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This article presents a Finnish perspective on harmonization within the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). The article analyses results from a study of the judgments and experiences of Finnish civil servants concerning the harmonization of the CEAS. The year 2015 constitutes a shift in asylum policies in many European countries, and a key question is how this shift has influenced the process of harmonization of asylum policies and practices. Senior civil servants working in the state administration of asylum and migration issues in Finland were interviewed anonymously as part of a comparative European research project (CEASEVAL). The interviews indicate that EU‐wide administrative cooperation has developed into a broad and diverse cooperation in recent years. The interviewees in Finland generally found harmonization of the asylum system to be necessary, which was connected to a need for greater predictability of the outcomes of the system. The results of the study suggest that Finnish asylum administration is developing toward harmonized practices involving transnational and supranational administrative cooperation in the field of asylum. The results support the conclusion of previous research that there is a process of horizontal Europeanization in which administrative practices develop organically within national asylum administration, independently of political disagreements at the EU level. This is relevant both to the framing of political issues and to research on Finnish migration and asylum policies, which need to take into account the ongoing European harmonization of policies and administrative practices.

According to Paul Gilbert compassion can be defined as “a sensitivity to suffering in self and others with a commitment to try to alleviate and prevent it” (p.1, Gilbert et al., 2017). Empirical evidence comes from numerous studies which suggest that the cultivation of compassion is associated with various positive effects on physical and mental health, as well as with overall life satisfaction and strengthened social relationships (e.g., Gilbert et al., 2017; Kirby, 2017; MacBeth & Gumley, 2012; Neff, 2003). In this study, we will translate and validate a German-language version of the Compassionate Engagement and Actions Scales (CEAS). The scales have been widely used in a variety of contexts, generally showing good psychometric properties (e.g., Davalos-Batallas et al., 2020; Hsieh et al., 2019; Steindl et al., 2019). With the translation and validation of a German version, we hope to further advance the understanding of the mechanisms and effectiveness of compassion, e.g. in compassion-based interventions and psychotherapy research in the German population.

A 49-year-old man complained of chronic palpitation and shortness of breath, which had recently become exacerbated. A blood examination indicated severe refractory anemia and hypoproteinemia. Physical examinations revealed anemia, a systolic murmur, and spoon nails. Multiple nonspecific ileal ulcers were observed. A pathological examination indicated a small granuloma with CD68-positive histiocytes. He had a deeply wrinkled forehead, chiseled face, and clubbed fingers. Radiography revealed periostosis of the fingers and long bones in the limb. He was diagnosed with pachydermoperiostosis. SLCO2A1 demonstrated a c.1807C>T homo-mutation. He was also diagnosed with SLCO2A1-associated chronic enteropathy and thus was treated with 5-aminosalicylic acid, which temporarily improved the ileal ulcers, anemia, and hypoalbuminemia.

The author of the article attempts to analyze the consequences for Member States’ sovereignty arising from the European asylum system reform and harmonization proposed in September 2020 by the European Commission. The author believes that so-called solidarity mechanism, however designed with intention of burden sharing and help, de facto has the potential to become migrant relocation mechanism. That argument is already being raised by Member States that are opposing the European Commission’s proposal. According to them, the proposal violates rules guaranteeing Member States’ rights to determine volumes of admissions of the third country nationals, explicitly expressed in the Treaty on the European Union. The author also notices that decision-making power on the relocations is transferred to the Commission, leaving limited flexibility in gesture of Member States. Without being opposed to subsidiarity principle itself, the article questions whether the details of the Commission’s proposal are not actually against the principle and certain elements, like effective return, are not better achieved at the national level. In the research procedure, a method of critical analysis of the content of studies and the available sources was used.

