Diego Ginés is a PhD researcher at the European University Institute and a Visiting Fellow at the Hertie School’s Centre for Fundamental Rights. His doctoral research explores the issue of non-removable migrants from a European perspective. He holds a degree in Law and Political Science from the Autonomous University of Madrid, an LLM in International Law from the University of Bristol and an LLM in Comparative, European and International Laws from the European University Institute. He recently worked as a researcher for the project The Court of Justice in the Archives and he was also a study visitor at the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights.
Diego's research project:
Non-removable migrants in the EU: Sub-categories and access to rights – A subtle but far-reaching role for EU law?
This research delves into the issue of non-removable migrants, namely third-country nationals who are in an irregular situation but due to different circumstances cannot be removed (or are simply not removed), falling in a legal limbo for as long as the obstacle precluding their deportation remains.
The doctoral project mainly inquires into the role of European Law in manufacturing such situations of non-removability. To do so, it zooms in on human rights barriers to deportation, analysing the non-removability gap that arises from the application of Article 3 ECHR vis-à-vis EU asylum law, but also focusing on membership-based challenges to deportation under EU and CoE law. It further reflects on the more frequent ‘practical’ obstacles to deportation (where migrants do not hold a subjective right to remain in the host state) in light of an EU readmission system that too often fails to live up to its stated aims.
Moreover, at the heart of the project is the exploration of what it means to be a non-removable migrant in terms of status and access to rights. Noting that this is an issue that depends greatly on domestic law, this research will explore the different outcomes, if any, that result from the application of the EU framework to this (non-)category of migrants.
