Migration Law and Governance

The MCEL master thesis project ‘Migration Law and Governance’ brings together highly motivated students and expert staff members of the Maastricht Centre for European Law (MCEL), as well as other relevant staff of the Law Faculty and external speakers. 

Migration is a politically salient issue. Not only is migration present in media headlines and political discussions, in recent years there have been significant developments in its legislation and governance. Most prominently, last May the EU co-legislators agreed on a complete overhaul of the Union’s acquis on migration, asylum, and integrated border management (a set of measures that have become known together as the New Pact on Migration and Asylum). At the same time, the EU is increasingly streamlining migration management in its broader external relations and diplomacy. These developments raise interesting and pressing legal questions. By focussing on ‘Migration Law and Governance’ this year’s MCEL master thesis project provides you with the opportunity to engage with these important legal and societal developments.

Within the project you can write a thesis on a wide variety of issues. For example, topics could cover, but are not limited to:

• Interplay between key EU constitutional principles and asylum, migration, and integrated border management policies;  
• Interplay between EU asylum and migration law and policy with international refugee and human rights law;
• Policy implementation and administrative governance in asylum, migration, and integrated border management policies;
• Interplay between EU and national regulation of migration, asylum, and integrated border management;  
• Labour migration regulation;
• Temporary protection regimes;
• Solidarity and fair-sharing;
• Digital borders (e.g., databases, use of AI tools);
• Environmentally induced displacement;
• Human trafficking and migrant smuggling;
• EU agencies’ role in the management of migration;
• Accountability in migration.