In 2015 Europe’s refugee protection crisis triggered the effective collapse of the world’s most complex regional framework for asylum. A development both unexpected and unexplained by the hierarchical model of European asylum law that tends to dominate the scholarly field. The abandonment among member states of core obligations under international and EU law and the principles of solidarity and good faith is central to this crisis. This dynamic has been in the making since the accession process when EU membership was offered in exchange for transposing international obligations through the EU asylum acquis, collectivizing external border control and shifting refugee ‘responsibility’ to new member states with minimal standards for refugee protection and weak enforcement mechanisms. Yet, the critical feature of this asylum crisis is its development into a European constitutional crisis, impacting freedom of movement, sincere co-operation, democracy, and the rule of law. A hierarchical model of law offers only a partial explanation of this interplay between refugee protection and European governance. A turn to the methodological debates in international law urges the repositioning of the lens of refugee legal scholarship, offering insights into the evolution towards crisis by looking at law from below against the backdrop of law in history, subregional law-making, and shifting power constellations. This process suggests that refugee law scholarship could benefit from widening its methodological canon by visiting its parent field of public international law.

12 páginas The European Union has proved to be ineffective in covering the needs of millions of people who seek asylum, while trying to satisfy the security claims of the Member States. The EU institutions have decided to reform the Common European Asylum System to coordinate the procedures, requirements, and conditions for acceptance, aiming to harmonise the national legislative frameworks. One of the most notorious aspects is the extension of the integration measures and conditions to asylum seekers. Nonetheless, the new rules still fail to offer a solution for those asylum requests that are going to be denied after long waiting periods even if the applicants have benefited from the integration programs. In order to avoid such legal implications for the long-term asylum seekers, this article encourages the EU institutions to adopt an ultimate solution, even if a bit creative, that would be coherent with the goals of the CEAS reforms. Medellín

La presente investigación tiene por objeto realizar un análisis de la gestión de la crisis migratoria del Mediterráneo en el año 2015 por parte de la Unión Europea, momento en el que llegan al territorio comunitario más de un millón de personas solicitantes de asilo. Tras un primer recorrido histórico y legislativo para conocer el proceso de construcción del Sistema Europeo Común de Asilo, se abordará el enfoque hotspots presentado por la Unión Europea con el fin de hacer frente a la emergencia humanitaria. Desde un enfoque crítico se analizará cuál ha sido la afectación de las propuestas legislativas sobre los derechos de los migrantes, así como se intentará aportar una visión sobre las consecuencias sociales de esta crisis migratoria. This current thesis has the aim of analyzing the governance of the Mediterranean crisis in 2015 by the European Unión, the moment in which more than a million people arrived at the community territory seeking asylum. After a first historical and legislative review of the topic, in order to know well the construction and integration of the Common European Asylum System, the hotspots approach will be evaluated, it was presented by the European Unión with the purpose of tackle the humanitarian emergency. It will be analyzed, from a critical approach, how the different legislative proposals have affected the migrants’ rights, as well as this thesis will attempt to provide a view about the social consequences of this migratory crisis. Máster Oficial en Estudios Avanzados en Derechos Humanos Presidente: Carlos Fernández Liesa.- Secretaria: Silvina Ribotta

Background Primary hypertrophic osteoarthropathy (PHO) is a rare disease related to HPGD and SLCO2A1 gene mutation. Gastrointestinal involvement of PHO is even rarer with unknown pathogenesis. Clinical features of GI complication in PHO mimics other auto-immune based bowel entities, such as inflammatory bowel diseases and cryptogenic multifocal ulcerous stenosing enteritis (CMUSE). We aimed to analyze the clinical, genetic, radiological and pathological features of Chinese patients with PHO and determine the difference between PHO patients presenting with and without GI involvement. Methods We reported two PHO cases with gastrointestinal involvement and reviewed all the studies of PHO in Chinese population published from January 1, 2000, to April 30, 2018. Clinical and genetic presentations of PHO in Chinese patients were analyzed. We compared the characteristics of those patients with gastrointestinal involvement against those without. Results The two patients were both males with complete-form PHO for more than 10 years. GI related symptoms included diarrhea, chronic gastrointestinal hemorrhage, incomplete intestinal obstruction, anemia, and edema, which were unresponsive to etoricoxib treatment. Radiological examinations revealed segmental intestinal stenosis and thickened intestinal wall. Endoscopic findings included multiple ulcers and mucosal inflammation. Both patients had mutations of SLCO2A1 according to sequence analysis. The surgical pathology revealed chronic inflammation involving the intestinal mucosa and submucosa, similar to histological changes in CMUSE. According to the systemic review of 158 Chinese patients with PHO, 17.2% had gastrointestinal involvement, including peptic ulcer, gastric polyps, hypertrophic gastritis, and segmental intestinal stenosis. Patients with gastrointestinal involvement were more likely to have anemia (40.0% vs. 4.5%, P P = 0.003), and myelofibrosis (19.0% vs. 0.9%, P = 0.002) than those without. Most patients with gastrointestinal complication had SLCO2A1 mutation (86.7%, 13 /15). Conclusions Digestive tract involvement is uncommon in patients with PHO and often presents with anemia, and hypoalbuminemia resulted from intestinal inflammation. The intestinal pathologic characteristics are distinct from Crohn’s disease but similar to CMUSE. Mutations in SLCO2A1 might be the pathogenic cause of GI involvement of PHO. NSAIDs may not be effective for PHO patients with gastrointestinal complications.

