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Dr. B. (Bas) Schotel LLM

Assistant professor
Faculty of Law
Dep. Jurisprudence

Visiting address
  • Nieuwe Achtergracht 166
  • Room number: A8.04
Postal address
  • Postbus 15654
    1001 ND Amsterdam
  • Research

    My research concentrates on the rule of law in Europe. More precisely, I focus on how the law can protect individuals against unlawful acts by public authorities. I examine legal arrangements and ways of thinking by lawyers and policymakers that may promote or hamper individual legal protection.

    My approach is typically as follows. I first identify and analyze legal arrangements or ways of thinking that compromise individual legal protection. Then I look for alternative legal arrangements or legal concepts already present in existing law offering more legal protection but which happened to be overlooked by most jurists. In other words, when trying to find remedies for lagging legal protection I try to draw as much as possible on the logic of existing law by relying on legal doctrine, legal theory and legal history, rather than on moral philosophy or political theory.

    In my research I look mainly at migration law and policy of the EU and its Member States. The underlying idea is that how the law treats migrants is also a good indication of how the law treats its citizens. Accordingly, the insights from my research are often not restricted to the legal protection of migrants but may say something about the rule of law in Europe in general.

    My publications typically combine the following three legal fields: immigration and asylum law, administrative law and legal theory.

    Exclusion of Immigrants. I have argued for a fundamental change in European admission laws and policies: when denying migrants admission authorities must justify the exclusion vis-à-vis the excluded migrant. The authorities must carry the first burden of justification and must show that exclusion is the least burdensome measure available to achieve their policy goals.

    Refugee Protection. Common European Asylum System. I have analyzed historical arrangements offering protection to refugees, namely church asylum in the Middle Ages and refuge for religious minorities. From this analysis followed that  a basic condition for the legal protection of refugees is the existence of multiple jurisdictions, which in turn caters for competition for jurisdiction. By contrast, such competition for jurisdiction is missing under the current European refugee system that operates as a ‘single jurisdiction’ vis-à-vis the refugees. This partially explains why legal protection for refugees is lagging.

    Frontex. Frontex has now its own border agents (3,000 in 2027). As a result it has its own operational powers. This poses a risk for individual legal protection of migrants at sea. The current protective mechanisms insufficiently address the factual and physical nature of Frontex’ new operational powers. Frontex can now physically act unlawfully – eg pushback operations. The current mechanisms of legal protection cannot address the factual and physical nature of Frontex' new operational powers. I argue that the EU must establish concrete physical and operational counterforces, for example independent agents who can immediately and physically intervene during Frontex operations and stop unlawful acts.

    Migration Management. The official objective of the EU’s common immigration policy is “the efficient management of migration flows” (Art. 79 TFEU). The logic of this official objective goes against the logic of the rule of law, because ‘management of migration flows’ neglects a basic ingredient for legal protection of migrants: namely legal norms directed at individual migrants. The migration management logic has its precursor in ‘Policey’ and ‘la police’ which emerged as a new mode of governance in the 17th and 18th century. The latter also explains how migration law became a matter of administrative law.

    Authoritarian Elements of Administrative Law. Contemporary regimes in democratic decay (e.g. Poland, Hungary) target and marginalize political opponents through legal measures. Scholars have overlooked the fact that most of these measures are matters governed by administrative law. I have shown that administrative law contains elements that enable illiberal tactics that would not have been possible under civil and criminal law. Moreover, not only regimes in democratic decay but also liberal democracies make use of administrative law for illiberal practices that are not possible under civil and criminal law.

    Migration Law as Administrative Law. The lagging legal protection of migrants is not so much a problem of too little human rights protection, but rather a problem of too much administrative law. The precarious legal position of migrants is largely due to the fact that the legal position of migrants is predominantly governed by administrative law.

    Legal Theory and Legal Protection. In order to promote individual legal protection one must first understand the nature of protection and its lawlike character. To this end I explore in my research the different forms and modalities of protection. I also examine what is so distinctively legal about legal protection, compared to other normative and argumentative practices and systems (e.g. politics, morality, economics, etc.). In this context I discuss the communicative structure of law: people invoke the law in order to seek cooperation from others that ultimately may consists in forms of coercion, or at least factual actions. Though coercion and factual actions are the ultimate goal, law itself is matter of verbal invocations. It means that legal protection is also first of all a matter of verbal invocations. This communicative structure of law helps us better understand the conditions and circumstances that hamper or promote individual legal protection.

  • Publications

    2022

    • Schotel, B. (2022). ‘‘Populism? It’s Administrative Law Stupid!’ How Administrative Law Subverts Legal Resilience’. In V. Stoyanova, & S. Smets (Eds.), Migrants’ Rights, Populism and Legal Resilience (pp. 355-376). Cambridge University Press.

    2021

    2018

    2016

    • Schotel, B. (2016). Multiple Legalities and International Criminal Tribunals: juridical versus political legality. In N. M. Rajkovic, T. E. Aalberts, & T. Gammeltoft-Hansen (Eds.), The Power of Legality: Practices of International Law and their Politics (pp. 209-232). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316535134.009 [details]

    2013

    • Schotel, B. (2013). From individual to migration flow: the European Union’s management approach and the rule of law. In M. Geiger, & A. Pécoud (Eds.), Disciplining the transnational mobility of people (pp. 63-82). (International political economy series). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137263070.0007 [details]
    • Schotel, B. (2013). Legislation, Empirical Research and Juridical Law. The Theory and Practice of Legislation, 1(3), 501-532. https://doi.org/10.5235/2050-8840.1.3.501 [details]

    2012

    • Schotel, B. (2012). On the right of exclusion: law, ethics and immigration policy. London: Routledge. [details]

