Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen

University of Copenhagen · Centre of Excellence for International Courts (iCourts)

Refugee law has historically formed an important part of refugee studies. Yet, in the past decades, the legal study of refugees has increasingly developed out of sync with refugee studies more generally. The purpose of this special issue is to help bridge the gap between refugee law and refugee studies and foster a broader transdisciplinary researc...

The Danish Immigration Service estimates that approximately 20% of decisions in asylum cases are informed by data extracted from asylum seekers’ mobile phones, enabling more comprehensive constructions of data than passport or similar identification documents provide. Such data (e.g., from social media) feed into case?worker systems and inform deci...

Decisions made by millions of refugees about where to go, how to make a living and how to secure a future are fundamental drivers of secondary movements. While a substantial body of literature addresses factors contributing to migrants’ decision-making, a comprehensive understanding of the central role of refugees in secondary mobility decision-mak...

The Danish Immigration Service estimates that approximately 20% of decisions in asylum cases are informed by data extracted from asylum seekers’ mobile phones, enabling more comprehensive constructions of data than passport or similar identification documents provide. Such data (e.g., from social media) feed into caseworker systems and inform decis...

Refugee law has historically formed an important part of refugee studies. Yet, in the past decades, the legal study of refugees has increasingly developed out of sync with refugee studies more generally. The purpose of this special issue is to help bridge the gap between refugee law and refugee studies and foster a broader transdisciplinary researc...

Decisions made by millions of refugees about where to go, how to make a living and how to secure a future are fundamental drivers of secondary movements. While a substantial body of literature addresses factors contributing to migrants' decision-making, a comprehensive understanding of the central role of refugees in secondary mobility decision-mak...

Explainable AI (XAI) is pivotal for understanding complex ’black-box’ models, particularly in text analysis, where transparency is essential yet challenging. This paper introduces SIDU-TXT, an adaptation of the ’Similarity Difference and Uniqueness’ (SIDU) method, originally applied in image classification, to textual data. SIDU-TXT generates word-...

Digital evidence is rapidly emerging as a tool for migration authorities in refugee status determination (RSD)—the procedure for determining whether a person meets the criteria for protection as a “refugee.” Its growing popularity may be seen as a response to the relative dearth of “hard” evidence in asylum procedures, where decisions often hinge e...

Decisions made by legal adjudicators and administrative decision-makers often found upon a reservoir of stored experiences, from which is drawn a tacit body of expert knowledge. Such expertise may be implicit and opaque, even to the decision-makers themselves, and generates obstacles when implementing AI for automated decision-making tasks within t...

Decisions made by legal adjudicators and administrative decision-makers often found upon a reservoir of stored experiences, from which is drawn a tacit body of expert knowledge. Such expertise may be implicit and opaque, even to the decision-makers themselves, and generates obstacles when implementing AI for automated decision-making tasks within t...

Asylum is a legal protection granted by a state to individuals who demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution or who face real risk of being subjected to torture in their country. However, asylum adjudication often depends on the decision maker’s subjective assessment of the applicant’s credibility. To investigate potential sources of bias in a...

Asylum is a legal protection granted by a state to individuals who demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution or who face real risk of being subjected to torture in their country. However, asylum adjudication often depends on the decision maker's subjective assessment of the applicant's credibility. To investigate potential sources of bias in a...

International migration law (IML) is famously fragmented, which provides fertile ground for comparative inquiry. However, this task is inhibited the heterodox nature of IML as it draws on a composite body of law that is expressed in different concepts, interpretations and languages. This paper presents network analysis as one useful methodology for...

Individuals who demonstrate well-founded fears of persecution or face real risk of being subjected to torture, are eligible for asylum under Danish law. Decision outcomes, however, are often influenced by the subjective perceptions of the asylum applicant’s credibility. Literature reports on correlations between asylum outcomes and various extra-le...