After analyzing the characteristics of climate change-related migration and highlighting the lack of protection for environmental migrants in international law, the article addresses the similar gap in the Common European Asylum System. This shortcoming is not remedied by the current proposals to amend the existing legislation contained in the Pact on Migration and Asylum, as the Pact does not provide specific protection for environmental migrants. Therefore, at the moment, only the set of international human rights standards has to be resorted to in order to ensure protection for environmental migrants, as shown by the recent monitoring activity carried out by the Human Rights Committee and the recent orientation of the Italian Court of Cassation.

La Sentencia dictada por la Gran Sala el 17 de diciembre de 2020 en Comisión/Hungría pone en videncia las graves carencias que afectan a la aplicación de las normas que forman el Sistema Europeo Común de Asilo (SECA). El Tribunal de Justicia (TJ) llega a la conclusión de que las autoridades húngaras han vulnerado de forma flagrante, y durante varios años, la normativa de la UE que regula las garantías y procedimientos que deben cumplir los Estados miembros para permitir que se presente una solicitud de protección internacional; para internar a los solicitantes de protección internacional; para expulsar a un nacional de un tercer país; y para permitir a los solicitantes de protección internacional que presenten un recurso con efecto suspensivo contra la decisión denegatoria de su solicitud. Aunque esta jurisprudencia del TJ merezca una valoración positiva, al mismo tiempo se debe insistir en que no se garantiza la efectiva aplicación de tales normas en favor de los miles de nacionales de terceros países, a los que las autoridades húngaras han impedido beneficiarse de las normas del SECA en el período comprendido entre 2015 y 2020. Cabe demandar que en situaciones como esta, en las que está en juego la aplicación de las normas del SECA en favor de miles de potenciales solicitantes de protección internacional, la Comisión Europea sea más diligente y resolutiva a la hora de iniciar un procedimiento por incumplimiento de conformidad con el art. 258 TFUE; y más en concreto, solicite al TJ la aplicación de medidas provisionales, con el apercibimiento de que en caso de no ser cumplidas, el Estado infractor será sancionado con una multa coercitiva. The judgement of the Grand Chamber of December 17 2020, in Commission/ Hungary, shows the serious shortcomings that affect the application of the rules of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). The Court of Justice (CJEU) concludes that the Hungarian authorities have flagrantly violated, for several years, the EU norms governing the guarantees and procedures that the Member States must follow to allow an application for international protection to be submitted; to detain applicants for international protection; to forced removal a third country national; and to allow applicants for international protection to file an appeal with suspensive effect against the decision to deny their application. Although this case-law of the CJEU deserves a positive assessment, at the same time it must be emphasized that it does not guarantee the effective application of its rules in favor of the thousands of third-country nationals whom the Hungarian authorities have prevented benefiting from said rules in the period from 2015 to 2020. It should be demanded that in situations like this, in which the application of the CEAS rules in favor of thousands of potential applicants for international protection is at stake, the European Commission be more diligent and decisive when initiating an action for failure to fulfil obligations of art. 258 TFEU; and more specifically, it requests the Court to apply interim measures, with the warning that if they are not complied with, the offending State will be sanctioned with a penalty payment. El presente trabajo se enmarca en el proyecto de investigación, concedido por el Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, PID2019-107311RB-I00, del que es investigador principal el autor del presente trabajo; y en las actividades de la Cátedra Jean Monnet «European Neighbourhood Policy: EU Values and Global Challenges» (599477-EPP-1-2018-ES-EPPJMO-CHAIR), de la que es titular quien suscribe este artículo.

