Beyond the “Hybrid Attack” Paradigm : EU-Belarus Border Crisis and the Erosion of Asylum Seeker Rights in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland

While in the recent years violations of asylum seeker rights have been increasingly documented in EU Member States, the crisis at the EU-Belarus border has opened up a whole new chapter in this area. In response to the perceived migrant instrumentalisation by the Belarusian regime, several EU Member States – Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland – have openly introduced long-term and far-reaching legislative measures that severely restrict the right to seek asylum and formalise pushbacks – contrary to their obligations under EU law and international refugee and human rights law. This paper approaches the topic from a comparative socio-legal perspective. Apart from a legal analysis of the Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish domestic measures, it is based on interviews with NGO representatives, humanitarian aid volunteers and legal practitioners, as well as the non-EU nationals affected. The paper, first, offers an overview of Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish responses to the events at the border and looks at how the relevant measures affect the non-EU nationals involved. Second, it engages with the migrant instrumentalisation paradigm, relied on by the governments to derogate from EU and international legal framework, and explores the EU-level response to the crisis.