This handbook provides an overview of the law applicable to asylum, border management and immigration in relation to European Union (EU) law and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It looks at the situation of those foreigners to whom the EU usually refers as third-country nationals, although that distinction is not relevant to cited ECHR law.
The handbook does not cover the rights of EU citizens or those of citizens of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland who, under EU law, can enter the territory of the EU freely and move freely within it. Reference to such categories of citizens will be made only where necessary in order to understand the situation of family members who are third-country nationals.
This handbook is designed to assist legal practitioners who are not specialised in the field of asylum, borders and immigration law; it is intended for lawyers, judges, prosecutors, border guards, immigration officials and others working with national authorities, and for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other bodies that may be confronted with legal questions relating to these subjects. It is a first point of reference on both EU and ECHR law related to these subject areas and explains how each issue is regulated under EU law and under the ECHR, the European Social Charter (ESC) and other instruments of the Council of Europe (CoE). Each chapter first presents a single table of the applicable legal provisions under the two separate European legal systems. Then the relevant laws of these two European orders are presented one after the other as they may apply to each topic. This allows the reader to see where the two legal systems converge and where they differ.