Four years after the unprecedented influx of refugees to Europe in 2015/2016, Europe still only has temporary solutions for refugee protection. The current regulations of the Common European Asylum System are not capable of handling another influx of refugees like that of 2015/2016. The negotiations for a reform have stagnated, despite ongoing debate since 2016. Asylum seekers keep crossing the Mediterranean, and in pursuit of solutions, political tension appears strong. A series of studies of citizen’s reactions to the refugee crisis in Europe have documented an increase in demands for restrictions and border controls. But beyond immediate reactions, much remains unknown about citizen preferences over specific asylum policies. The research question posed here is: Do citizens support a European system of responsibilitysharing for the reception of asylum applicants even if that means accepting more applicants? A study conducted in 15 European countries in the early spring of 2016 found broad-based support for responsibility-sharing of asylum seekers. The purpose of this thesis is to test if that finding replicates. A tougher test of the original study is possible through within-country comparison in a context where the situation concerning asylum seekers has changed substantially. This contextual change is utilized with the objective of extending the knowledge introduced by the original authors. The replication data was collected through a survey experiment in the Norwegian Citizen Panel Wave 16 (fall 2019). How citizens make the tradeoff between responsibility-sharing and accepting more applicants to their country, is determined through a set of randomly assigned manipulations. Comparison of cross-national data collected in 2016 and data collected among Norwegian respondents in 2019, show that the number of received asylum applications is important when citizens form their preferences, but responsibility-sharing is decisive for the majority of citizens. The data collected for this thesis successfully replicated the findings from the original study. The conclusion is that citizens still support a European system of responsibility sharing for the reception of asylum applicants even if that means accepting more applicants. Masteroppgåve SAMPOL350 MASV-SAPO

Background SLCO2A1 was recently reported to cause nonspecific ulcers at small bowel, it was named as chronic enteropathy associated with SLCO2A1 (CEAS). It was rarely reported beyond the Japanese population. Case presentation A 4-year-5-month old girl presented with intractable anemia since 1-year-3-month. Her stool occult blood test was positive and the result of esophagogastroduodenoscopy and colonoscopy were normal. She was considered as obscure gastrointestinal bleeding. The magnetic resonance enterography and ultrasound of small intestinal revealed segmental thickening of small bowel. The capsule endoscopy detected ulcers, erosion and slightly stenosis near the site of junction of jejunum and ileum. She was considered chronic non-specific multiple ulcers of the small intestine and was advised to have whole exon sequencing. She was treated with exclusive enteral nutrition and iron supplement for two months. However, she was not responsive to this treatment, then she had three doses of infliximab. At the same time, the next-generation sequencing of this patient revealed two novel compound heterozygous mutations in SLCO2A1. She was diagnosed with CEAS and was treated with oral mercaptopurine. Her hemoglobin level was stable and the serum albumin level was slightly decreased during the follow up. Conclusion CEAS may present as nonspecific small bowel ulcers, and misinterpret as small bowel Crohn’s disease. Genetic tests may help with the precise diagnosis of small bowel ulcers.

