Migration Control and Securitization on the EU Eastern Border

“Europe’s Eastern border has long been the EU’s soft belly – a frontier for political struggles with both neighbouring countries and between Member States and EU law. This volume represents an indispensable resource for understanding not just contemporary border practices but also their wider significance for the EU project at large.”

Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, Professor and Director, Center of Excellence for Global Mobility Law, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

“An indispensable source on migration on the EU’s Eastern border, a setting that has much to teach us about humanitarian protection. This comprehensive and insightful collection includes first-rate thinking on the topic. It is an essential and unique complement to the attention that southern Europe and the Mediterranean have received.”

Hiroshi Motomura, Professor of law at the School of Law, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Co-Director of Miñana Family Center for Immigration Law and Policy

“A landmark contribution to critical border studies, this collection reveals how the EU’s Eastern border has become a laboratory for militarised migration control. Its strength lies in connecting legal analysis with historical depth, empirical detail, and close attention to resistance and solidarity.”

Maartje van der Woude, Professor of Law & Society, Leiden Law School, The Netherlands

“As the center of gravity in European politics once again shifts eastward, this collection offers an indispensable contribution to our understanding of the dilemmas that the eastern border poses for human rights and the rule of law. We should all know more about the eastern border – and we should all be deeply concerned about what happens there. For these reasons, this book is essential reading for students, academics and other critical observers.”

Katja Franko, Professor of Criminology, University of Oslo, Norway

“This volume fills an important gap in border and migration studies by directing sustained attention to a frontier long overshadowed by the Mediterranean. Combining historical, legal, and ethnographic perspectives, the contributions show how the EU’s Eastern border has become a laboratory of securitisation, militarisation, and the criminalisation of both migrants and solidarity actors. Together, they offer a compelling account of the growing convergence between border control and defence logics, with implications extending far beyond Europe’s Eastern frontier. Essential reading for understanding how contemporary Europe is redrawing the line between migration control and warfare.”

Giuseppe Campesi, Professor in Law and Society at “Aldo Moro” University of Bari, Italy