Maria Pichou ¦ Assistant Professor of Public International Law, University of Leiden
Nadine Conrardy¦ Luxembourg Red Cross, Coordinator for the Department ‘Aides sociales’
Abstract
The way that states have handled emergency situations at their borders had a considerable toll on the respect of human rights at the European continent. The unprecedented flow of migrants and refugees towards Europe obliged states to establish extemporaneous facilities, reception centres and other installations in an attempt to contain the flow and to institute procedures for the determination of their status.
The presentation will address the obligations of European states concerning the reception centres of migrants and asylum seekers under the European Convention on Human Rights and will review how these obligations were interpreted by the Strasbourg Court. The presentation will then consider the operational aspects of the specific issue in Luxembourg, by focusing on how Luxembourg and Luxembourg Red Cross managed the 2015-2016 migration crisis.
Nadine Conrardy works for the Luxembourg Red Cross (LRC) as the Coordinator for the Department ‘Aides sociales’. She studied social work. She joined the Red Cross as a volunteer in 1993 and now works there for 15 years. In 2004 she was engaged by the LRC to build the department for Migrants and Refugees. When she left the department at the end 2017, LRC ran 14 reception centres for asylum seekers with a total staff of 80 persons. For the LRC she also initiated and organized since 2007 the monitoring of forced return of migrants.
Maria Pichou is Assistant Professor of Public International Law and Human Rights at the University of Leiden, where she teaches inter alia International Migration and Refugee Law. Previously she worked at the Court of Justice of the European Union as Administratrice Juriste for a Judge’s Cabinet (2018) and as a Senior Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley (2017). She worked at the University of Luxembourg as a postdoctoral researcher in International Law and Fundamental Rights and holds a PhD in Public International Law from the Aristotle University. She has been a Visiting Professional at the International Criminal Court; Appeals Chambers and she is member of the International Criminal Court Bar Association. Maria has practiced law in Greece since 2002.