is the main point of evaluation with precise and clear answers straight to the point as the space for answering will be limited to 20 or 40 lines.

Students are asked to bring if possible with them their own laptop and to type their answers in a word file. Questions will simply be send and received per email. Make sure that you have access to the ULB website and use only your @ulb.be address and not another one.

Construction de la note (en ce compris, la pondération des notes partielles)

The exam will be made of 2 questions that can each be divided into 4 subquestions and marked respectively on 10 or 5 points out of 20.

Langue(s) d'évaluation

• anglais
• (éventuellement français )