Articles for category: Dänemark

Manufacturing Integration

Advocate General Tamara Ćapeta recently concluded that Denmark’s so-called Ghetto Law constitutes direct discrimination based on ethnic origin and hence a violation of the Race Equality Directive. This blog highlights the harmful role of the integration narrative underlying the law and other coercive measures addressed towards “non-Western” Danes and non-Danes and the broader implications of the present case for challenging stereotypes embedded in integration policies and practices.

25. März 2025

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They Not Like Us

On 13 February 2025, AG Ćapeta delivered a milestone opinion on racial discrimination and migration in the EU when she found the Danish ‘Ghetto Law’ in violation of the Race and Ethnic Equality Directive. She determined that the differentiation between “Western” and “non-Western” immigrants and their descendants in the Danish legislation creates a perceived “ethnic ‘Other’” vis-à-vis the majority population that falls under the anti-discrimination ground of “ethnic origin”. I will explain how her opinion challenges this form of legalized ‘othering’ in migration law, based on the underlying sentiment of ‘us’ vs. ‘them’, as it goes against Art. 2 TEU and the vision of a democratic, tolerant, and anti-racist European society.

10. März 2025

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Poverty as a Crime

In June 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court in the Opinion City of Grants Pass v. Johnson held that the Constitution does not guarantee individual protection against the criminalisation of homelessness. Similarly, in May 2024, the European Court of Human Rights found the case concerning the criminalisation of begging, Dian v. Denmark, inadmissible. Both of these judicial decisions are disputed since the criminalisation of poverty cannot solve the problem of homelessness or begging. Rather, it violates the fundamental dignity of the individual.

23. Juli 2024

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Exercising Power from the Outside

Since 2019, anti-Islam non-parliamentary activists have explored the limits to freedom of speech in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands through their provocative Quran desecration acts. Using the non-parliamentarian arena to exercise power from a position of minority, the far-right activist Rasmus Paludan and his party were able to effectively push the Danish constitutional boundaries, while at the same time affecting the geopolitical situation. While the protests so far only have had legal repercussions regarding blasphemy and freedom of speech in Denmark, it clearly demonstrates that non-parliamentary far-right activists also hold certain legislative powers.

9. Februar 2024

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Obstinate Choices

Denmark is currently going through a full-blown intelligence scandal. It includes charges of illegal activity lodged by the Danish Intelligence Oversight Board (TET) against the Danish foreign intelligence service (FE), as well as a range of criminal cases brought against the former head of FE, a former minister of defence, and a former intelligence officer on charges of leaking classified information. In this post, I argue that these scandals can best be understood through the lens of a series of obstinate choices made by the Danish government and its representatives. Seemingly, because key decision-makers lacked trust and got fed up with leaks, the situation was handled aggressively from the start, as a matter of principle. I explain the complex scandal but focus on specifics only in the case against former minister of defence, Claus Hjort Frederiksen, as his case is the most clear-cut and observable for outsiders.

13. Oktober 2023

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Departing from Hostile Refugee Landscapes

In December 2022, the Swedish Migration Agency estimated that the Taliban’s conquest of Afghanistan has made the lives of Afghan women and girls so difficult that it counts as persecution based on gender. Against this background, the Migration Agency announced that all women and girls from Afghanistan are eligible to refugee status and a three-year residence permit in Sweden. These policies represent a major departure from the wide range of restrictive amendments that Denmark and Sweden, over the past decades, have introduced to their asylum laws with the aim of becoming less attractive target countries for asylum seekers.

23. Februar 2023

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Das Ende von Schengen?

Anfang Januar gab es ein Jubiläum an der deutsch-dänischen Grenze: zum siebten Mal jährte sich die Wiedereinführung der Grenzkontrollen durch Dänemarks. In einem Gutachten im Auftrag von MEP Rasmus Andresen und der grünen Fraktion im EU-Parlament haben wir untersucht, ob Dänemark die Wiedereinführung und Aufrechterhaltung von Grenzkontrollen rechtfertigen kann. Auch Österreich, Frankreich, Deutschland, Norwegen und Schweden führten Grenzkontrollen seit 2016 wieder ein. Diese Staaten legen die Axt an die Freizügigkeit im EU-Binnenraum.

23. Februar 2023

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Anything Goes?

Last month, the ECtHR ruled in the case of Johansen v. Denmark on the deprivation of nationality and expulsion for terrorist offenses. It rejected the applicant’s complaint of an infringement of Art. 8 ECHR. The decision underlines the Court’s reluctance to engage with issues raised by deprivations of nationality in terrorism cases. Instead of setting out clear limits on such measures based on the rights guaranteed by the Convention, the Court does not seem to be willing to interfere with measures related to national security, no matter how drastic the consequences for the individual.

12. April 2022

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The Limits of Indirect Deterrence of Asylum Seekers

The ECtHR judgment M.A. v. Denmark is significant for several reasons. Firstly, because it adds to an already growing international criticism of Denmark’s asylum and immigration policy. Secondly, because the judgment helps clarify the Court’s position on an issue, family reunification for refugees, where case law has hitherto been somewhat ambiguous, and where several European States have introduced new restrictions since 2015. Third, and finally, the judgment represents – to paraphrase Harold Koh - another “way station…in the complex enforcement” of migrant and refugee rights by international human rights institutions.

12. Juli 2021

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From Denmark to Damascus

In recent weeks, Denmark made international headlines with its refusal to extend residence permits for Syrian subsidiary protection holders in Denmark from the Damascus province. Denmark’s emergence as the first state in Europe to end the protection of Syrians on the basis of improved conditions in the wider Damascus area is the result of a self-described ‘paradigm shift’ in Danish refugee policy dating back to 2015.

3. Juni 2021

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