What do states actually want?

Basically just a blank check.

And I think anyone who studies rule of law issues, democracy issues,

knows that blank checks based on national security threats is never a good idea. I'm. I'm. The political debate around migration is, once again, heating up.

At the center of that debate are people.

People who've come for work, for love, maybe because

they're fleeing violence, people trying for all sorts of reasons to build a life somewhere else

than the country where they were born. But increasingly, the debate is not just about migrants

themselves, but also about the legal institutions that oversee how governments

treat them. The European Court of Human Rights has come under growing political pressure,

with some political leaders claiming that the case law should be rebalanced because it protects

the wrong people. Not everyone embraces that rhetoric, but it is no longer

coming only from the political fringes. This May, member states of the Council of Europe,

are expected to adopt a political declaration on migration and the European Convention on Human

Rights. So what is this moment really about?

Is it a meaningful attempt to recalibrate the system?

Or is it just nativist political noise?

In this episode, I speak with Eva Severin.

She's a researcher at the K.U. Leuven Center for Public Law.

She has written extensively on migration and human rights law,

including for the Stressberg Observers blog,

where she is part of the editorial team.

...