In recent years, migration and asylum are increasingly seen as a threat to the European Union (EU, the Union) and its Member States (p. 5). These issues are mostly discussed with the negative connotation of a ‘crisis’ hitting Europe. Thus, it is not surprising that this view is reflected in the EU's legal responses to the influx of refugees, aiming not least to hinder the movement towards the EU at various levels (p. 1). In those responses, one can observe the EU Member State's efforts to shift the responsibility to deal with asylum seekers outside their territory or EU territory – a well-known example being the EU-Turkey Statement of 2016, targeted at ending migrant flows to Europe (p. 131). Also, increasing criminalisation of human smuggling and criminal law as a means of performing immigration control has become apparent (p. 43), as observable in various national trials. Besides those developments, border surveillance operations at sea with an enhanced focus on law enforcement are carried out, whereas maritime rescue seems to be of secondary importance (p. 89).

Securitising Asylum Flows – Deflection, Criminalisation and Challenges for Human Rights consists of 12 contributions from legal scholars and practitioners. It addresses the aforementioned developments of EU policies and aims at revealing the underlying problems, such as the negligence of European human rights or humanitarian obligations under international law. The volume is structured into four parts, which not only deal with the rising criminalisation of migration and the (non-)access to protection for refugees and asylum seekers, but also with the question of whether the EU can be considered a union of solidarity, addressing the Union's politics and policies of coercion. The contributions were first presented at the conference ‘Europe's Crises: What Future for Immigration and Asylum Law and Policy’, held at the School of Law at Queen Mary University of London in 2016 (p. 1). They provide a comprehensive picture of current developments and critically question their compatibility with the EU's values and principles. The focus thereby lies on the measure‘s implications from a human rights and rule of law perspective.