Public keynote as part of the kick-off meeting

"Split Legality: Race, Class and International Migration Law"

by Prof. Dr. Thomas Spijkerboer (Migration Law Research Group of Ghent University, Belgium)


07.10.2025, 16:00-17:30 (CEST)
online via Zoom (please register below)

Abstract: "International law doctrine on migration has always been characterised by a split/bifurcated/dual legality - rather than the usual narrative of progressive restrictiveness. On the one hand, Europeans and their descendants in settler colonies have a right to free movement, while working class non-Europeans do not. The analysis I propose combines legal discourse analysis and political economy analysis.  Early modern doctrine construes a natural law right to migrate, while simultaneously the forced migration of enslaved Africans and Asians was found unproblematic (e.g. Grotius). After industrialisation, free movement within Europe was upheld through a dense network of bilateral free trade treaties; migration restrictions were applied to racialised foreign workers (Asians in the US and Australia, in Europe Jews, North-Africans, initially also Italians). Since WWII, a system has been worked out which ‘does race’ without ‘saying race’, while class is an explicit category. In Europe, the Schengen visa system has this effect (nationality as a proxy for race). In addition, visa-lite systems such as ETIAS and ESTA, the impending Entry-Exit System (EES) and the Passenger Name Record system (PNR) have the effect of subjecting racialised ‘visa free’ nationals as well as racialised citizens to intensified controls and thus are thus perfecting the racialisation of the international law of migration. Hence, the key characteristic of international migration law is not increasing restriction, but bifurcation allowing for a right to mobility for the few and restrictions for the many."

Thomas Spijkerboer is research professor of migration law at the Migration Law Research Group of Ghent University. Earlier, he was an asylum lawyer (1986-1993), and worked at the Catholic (now Radboud) University Nijmegen (1993-2000) as well as the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2000-2024). He has been visiting professor/researcher at Lund University (Sweden) and IREDIES (Sorbonne, Paris). He is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences.



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