As refugee law practice enters the world of data, it is time to take stock as to what refugee law research can gain from technological developments. This article provides an outline for a computationally driven research agenda to tackle refugee status determination variations as a recalcitrant puzzle of refugee law. It firstly outlines how the grow...

As refugee law practice enters the world of data, it is time to take stock as to what refugee law research can gain from technological developments. This article provides an outline for a computationally driven research agenda to tackle refugee status determination variations as a recalcitrant puzzle of refugee law. It first outlines how the growin...

The scale and speed of forced displacement following the Russian invasion on 24 February 2022 has been staggering. At the time of writing, an estimated 7 million have been internally and displaced and more than 5 million have fled Ukraine for another country –making it the largest refugee crisis in European history since the Second World War.1 The...

Special Issue: “Critical Explorations of Crisis: Politics, Precariousness, and Potentialities”. Special Issue Editors: Rydstrom, Helle, Mo Hamza, Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, and Vanja Berggren. Global Discourse: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Current Affairs, Volume 12, Issue 3-4, 2022. Table of Contents: -Gammeltoft-Hansen, Thomas, Helle Rydstro...

This article examines the regulation and rights of refugees and other foreigners in independent, overseas and other not fully sovereign territories. It analyses two Nordic cases, Greenland and Svalbard. Greenland is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, and Svalbard an unincorporated area subject to Norwegian sovereignty through th...

Individuals who demonstrate well-founded fears of persecution or face real risk of being subjected to torture, are eligible for asylum under Danish law. Decision outcomes, however, are often influenced by the subjective perceptions of the asylum applicant’s credibility. Literature reports on correlations between asylum outcomes and various extra-le...

Scandinavian countries are routinely considered exceptional for their commitment to development cooperation, peace mediation, and humanitarian action. This book highlights how the political culture of Scandinavia is indeed characterized by the idea of doing good on the world stage, but then shows how this 'Scandinavian humanitarian brand' is an ass...

Cet article examine les processus politiques et juridiques par lesquels les droits de l'homme et le droit de la migration ont été confondus – nous l’appellerons plus généralement ici « l'enchevêtrement des régimes ». L'enchevêtrement des régimes implique que les différents domaines du droit non seulement interagissent, mais soient plus étroitement...

Current challenges to the traditionally privileged position of law in both refugee policy and refugee studies invite scholars to consider carefully the approach we take to our craft. This article argues that refugee law scholarship is surrounded by thin walls, as researchers broker the ‘dual imperative’ to simultaneously advance knowledge and prote...

This Article develops what we call a “topographical approach” to accountability in migration control. Drawing on different strands of scholarship, including legal geography, “legal black holes,” and work on strategic litigation, we approach accountability by perceiving the site of a violation from a bird's-eye view and mapping different accountabil...

In the world we live in today, the presence and claims of crisis abound – from climate change, financial and political crisis to depression, livelihoods and personal security crisis. There is a challenge to studying crisis due to the ways in which crisis as a notion, condition and experience refers to and operates at various societal levels. Furthe...

This article sets out by reviewing the interplay between policy and law when it comes to measures aimed at deterring migrants and refugees. The current trend towards international cooperation represents a significant turning point, it is argued, creating important challenges for existing strategies of refugee and human rights lawyers. On this basis...

With more than 158,000 treaties and some 125 judicial organisations, international law has become an inescapable factor in world politics since the Second World War. In recent years, however, international law has also been increasingly challenged as states are voicing concerns that it is producing unintended effects and accuse international courts...

Asylum seekers and refugees continue to face serious obstacles in their efforts to access asylum. Some of these obstacles are inherent to irregular migration, including dangerous border crossings and the risk of exploitation. Yet, refugees also face state-made obstacles in the form of sophisticated migration control measures. As a result, refugees...

Asylum seekers and refugees continue to face serious obstacles in their efforts to access asylum. Some of these obstacles are inherent to irregular migration, including dangerous border crossings and the risk of exploitation. Yet, refugees also face state-made obstacles in the form of sophisticated migration control measures. As a result, refugees...