Air pollution and global climate change are important environmental issues that affect our society. Deeper understanding of atmospheric chemistry is required to understand these problems and to develop effective control strategies. Environmental chambers have been used for the past few decades to study atmospheric chemistry and investigate processes leading to secondary pollutant formation. This thesis work provides two different high sensitivity real time cavity enhance absorption spectroscopy (CEAS) instruments to detect NO3 radical and NO2/ glyoxal for environmental chamber study. These CEAS instruments can monitor these species with high sensitivity (in sub-ppb concentrations), with good selectivity, and with high spatial resolution in real time and in situ.Environmental chamber studies using CEAS instruments include NO3 behavior and reaction kinetics between NO3 and amine; sources and sinks for oxides of nitrogen (NOx) in the atmospheric photooxidation reactions; glyoxal uptake by secondary organic aerosol (SOA) under dry and humid conditions and glyoxal formation from the photooxidation of aromatic and isoprene. These studies provide insightful data in atmospheric processes and lead to a better understanding of the atmospheric system, which will eventually extend to environmental policy. This thesis is only a part of my research work. For more information about my other work, including cavity ring down spectroscopy studies for peroxy radical, aerosol optical extinction, transparent thin and time of flight mass spectrometry studies for the initial steps of ozone and alkenes reaactions, please refer to my PhD thesis in Chemistry department, UC-Riverside.

A pulsed laser-induced plasma (LIP) was generated in ambient air inside a high-finesse near-concentric optical cavity. The broadband optical plasma emission was successfully sustained within the cavity and the light leaking from the cavity was used to measure broadband absorption spectra of gaseous azulene through (i) time-dependent cavity ring-down (CRDS), and (ii) intensity-dependent incoherent broadband cavity-enhanced absorption spectroscopy (IBBCEAS) methodologies. Based on the broadband ring-down time of light within the cavity, cavity mirror reflectivities may be calibrated in situ, thus facilitating measurements of absolute absorption coefficients with the intensity-dependent (IBBCEAS) approach. Each of the two spectroscopic approaches are compared in terms of their overall performance and suitability to the experimental requirements. The IBBCEAS approach was found to possess numerous advantages over the CRDS approach in terms of measurement speed, and achievable signal-to-noise ratios and minimum detectable absorption coefficients. However, the IBBCEAS approach is limited by the presence of an artificial offset in the measured absorption that arises due to the absorption of light occurring between LIP formation and the commencement of data collection. This delay prior to data collection is necessitated by the non-Lambert-Beer conditions during plasma equilibration. For the given experimental conditions, the cavity output typically takes ~ 1.5 μs to begin mono-exponential decay. The time-dependence of the cavity output intensity was also investigated. Light propagating within the cavity is subject to direct absorption by the intra-cavity LIP, and a lensing effect (f ≈ −3.1 cm) by the LIP as a result of a localised nonlinear refractive index change induced by the high temperatures and strong electric fields associated with the LIP. This time-dependence was observed to be dependent on both the mirror separation and the pulse duration of the LIP formation laser. These dependencies come about as a consequence of the LIP lensing temporarily affecting both the cavity stability and the imaging of the light that is output from the cavity, with both of these aspects being dependent on the cavity geometry. In the case of fs-lasers, the increased pulse power density expectedly yields a more significant lensing effect when compared to LIP formation with ns-pulsed lasers.

Over the past few years, the exceptional increase in the number of migrant arrivals and of asylum claims in Europe has dramatically strained the "European migration regime"1 based on the so-called managed migration approach. The rationale of this approach was to allow for managed and orderly migration (Spencer 1994), selecting immigrants according to labour market needs (COM 2005, 184). This system was undermined by a sudden and significant acceleration in the number of entries registered from 2014 onwards. The European Agenda on Migration, which was intended to be a first political response to some meaningful shortcomings of the European migration regime, has, in fact, amplified these shortcomings. The significant change in the European migration space produced by the so-called 2015 refugee crisis is at the root of this problem. The latter has been mainly a crisis of management of those new migration patterns linked to structural changes in the Euro-African political and economic regional space.