    2011

    • Schotel, B. (2011). Doing justice to the political: the International Criminal Court in Uganda and Sudan: a reply to Sarah Nouwen and Wouter Werner. European Journal of International Law, 22(4), 1153-1160. https://doi.org/10.1093/ejil/chr080 [details]
    • Schotel, B. (2011). Inclusion for the sake of exclusion: the legal authority of immigration laws. In J. P. Burgess, & S. Gutwirth (Eds.), A threat against Europe? Security, migration and integration (pp. 153-169). (IES publication series; No. 19). VUB Press. [details]

    2024

    2022

    • Schotel, B. (2022). The EU-Turkey Statement and the Structure of Legal Accountability. In E. Kassoti, & N. Idriz (Eds.), The Informalisation of the EU's External Action in the Field of Migration and Asylum (pp. 73-94). (Global Europe: Legal and Policy Issues of the EU’s External Action; Vol. 1). Asser Press. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-487-7_5 [details]

    2018

    • Schotel, B. (2018). Immediacy, potentia and constraining emergency powers. In L. Corrias, & L. Francot (Eds.), Temporal Boundaries of Law and Politics: Time out of joint (pp. 192-203). (Law and politics: continental perspectives). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351103480-11 [details]

    2009

    2009

    • Schotel, B. (2009). Making political philosophy practical again: a tribute to Veit Bader. In H. van den Berg, E. Engelen, & Y. Jansen (Eds.), Het gelaagde denken: essays voor Veit Bader (pp. 151-160). F&N Eigen Beheer. [details]

    Talk / presentation

    • Schotel, B. (speaker) (15-6-2018). The Sovereignty Clause: Why the Admission of Aliens under International Law Could Not Have Been Otherwise, Contingency in the Course of International Law: How International Law Could Have Been.
    • Schotel, B. (speaker) (1-6-2018). Trust and Deference between Legal Authorities in Europe- Introduction, Trust and Deference between Legal Authorities in Europe.
    • Schotel, B. (speaker) (19-5-2018). co-referaat, PhD Seminar presentation of PhD research by Wiebe Hommes.
    • Schotel, B. (speaker) (19-1-2018). Why the admission of aliens under international law could not have been otherwise. How human rights and cosmopolitan citizenship discourses cater for the sovereignty clause in migration policy, UvA Migration law Circle – Heimiddag.
    • Schotel, B. (speaker) (23-10-2017). Co-referaat, Kevin Heller - “Specially Affected” States and the Formation of Custom .
    • Schotel, B. (speaker) (17-10-2017). Empirical migration research, epistemic exclusion and categorization, Fall Meeting 2017 - Challenging Categorization in Migration Policy and Research georganiseerd door Dutch Association for Migration Research (DAMR) & the University of Amsterdam’s Institute for Migration & Ethnic Studies (IMES.
    • Schotel, B. (speaker) (5-7-2017). Migration law as fiduciary power, ICON-S Annual Conference, Copenhagen.
    • Schotel, B. (speaker) (15-6-2017). ‘Full Examination of Facts’ by Asylum Courts: Judicial Deference, Administrative Discretion and Expertise, Bergen aan Zee Seminar on Migration and Law VU.
    • Schotel, B. (speaker) (1-5-2017). ‘Full Examination of Facts’ by Asylum Courts: Judicial Deference, Administrative Discretion and Expertise, L&J.
    • Schotel, B. (speaker) (13-3-2017). Co-referaat, Presentation Brölmann en Nijman, ‘Legal Personality As a Fundamental Concept for International Law’ L&J.
    • Schotel, B. (invited speaker) (14-12-2016). The Interactions between Criminal Law and Administrative Law Regimes, ACTIONES Workshop on the EU Charter and Criminal Law , Uppsala.
    • Schotel, B. (speaker) (21-10-2016). Asymmetric criminalisation of migration law 2.0, Financial Crimes and Global Security Governance.
    • Schotel, B. (speaker) (15-7-2016). Asylum as a Negative Duty, International Association for the Study of Forced Migration, Poznan.
    • Schotel, B. (speaker) (18-6-2016). Refugee Protection beyond Human Rights, ICON Berlin.
    • Schotel, B. (invited speaker) (19-5-2016). Asylum as a Negative Duty, VU Centre for European Studies.
    • Schotel, B. (invited speaker) (10-5-2016). Potentia and Public Law, Institute for Advanced Studies, Hebrew University.
    • Schotel, B. (invited speaker) (7-4-2016). On the Right of Exclusion and Refugees, Jagiellonian University Faculty of Law.
    • Schotel, B. (invited speaker) (6-4-2016). On the Right of Exclusion, Wroclaw University Faculty of Law .
    • Schotel, B. (invited speaker) (5-4-2016). Protection of Refugees through Competition over Jurisdiction, Wroclaw University Faculty of Law .
    • Schotel, B. (invited speaker) (4-4-2016). Round table discussion: Asylum seekers in the EU: Demographic danger or ethical duty, Wroclaw University Faculty of Law .

    Others

    • Schotel, B. (organiser) & Eckes, C. (organiser) (1-6-2018). Trust and Deference between Legal Authorities in Europe (organising a conference, workshop, ...).
    • Schotel, B. (organiser) & Janssen, G. H. (organiser) (30-9-2016). Protection of Religious Refugees in Past and Present, Amsterdam (organising a conference, workshop, ...).

    2008

    • Schotel, B. (2008). Protecting the Alien’s Interest in Immigration. Arguments from law and political theory.
    This list of publications is extracted from the UvA-Current Research Information System. Questions? Ask the library or the Pure staff of your faculty / institute. Log in to Pure to edit your publications. Log in to Personal Page Publication Selection tool to manage the visibility of your publications on this list.
  • Ancillary activities
    • No ancillary activities