This is the third book in the series Shared Responsibility in International Law, which examines the problem of distribution of responsibilities among multiple states and other actors. In its work on the responsibility of states and international organisations, the International Law Commission recognised that attribution of acts to one actor does no...

From an airstrip in Saudi Arabia, the CIA launches drones to 'legally' kill Al-Qaida leaders in Yemen. On the North Pole, Russia plants a flag on the seabed to extend legal claim over resources. In Brussels, the European Commission unveils its Emissions Trading System, extending environmental jurisdiction globally over foreign airlines. And at Fran...

From an airstrip in Saudi Arabia, the CIA launches drones to 'legally' kill Al-Qaida leaders in Yemen. On the North Pole, Russia plants a flag on the seabed to extend legal claim over resources. In Brussels, the European Commission unveils its Emissions Trading System, extending environmental jurisdiction globally over foreign airlines. And at Fran...

From an airstrip in Saudi Arabia, the CIA launches drones to 'legally' kill Al-Qaida leaders in Yemen. On the North Pole, Russia plants a flag on the seabed to extend legal claim over resources. In Brussels, the European Commission unveils its Emissions Trading System, extending environmental jurisdiction globally over foreign airlines. And at Fran...

Developed states have what might charitably be called a schizophrenic attitude towards international refugee law. Determined to remain formally engaged with refugee law and yet unwavering in their commitment to avoid assuming their fair share of practical responsibilities under that regime, wealthier countries have embraced the politics of non-entr...

International refugee law is seen by many as constitutive for national refugee policy. Yet, as asylum has become politicized, many countries have adopted procedural and physical deterrence mechanisms to prevent refugees from accessing protection. The present article examines these policies, as well as the legal responses to them, as a critical case...

Is there still a right to seek asylum in a globalised world? Migration control has increasingly moved to the high seas or the territory of transit and origin countries, and is now commonly outsourced to private actors. Under threat of financial penalties airlines today reject any passenger not in possession of a valid visa, and private contractors...

Seeking asylum is a right that necessarily entails a relationship between a host state and an individual arriving from another country. In the majority of cases, this relationship is played out in the territory of the host state, after the refugee arrives and utters the magical word "asylum." Yet, over the past decades the locus for this encounter...

How are we to understand the perplexing and sometimes even counter-intuitive position of Denmark in relation to Justice and Home Affairs (JHA)? In this article, we attempt to go behind the many myths and misunderstandings involved and analyse the consequences of the Danish opt-out from EU cooperation in Justice and Home Affairs. Symbolically, the o...

This article compares the "right to seek and enjoy asylum" enshrined in Art. 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with the current EU policy developments to "externalize" or "extraterritorialise" migration control and refugee protection. Examining the genesis of Art. 14 during the negotiations of the Universal Declaration, it is argued t...

Closing our pursuit of sovereignty games we hope to have sketched a number of both theoretical and practical examples for others to add additional illustrations and perspectives. Throughout the volume, we have argued for the emergence of new and the return of old games in which sovereignty, or claims to sovereignty, have been instrumentalized by st...

Scene: Tarifa beach in Spain on 2 September 2000; in the forefront a young couple with a picnic basket sunbathing, in the background the body of a dead migrant washed ashore after an unsuccessful attempt to cross the treacherous Strait of Gibraltar from North Africa.

In both the political and the legal spheres, what emerges is an expansion of the playing field relating to sovereignty. Whether it be State executives looking to avoid domestic scrutiny and legal responsibility by outsourcing core functions, or diplomats entering into a tricky game to simultaneously allow international cooperation and communicate a...

Europas grænsekontrol er i en brydningstid:EU’s engagement i opbygning af stærkere fælles kontrol ved de ydre grænser er slående, men medlemsstaterne er fortsat ansvarlige for at varetage kontrollen.

"June 2005." Thesis (Masters)--University of Copenhagen, 2005. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-119).