As eleições europeias de maio de 2019, trouxeram alterações significativas na composição do Parlamento Europeu (PE). Uma dessas alterações passou pela perda de lugares parlamentares dos dois blocos principais de centro-direita e de centro-esquerda, o Grupo Político do European People’s Party (EPP) e o do Social and Democrats (S&D) e, consequentemente, da perda da maioria absoluta de que, até ao momento, eram detentores. A presente dissertação procura analisar as implicações que a nova composição do PE pode ter sobre o Sistema Europeu Comum de Asilo (SECA), num período em que a pressão migratória na fronteira sul, ainda que com menor intensidade, continua a questionar a ação da UE. Face aos resultados eleitorais, coloca-se a questão de saber o que irá acontecer ao trabalho que tem vindo a ser desenvolvido em torno de uma legislação de migração e asilo mais unitária dos Estados-Membros, personificado no SECA. Para tal, procurou-se situar os diferentes grupos políticos que integram o PE, através da análise dos seus manifestos, do ponto de vista dos mecanismos de gestão, das propostas apresentadas, e das considerações tecidas quanto ao SECA. Sendo o objetivo deste trabalho o de contribuir para a previsão do grau de aceitação destas políticas no contexto do PE. Acontece que, a principal conclusão desta dissertação é que, dada a novidade destas recomposições, está ainda em aberto a evolução do futuro do SECA, que poderá ter uma tendência mais positiva caso as negociações entre os diferentes grupos parlamentares resultem frutíferas. The 2019 European elections, brought significant changes to the European Parliament composition. One of which, was the loss of parliamentary seats by the two main center-right and center-left blocs, the European People's Party (EPP) and the Social and Democrats (S&D) political groups and, consequently, the loss of their majority. This dissertation seeks to analyze the implications that the new EP composition may have on the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), at a time when migratory pressure on the southern border, albeit less intensely, continues to question EU action. In the light of the electoral results, the question arises as to what will happen to the work that is being done regarding a more unitary migration and asylum legislation of the Member States, embodied in the CEAS. To this end, we sought to situate the different political groups that make up the EP, through the analysis of their manifestos, from the point of view of their management mechanisms, the proposals presented, and the considerations made regarding the CEAS. The objective of this paper is to contribute to predicting the degree of acceptance of these policies in the context of the EP. It turns out that the main conclusion of this dissertation is that, given the novelty of these recompositions, the evolution of the future of the CEAS is still open, which could have a more positive trend if negotiations between the different parliamentary groups are fruitful.

This comparative report investigates the ways in which the mobility of applicants for international protection, beneficiaries of international protection and irregular migrants intersect with the borders encountered during their trajectories before, during and after their arrival in six EU countries (Greece, Hungary, Germany, Luxembourg, France and Spain) and Turkey. After defining the concept of borders, this study contextualises the securitisation of EU external and internal borders, and it provides some background information on the CEAS and the Dublin Regulation, which are central to this research. Moreover, it engages with the legislative framework in place in the field of asylum in the seven countries on which this report draws. Based on qualitative interviews with a total of 96 asylum seekers, refugees and irregular migrants, as well as 94 state and non-state actors and ethnographic observation, the empirical part of the study explored the following aspects: experiences and conceptualisations of borders; mobility patterns and trajectories; the interplay between the Schengen zone and the Dublin system; the shortcomings of CEAS; as well as policies and experiences in the fields of housing and employment. The main finding of this comparative report is that while territorial borders cannot always impede human mobility, they are recreated within countries as administrative borders, which can encourage secondary movements.

This country report investigates the ways in which the border as a site of control interferes with asylum seekers’ and refugees’ mobility trajectories before, upon and after arrival in France. The interplay between borders and mobility plays a key role in the Common European Asylum System, the Schengen area and the Dublin regulation, which all have been affected by the 2015 so-called migration crisis. Based on in-depth qualitative interviews with thirteen migrants and ten institutional actors in the city of Metz, the overarching finding indicates that migrants’ movements evolve from geographical trajectories in order to reach a country of destination, to administrative trajectories, in order to become regularised in the host country. Furthermore, while physical borders have interfered with some informants’ migratory journeys, they have done so only by changing their trajectories, and, at times, the initial country of destination. Thus, they did not deter the migrants from reaching a safe country of destination. Once in Metz, the migrants become subject to administrative borders performed by state agents, such as the Préfecture and the French Agency for Immigration and Integration (OFII), as well as by private actors from the employment market.