Project: Children's rights in appellate asylum proceedings: a legal ethnography

2020-01-01 – 2023-12-31

Abstract

This project will for the first time empirically investigate how the key actors in appellate asylum proceedings engage with children’ rights When the Commissioner-general for Refugees and Stateless Persons in Belgium does not recognize asylum seekers as refugee and/or does not grant them subsidiary protection, the latter can file an appeal before the Council for Alien Law Litigation The role of children’ rights in such appellate asylum proceedings is contested On the basis of (participant) observation and interviews, it will be analysed how key actors perceive, mobilise and practice children’ rights These key actors are children and young people, their parents or guardians, lawyers, the first instance representatives, and the judges The results from this ethnographic research will be compared with the findings of an analysis of the case law of the Council The research will theoretically contribute to the field of critical children’ rights studies Where relevant, recommendations will be formulated with respect to the asylum system and the children’ rights framework