Refugee Protection and Interstate Solidarity in the EU

Abstract

Abstract This chapter defines the content of the additional duty created by EU membership for member states with respect to refugee protection, namely the duty to act in solidarity. As a duty of distributive justice, the duty to act in solidarity requires a fair allocation of the costs and benefits connected to the provision of asylum in the EU and establishes a claim of each agent in the group—in this case, EU member states—to its fair share in the distribution. More specifically, the chapter defines solidarity among EU member states as co-responsibility for the pursuit of the common good and discusses the content of the related duty to act in solidarity. Subsequently, the chapter introduces the problem of assurance and contends that some form of it is needed in order to see the duty to act in solidarity fulfilled under real-world conditions.